3 Top 2021 Tech Hiring & Recruiting Trends: What Do Candidates Want?

At Maven Wave, enabling digital transformation for the world’s largest enterprises is our mission. Everything we do gets back to the question: How can we help Fortune 500 companies harness the cloud and growing pools of data to enhance customer experience? Of course, this goal is not possible without our top-notch talent. But tech hiring trends have been changing along with everything else over the past year.

The dial for digital transformation has been turned to “warp speed” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Global lockdowns have not only accelerated the adoption of remote working and virtual learning, but they’ve also pushed consumers to try new consumption methods out of necessity, including online shopping, telehealth, virtual workouts, virtual tutoring, streaming entertainment, and more. Enterprises had calculated several year transformation strategies that suddenly needed to be adopted in a matter of weeks.

And with unprecedented rates of change across many industries, we also saw intense fluctuations in hiring and recruiting. Some industries sadly lost billions in revenue seemingly overnight, implementing the subsequent layoffs and furloughs, while others couldn’t keep up with surging demand. Plus, hiring had already been in an evolution period before COVID-19 hit, and a global pandemic is prompting many professionals to step back and evaluate what they really want out of their jobs. In short, tech hiring is undergoing a transformation of its own.

Across the board, various companies are reporting a few key trends about hiring and recruiting processes. Virtual interviews have become the norm (using Google Workspace and Google Meet for us), internal hiring and upskilling are on the rise, diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives are getting well-deserved attention, and effective enterprise collaboration is playing a vital role in getting new hires onboarded and keeping them engaged. 

Because we’re interviewing cloud tech professionals every week, we’d like to provide our perspective on a few more trends that Maven Wave’s recruiting team is seeing. Happier employees make better employees when it comes to client success and productivity, and a focus on hiring and retaining the best team members has been a core tenant of Maven Wave’s since day one. So when candidates tell us what they’re looking for, we listen. In our recent experience, here are a few critical features tech candidates are looking for in their next employer.  

1. A competitive market means a concise process is key

In the tech world, great candidates are in high demand, and probably will be for quite awhile. Even though there have been dips in the availability of tech jobs over the past year because of the pandemic, things are looking up. 2020 was a rollercoaster for tech hiring; from Jan. 1 through March 9, tech job postings were up nearly 30% compared with 2019, then they fell 15% between April and early June with tens of thousands of tech employees laid off. In June, however, the market had already started to take a turn for the better.  

This means months-long interview processes no longer work; candidates need quick answers. According to CIO, some of the most in-demand tech jobs sit squarely within Maven Wave’s wheelhouse, including cloud architect, and DevOps engineer. We also see strong demand for roles such as solution architect and cloud data engineer.

2. Candidates crave learning opportunities and want to know what success will look like

Especially in the cloud world, professionals are faced with new skills, certifications and challenges constantly. Data analytics, machine learning, SAP, security… the list goes on. Candidates are interested in working for companies with a comprehensive, cloud-agnostic approach, where they can pick up skills and strategies to support a variety of verticals and situations. At Maven Wave and Atos, we encourage our employees to grow their skills by earning relevant cloud certifications. 

Overall, companies are getting more attention if they focus on learning, embrace the evolution of a team member’s arc at the business, and don’t shove them into a metaphorical box. Candidates want to know what success will look like for them, longterm. What does their growth trajectory look like in two to five years?

That’s exactly what we had in mind when we created our IGNITE Graduate Development Program alongside Atos and Atos Syntel. IGNITE offers entry-level STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) majors the opportunity for a 12-month training program resulting in three Google Cloud certifications and a full-time position with the company. Throughout a structured, three-phase program, IGNITE participants learn cloud fundamentals as well as technical skills, then gain real-world, hands-on experience within these tracks, all while learning the ropes as a consultant. Applications for the next round of IGNITE hiring will open in the fall.

3.Tech workers are standing firm on priorities

Candidates are starting to demand what’s most important to them in the roles they’re interviewing for. This may be due to the pandemic, generational differences, or a sharper focus on work / life balance — or all three combined. But many are asking for less business travel, flexible requirements on time spent working in-office, and lower commute times. Candidates who are clear with their expectations help recruiters ensure the role they’re interviewing for is a good fit.

Maven Wave is in the incredibly fortunate position to be actively hiring for dozens of positions and would like to connect with anyone interested in working in the tech and consulting sector. Check out our job listings to see what we’re hiring for and visit our careers page for more details on working at Maven Wave.