There appears to be nothing that can squelch the demand for skilled tech talent. 

Despite a bear market and rising labor costs that have led to numerous layoffs at many major tech companies, software engineers, developers and data analysts have little difficulty finding work. The unemployment rate in the tech sector is hovering around 2%, roughly half the national rate.

With talent in such short supply, tech workers have their pick of multiple job offers. Inflation and intense salary competition, meanwhile, have made it onerous and expensive for companies to recruit tech talent. The advantage in these hiring battles would seem to belong to the biggest companies with the most resources. 

Or does it? What if there’s a way for startups and small- and mid-sized technology companies to compete for top talent?

Resourceful hiring managers at scrappy companies can take advantage of the tech sector’s hiring blindspots — most notably, a famous overreliance on degree requirements and resumes that list prior positions from the same handful of exclusive and elite universities. Startups and smaller companies should consider seeking out new tech employees who don’t check the traditional college and job history boxes by hiring for culture, capacity mastery and capabilities. Companies that focus the interviewing and selection process on assessing skills and not examining resumes can construct their own hiring pipelines during a time of talent scarcity.

The place to start is with culture. The values of companies and their employees must be aligned. This doesn’t mean a new hire must be subservient. Rather, if a company is driven by curiosity and a willingness to fail fast, its employees must be agile. They have to be willing and able to break things down and build them back up again to get to what works. If values align and employees working close to problems are empowered to solve them, solutions can be optimized and innovation can occur.

Employees must have the capacity to master new skills. The tech tools that software developers and engineers use today will be replaced in three to five years by something new. Tech employees need to demonstrate critical thinking and reasoning skills to show they’re able to become experts in the new tools and new skills that will unlock new innovations. Those who can nimbly and constantly harness new technologies to develop new ideas are invaluable.

Finally, employees must be capable. They have to possess the exact skills and competencies to do the jobs that they’re hired for today. It almost goes without saying that programmers and data scientists and cybersecurity specialists must possess certain knowledge and skills to do their current jobs. But the ability for someone to handle their current role is ultimately not the best reason to hire them. It’s more important that new hires are a strong cultural fit and able to keep pace with the rapidly evolving trends of the tech world.

The bottom line is that tech company executives and hiring managers must constantly seek skills that aren’t as readily apparent on a job application — abilities that are hiding in between the lines on a resume — but are vitally important for a wide range of tech jobs. Companies willing to consider candidates who have traveled less traditional paths to tech careers are able to recruit from a much broader, deeper and diverse pool of talent. Veterans, community college graduates, people who have retrained for new careers and those who have gained skills through alternative routes may lack elegant pedigrees but might possess the cultural fit, capacity mastery and capabilities that companies should seek out.

This exercise in preferencing skills over resumes shouldn’t solely be about companies seeking the best employees. It should also be about employees connecting with companies that are the best fit for them. 

At startups and smaller firms, employees often play outsized roles because people by necessity have multiple responsibilities. They will have more opportunities to work with new technologies and sophisticated stacks. Everyone must pitch in on multiple fronts to grow the company. 

Of course, working at startups and small firms is inherently risky. The vast majority of new companies fail, and most never turn a profit. Whether or not a company prevails over the long term, talented tech workers can walk away from these jobs with new skills, multiple capabilities and real experiences that they can demonstrate to their next employer. 

Working at the largest tech firms carries risk as well — not of the business failing but of professional stagnation due to job specialization and siloed projects. Because the primary business aim at more established companies is the maintenance of legacy services and solutions, employees are typically locked into singular roles that provide few opportunities to make any real impact. If economic pressures result in company layoffs, departed employees might find themselves at a disadvantage in today’s job market because their work assignment in a highly constrained ecosystem caused their skills to atrophy.

Ultimately, developers and engineers will want to work at companies that reward the talent, skills and abilities they possess, not the resumes they’re able to craft. Companies looking to devise talent solutions will have to seek out nontraditional employees with enthusiasm for the unique vantage points they offer. Otherwise they risk making conventional hiring choices that stifle the innovation and new thinking required to be successful in today’s hyper-competitive tech environment.

/ Kaj Pedersen, CTO

Originally published in the Puget Sound Business Journal