Building a Winning Tech Talent Pipeline Strategy

By Lisa Goodall Ashkinos ● 12/02/2021

Building a Winning Tech Talent Pipeline Strategy

By Lisa Goodall Ashkinos ● 12/02/2021

With the digital explosion of the past year, the widening gap in tech talent pipeline is fast becoming a massive labor shortage-and for your organization, there has never been a more important time to strategize how to best source and retain tech talent.

The numbers tell the story: finding tech talent is the #1 concern reported by 46% of U.S. employers today, and since the start of the pandemic, there’s been a 119% increase in US job openings in the software and IT industry since its onset.

While many of these openings can be attributed to the heightened need for tech capabilities with widespread remote working and increased consumer dependence on ecommerce, resignations have also been a major point of concern. Tech experienced one of the highest resignation rate increases of any industry in 2021. Pouring fuel on the fire, 58% of tech workers reported suffering from job burnout, and more than 70% of tech employees are considering leaving their jobs over the next year. If these trends continue, industry analysts project a deficit of 6 million skilled tech workers and $162 billion worth of lost revenues by 2030.

In short, the U.S. needs more skilled, available tech workers – and companies need to plan how to engage and challenge employees to keep them on board – and fast.

Planning how to cultivate and attract the tech talent your company needs, maximize the potential of your existing team, and increase your tech employee retention is critical to maintain and grow your company’s competitive advantage in the marketplace.

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It Starts with a Team Effort

To start, tech talent acquisition and retention are not, and should not be, efforts reserved solely for human resources. Recruiters can be far more effective at creating a robust, dynamic tech talent pipeline if they craft an approach in partnership with other departments.

Below are four proven methods to filling a thriving tech talent pipeline and keeping it replenished:

1. Look Internally for Talent Ready for Transformation

When building your talent pipeline strategy, identifying current employees with talents and proven work performance that make them candidates for upskilling should be top of mind.

Unfortunately, corporate America has been slow to take notice: 75% of tech employees say that their company focuses more on finding new people to fill positions than investing in their own team’s growth. Also, when training current employees, businesses are able to target professional development programs more efficiently and effectively to accomplish business objectives and fill specific roles.

Finally, looking internally for talent provides you with unmatched ability to advance your diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Longtime frontline employees or employees in non-technical departments bring valuable industry experience and skills to tech teams when provided with tech training opportunities. As The Harvard Gazette said, diversifying your talent search is not simply a feel-good effort, these “hidden workers” that may come from nontraditional education backgrounds “are more likely to stay, are more positive contributors economically…and also can very often ‘have a positive impact on the broader workforce.’”

To access the remaining three methods to fill your tech talent pipeline, download the full eBook now.

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