As Yahoo prepares to lay people off, it’s looking like at least the techies in that crowd will find a slightly improving job market. New surveys, one from Dice and the other from TEKsystems, indicate that it’s getting a little tougher to fill technical jobs.
Let’s start with what Dice says.
Of nearly 850 HR managers and recruiters who hire IT employees, 46% say it’s taking longer to fill jobs than last year, with only 18% say it’s taking a shorter time. The most-often reason given for the longer time is the inability to find qualified people; in June, in comparison, the main reason was just caution about the economy.
The folks that Dice surveyed say these jobs and skills are their top hiring priorities for 2011:
- Java/J2EE developer
- .Net developer
- Software developer
- Project manager
- Mobile developer
- Web developer
- SAP
- Business analyst
- Business intelligence
- Security analyst
On to the TEKsystems survey of IT directors and other IT executives, which found that “while 30% of IT leaders indicate confidence in their ability to compete for talent as we emerge from the recession, most (70%) do not feel very prepared.”
Here are the jobs TEKsystems found are the most difficult to fill with “exceptional talent,” as judged by the percentage of respondents rating the difficulty a seven or above on a 1- 10 scale.
Enterprise Architect:67%
Security specialist: 54%
Network architect: 52%
Business intelligence specialist: 52%
Database administrator: 50%
Virtualization engineer 46%
.Net architect: 45%
ERP technology functional analyst: 45%
Java/J2EE architect: 43%
CRM technology functional analyst: 43%
Business process engineer: 43%
Network engineer: 39%
Project manager: 38%
Storage engineer: 35%
Systems administrator: 25%
Technical writer: 21%
Help desk/desktop support: 10%