How to Make Tech a Dream Job Again – InformationWeek

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The once alluring tech job is losing its shine. Industry volatility, lay-offs, and the shifting employee-employer relationship is leading many talented individuals to question their tech dreams. This puts technology leaders and founders in a tricky position. Not only are they attempting to attract talent from an increasingly limited pool, but they are now competing with jobs in other industries such as finance, healthcare, and manufacturing.

Especially among emerging talent. Teenagers are cooling on Big Tech careers with government and healthcare workplaces becoming more desirable. The top three most coveted employers are currently in healthcare, with Google, Amazon, and Apple all losing rankings in the Top 10 list.

The ‘war for talent’ isn’t just a technical skills shortage issue, but it’s now an industry-wide, employer branding one.

The solution for this is three-fold:

Learn what people want now.
Focus on sustainable career development that shows long-term commitment.
Take a balanced approach to workloads and skill utilization.

What Do Candidates Want Now?

The tech industry has evolved rapidly, with a surge in hiring between 2019 and 2021, followed by a period of correction marked by layoffs and reduced perks. While salaries for specialized roles, like AI engineers, remain high, the overall job market in tech has become more complex and competitive. Additionally, fewer young people are aspiring to tech careers, as other industries, like healthcare and government, gain appeal. This shift signals a need for tech companies to rethink their approach to employee engagement and satisfaction.

Moving Beyond Pay and Perks

Long gone are the days of nap pods and free lunches. Although these are nice to haves, most tech workers want more impactful, lasting perks offered by their employers such as tailored career development.

Of course, to understand what a worker wants, leaders need to ask them. Having regular conversations with direct reports about their goals, recent successes, current challenges, and career interests will help managers align development opportunities and career paths with greater precision. Better still, having a record of someone’s current validated skills (checked through scenario and performance-based assessments) populated in a personal skills profile can then help match someone to learning and internal work projects that would interest them.

Increasingly, we’re seeing workers seek out employers who clearly show room for growth and progression. Being transparent about the opportunities that someone can get through working with you can go a long way in motivating them to stay and mitigating concerns about the future.

Strike the Right Balancing Act

The tech industry was once notorious for demanding workloads, but with employees asking for greater work/life balance, this is changing in some tech organizations with Oracle, Hubspot and Dropbox offering unlimited leave; while Buffer, Kickstarter, and Panasonic have 4-day work weeks. Creating a culture where people feel able to switch off from the workplace is just part of the solution, however. It doesn’t matter how much downtime people get if during work hours they feel overwhelmed and ill-equipped.

Ensuring someone has the right skills to do their job well, and that their skills match the work required, will avoid burnout and stress long-term. Skill utilization is another consideration — you want people to feel challenged and that their skills are being used to their full potential, albeit, without stretching them so far that it impacts their stress levels negatively.

In practice, this would involve matching people to work opportunities based on their current skills, interests, and career goals. Providing diverse projects outside of someone’s traditional job role can also help to engage and cross-skill them, even facilitating a lateral career move if that’s what they desire. Offering growth opportunities can also be seen as a reward and investment in someone’s future.

Skills need to be the deciding factor in providing work and learning opportunities as it removes potential bias from the process (you’re relying on skills data to make decisions instead of gut feel and connections). Additionally, if you’re matching someone to opportunities based on their skills, you increase the likelihood of all their skills being used.

Transparent Expectations

The tech industry is moving into a different growth stage, a more mature one, and that potentially changes the environment for employees. Funding models are evolving, there is increasing pressure to grow into new markets, AI is driving innovation efforts and more. As your company navigates these changing waters, it helps to update your employees regularly on direction, new responsibilities and expectations.

On an individual level, encouraging employees to constantly assess and refresh their skill sets will help futureproof their careers while also providing your organization with some agility and responsiveness to changing markets. On a team and department level, changing expectations may shift job requirements, career trajectories and skills needs.

As new technologies emerge, so do the opportunities for employees to explore new growth areas and build skills. Surfacing these to your workforce shows employees that they can continuously grow with your organization, keeps work exciting, and impacts retention.

Rekindling the Dream

The dream of a tech career is not dead, but it requires a new approach from employers. By creating an environment where employees can thrive, aligning expectations with the realities of a mature industry, and focusing on long-term career development, tech companies can once again become the workplaces of choice for top talent. CEOs, founders, team leaders, and HR teams all play a crucial role in making this happen, ensuring that tech jobs are not just desirable today but truly fulfilling in the long run.