New findings from Indeed show what staffing firms, recruiters and employees need to know to attract and keep top candidates

Talent shortages ebb and flow but the current lack of qualified tech workers is hitting staffing firms at a particularly challenging time. 

Demand for highly skilled, niche tech talent is soaring as client companies rush to upgrade their tech stacks and incorporate artificial intelligence. Yet staffing firms and recruiters are in stiff competition with each other, fighting to attract the same, limited pool of potential employees.

“Recent tech industry layoffs lead some to believe that the demand for skilled tech talent has subsided,” says Ryan Batty, vice president of employer marketing at Indeed. “Indeed sees vast amounts of data on employers’ needs for tech workers and the headline is clear — the demand for tech talent remains very high."

Fortunately, there’s a fix: When staffing firm executives and recruiters understand what tech workers are looking for, they become more attractive to that elusive talent. What’s more, they can better design opportunities that suit workers’ needs, improving retention and loyalty.

To that end, Indeed partnered with global insights agency SKIM to survey more than 1,000 US workers who are employed in tech roles, as well as more than 300 HR leaders. What they learned offers surprising insights into the tech job marketplace.

• A surprising shift in how tech job seekers source new jobs.

Upending long-held assumptions, Indeed found that most tech industry job seekers are proactively searching for — and finding — their own next jobs. More than half of survey respondents (55%) found and applied to their current position after extensive personal research. Only 19% were sourced by an internal or staffing firm recruiter when they found their current job. 

This finding has the potential to change how employers put potential jobs in front of future hires, and how staffing firms recruit new talent. Beefing up job information on websites and tech job boards, as well as increasingly relying on employment websites, such as Indeed, could be a better way to capture scarce candidates than previous methods.

• Some tech workers have multiple jobs — at the same time.

Many employees are content with a single full-time job. In the world of tech, however, it’s surprisingly common for workers to hold down more than one post at the same time.

A robust one-quarter of respondents have either worked multiple jobs in the past or are working more than one now, according to the Indeed/SKIM study.

And they’re doing it well. Bucking expectations, 96% of respondents with multiple jobs said they routinely get all their work done. Some manage to cover two full-time jobs, but it’s more common to combine a role that requires 35 to 40 hours a week with an occasional freelance or part-time assignment.

Employers often aren’t on board, a stance that Linsey Fagan, a senior talent strategy advisor for talent intelligence at Indeed, suggests they reconsider.

“There’s an interesting opportunity around how employers might encourage workers to disclose other jobs and support them as they do so,” Fagan says.

By telling employees that they encourage outside gigs if they’re disclosed and don’t create conflicts of interest, employers can get credit for flexibility. Workers can benefit from professional variety, without leaving their primary jobs, which may mean that they stay longer. They also earn more money without ever getting a raise from their primary employers.

Here, too, Indeed can help job seekers and employers alike.

“Compensation is generally the first thing tech workers look for in their job search, but some clients and companies still don’t share that in their jobs posts,” Batty says. “Job posts on Indeed that have salary, schedule, and benefits information included receive, on average, two times more application starts than job posts missing some or all of this essential information.”

• Skills-based assessments aren’t telling the whole story.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that software tools, while efficient, can have some major drawbacks. 

“We heard a story about a remote employee who didn’t turn on his camera during Zoom calls for the first three months at a new job,” Fagan says. “When he finally did turn on the camera, the manager said, ‘You’re definitely not who I interviewed.’” Someone had pretended to be the applicant, interviewing and taking their skills-based assessment.

Interviewing for another person likely isn’t very common, not least because the employers inevitably discover the subterfuge. But employers and staffing firms shouldn’t be under any illusions about whether test-takers use outside resources to complete an assessment.

Of the 86% of respondents who have taken a skills test as part of a hiring process, only 32% of them completed them without outside resources. 

Fagan suggests it’s time to refine the approach. “Consider redefining what ‘cheating’ is to let test-takers access all the resources they can access at work,” she says.

After all, no one censures an employee for looking up a fact or figure online. It makes sense that skills assessments evolve accordingly.

• Tech workers want to spend time in the office.

In another surprise, more than a quarter, or 26%, say they’d prefer to be fully in person and 56% say they prefer a hybrid working situation. Only 41% say they want to be fully remote.

This, too, has important implications for staffing firms and recruiters who may need to adjust their approach to both talent and client companies.

In all, Indeed’s finding show that the last few years have brought significant changes. The methods by which job seekers find their next positions — and what they expect when they land there — has been upended. Companies that embrace Indeed’s findings will find themselves better positioned to attract and keep the skilled talent they need so much.

To learn how Indeed can help your staffing firm boost its tech talent pool, contact Linsey Fagan, senior talent strategy advisor, talent intelligence, at Indeed.