In the information technologies (IT) sector, professionals who have demonstrated their skills and accumulated several years of experience are swamped by job offers, says headhunter Marko Boyer.
“Good resources are not only being approached, they are practically harassed every week,” reports the man who founded the IT specialist recruitment firm Courtech 15 years ago.
Mr. Boyer explains that in the job market, a professional with five years of experience will be considered “a specialist”. In the IT sector, a professional who has focused on developing specific technologies will have the same status after only two years.
“Finding people is not difficult,” says Marko Boyer. “The hardest part is convincing [these IT professionals] to go and work for a client. I have to sell the company to them to make them want to go and see it.”
According to what he observes in the course of his work, the headhunter points out that IT architects, business analysts, developers and cybersecurity specialists are in high demand.
TECHNOCompétences, the sectoral committee for the Quebec information and communication technologies workforce, states that professionals in the fields of cloud computing, artificial intelligence and data science are in great demand, as are specialists in Python and JavaScript.
The IT sector was identified as “the most flourishing” in Canada in 2019 and this trend will continue in 2020, says human resources consulting firm Randstad in its outlook for the new year. The cities of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal are the most popular locations for the workforce, the firm says.
The Information and Communication Technology Council reported that at the end of 2018, 1.8 million workers were working in the Canadian digital economy. It forecasts that this workforce could reach more than two million by 2023.
To recruit and retain the IT workforce, employers are now using imagination, notes Marko Boyer. Flexible working hours and remote working are some of the benefits offered by companies, in addition to attractive salaries, improved fringe benefits and increased, and even unlimited, weeks of vacation. Retirees and newcomers are now on the radar, not to mention foreign workers recruited at major international job fairs.
“More and more employers are sending representatives from their company to recruit abroad,” says Mr. Boyer. “Today they have no choice.”