Why is IT recruitment difficult? Is it the company’s fault or the candidate’s?

In recent years, the information technology (IT) industry in Vietnam has been developing rapidly, with thousands of IT engineers entering this promising labor market. Paradoxically, however, many companies struggle to find suitable candidates. So, what are the reasons, and what do businesses need to do? Join 1Office to explore why IT recruitment is difficult and find solutions to this challenging problem in the article below.

1. The Current State of the IT Workforce in the Market

The IT human resources market in Vietnam continued to grow strongly in the first 6 months of 2023, with high recruitment demand and competitive salaries. According to TopDev’s “Vietnam IT Market” report, the number of IT job postings on recruitment websites increased by 20% compared to the same period in 2022. The average salary for IT personnel also rose by 10%, reaching 15 million VND/month. At the current growth rate, the market will need about 800,000 programmers by 2024, and the Vietnamese labor market will still face a shortage of 175,000 – 195,000 programmers and software engineers.

The statistics above have created immense pressure on recruiters in the hunt for talent. Although more than 50,000 students graduate with degrees in Information Technology each year, and even professionals from other fields are transitioning into the IT market, it is still very difficult to find a candidate who meets the requirements in terms of both “quantity” and “quality.”

2. Top Reasons Why IT Recruitment is Difficult

There are many reasons for this situation, stemming from both candidates and recruiters. Let’s explore with 1Office the reasons why recruiting IT personnel is so challenging.

Reasons from the Candidate’s Side

Shortage of Quality Candidates

As the demand for IT personnel continues to rise, the supply of quality talent is becoming scarce. This is because businesses are looking for candidates with a minimum of 1-3 years of experience and specialized knowledge. However, it is not always easy to find such candidates, especially in areas with a limited IT talent pool.

For this reason, the conversion rate of candidates to full-time employees in the IT industry is often relatively low. The cause is the unique nature of the information technology field, which requires candidates to go through a long process of accumulating knowledge, learning, and hands-on work. This leads to a severe shortage of soft skills and practical experience.

High Job-Hopping Tendency

Information technology personnel often tend to seek new opportunities for personal development and career advancement. This forces businesses to face challenges in finding and training new staff, creating difficulties for the company’s stability and growth.

Additionally, the high level of competition in the IT recruitment market often puts candidates in a passive job-seeking state. Even while employed at their current company, they can receive attractive offers from other companies without actively searching. In particular, the Gen Z workforce today shows an increasing tendency to proactively resign when facing pressure or career stagnation.

Poor Foreign Language Skills

In many fields, there is a significant difference in salary and opportunities between those with and without foreign language skills. However, many programmers, despite knowing this, are reluctant to learn a foreign language because the habit of learning programming languages and logical thinking makes acquiring foreign language knowledge more difficult.

This makes foreign language proficiency a common weakness and a major issue for those in the IT industry. Candidates without foreign language skills will find it difficult to meet all job requirements, especially when working with international partners.

Reasons from the Company’s Side

Fierce Competition with Other Companies

This is the most accurate answer to the question, “Why is IT recruitment difficult?”. Typically, when a potential candidate graduates or is in an “open” state, they will be proactively contacted by an average of tens to hundreds of large and small companies. On recruitment social networks like LinkedIn, whenever a candidate updates their status to “open to jobs,” they can receive hundreds of JDs. The initiative then lies with the candidate; they just need to filter company information and get in touch when they find a suitable match.

In a rapidly growing industry like IT, businesses are fiercely competing to attract and retain skilled IT personnel. Large and well-known technology companies often attract top talent with appealing compensation packages and recruitment programs. This makes it more difficult than ever for small, newly established companies to recruit IT staff.

Inappropriate Recruitment Methods

Most candidates at the Senior level and above are quite market-savvy and are unlikely to be attracted by traditional recruitment communication methods like job postings, career fairs, etc. Therefore, when businesses use traditional recruitment methods such as posting jobs on job websites or in Facebook job-seeking groups, it becomes difficult for them to reach potential candidates.

Complex Recruitment Process

A cumbersome recruitment process that requires many complex procedures is also a reason why IT recruitment is difficult. This can cause potential candidates to lose patience and turn to companies with more flexible hiring processes. Improving recruitment methods can help increase hiring efficiency and attract candidates more easily.

Neglecting to Build an Employer Brand

In the context of fierce competition among businesses, the employer brand is a crucial factor in attracting candidates. Companies without a strong employer brand often fail to make a good impression on candidates, making it difficult for them to recruit talented individuals.

Compared to foreign companies, Vietnamese businesses often have limited ability to promote their employer brand. This makes it difficult for them to attract potential and skilled candidates. If a company has a good employer brand, it will be easier to attract high-quality personnel.

3. Solutions to Improve IT Recruitment Efficiency

To win in the IT recruitment market, businesses can apply the following solutions from 1Office

Build a strong employer brand

An employer brand is not just a product brand or a corporate brand; it’s the image a company wants to convey to potential candidates, not customers. Some large corporations have created separate platforms or fan pages specifically for their employer brand. For example, Google established the Google Developer Group (GDG), Facebook has Dev Circle (DevC), and in Vietnam, there are outstanding units like Topica AI Labs, Shinhan Future’s Lab, Innovatube Frontier Labs, Lazada Tech Hub, and more.

This separation helps create more focus and efficiency in managing activities related to the company’s employer brand. All activities related to the employer brand will be centrally consolidated here. These pages help define clear objectives and avoid interference that could affect business brand communication activities.

Foster a culture of sharing in the IT community

The IT industry is a rapidly developing field, with new technologies and policies constantly changing. This requires programmers to regularly update their knowledge to keep up with trends. Additionally, personnel in this industry often tend to be proactive in their self-development. They are interested in learning new skills and advancing their careers. 

Some questions they often ask businesses include: “Does this company have a tech stack that suits me?”, “Is the company’s technical team open and proactive in pursuing new technology trends?”, and “What can I develop at this company?”. Thus, to attract potential candidates and retain talent, businesses need to proactively connect and share with the IT community. This can be done through blog posts, tech events, or by participating as speakers/sponsors at conferences/competitions. 

These activities help businesses reach and nurture talent quickly and effectively. They also demonstrate the company’s open and progressive culture, building trust and encouraging candidates to apply.

Focus on key niches

The IT industry is vast, with many different niches such as outsourcing, AI, SaaS, big data, blockchain, etc. Each company usually focuses on only one or a few niches. Therefore, instead of spreading time and resources across all niches, businesses should focus their communications on the niche they operate in. This will help the company steer its brand in the right direction and recruit the right talent.

For example: An e-commerce SaaS company with a PHP web interface can apply AI/Machine Learning/Big Data to enhance user experience and optimize conversion rates. When this company focuses its communications on the AI/Machine Learning niche, it will attract the interest of candidates with skills and experience in this field.

4. 1Office HRM – The Smart Recruitment Management Solution

Many IT companies are very confident in their management systems because they can program their own platforms, work software, and HR management tools. However, not every company can solve the IT human resources problem. The reason is that these management tools do not truly meet the specific needs of the industry or lack a high degree of specialization.

To easily attract potential IT personnel, having a streamlined, accurate, and effective recruitment process is essential. Businesses should use specialized recruitment software developed by a reputable provider like 1Office HRM. This software can meet the specific needs of each business, helping HR establish recruitment processes, store candidate profiles, automatically connect to popular job boards, update candidate information, screen resumes, and store information on potential candidates.

With many smart features, 1Office’s HRM software not only helps businesses solve the challenge of new IT recruitment but also manages company-wide human resources quickly and effectively. Specifically, this software can:

• Create recruitment proposals, manage and store candidate profiles directly on the software.
• Automatically filter and classify candidate profiles according to the company’s proposed criteria.
• Flexibly choose recruitment channels, automatically push candidate CVs to the system.
• Arrange and create interview schedules effectively, enhancing recruitment efficiency.
• Automatically send interview invitation emails according to the pre-set process on the software.
• Automatic reporting system, measuring the number of candidates, recruitment sources, conversion rates, recruitment costs, etc.

From the article above, you should now understand the reasons for “Why IT recruitment is difficult”. With these solutions, we hope businesses can attract and recruit talented IT professionals, helping to build a strong team ready to face future challenges and opportunities. We wish you success!