Tag Archive for: it jobs

Get Rid of the IT Jobs Skills Shortage for Good

it jobs

How to Eliminate the Damaging Effects of the Skills Gap

With the increased use of technology in various fields, there are increasing numbers of IT jobs that remain unfilled. We understand this as the skills shortage. It may be affecting your company.

In this article, we discuss the skills gap in IT jobs and look at ways you can eliminate it as a damaging problem for your company.

Why Is the IT Job Skills Shortage a Problem?

The IT skills gap is not limited to the United States. It is estimated that there is a global talent shortage of around 40 million skilled workers. If this shortage is not tackled successfully, companies risk losing a colossal $8.4 trillion in revenue.

In the United States alone, the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects an additional 667,000 new IT jobs by 2030.

In its latest CIO Survey, Harvey Nash/KPMG found that hiring challenges are hurting. Without the tech talent coming to your firm, you can’t get great ideas from drawing board to customer.

To address this skills gap, companies can nurture and develop in-house talent and ensure they are hiring people with the requisite skills for open roles.

How to Hire More Effectively When There Is a Skills Shortage

When struggling to find qualified candidates, there are several strategies that you can employ.

First, consider hiring for transferrable skills from other industries. For example, a graphic designer might be able to design web pages, or someone with finance experience may have the ability to do data analysis. Remember, too, to hire for soft skills, such as leadership, communication, and teamwork. If hiring for transferrable skills, you should also focus on those candidates who can demonstrate they are self-starters and are committed to self-development.

You might also consider hiring for potential – recruiting talent that has the basic skillset you need, but the capacity to grow into an expanding role. If employing this approach, it is crucial to know the scope of the job as it stands today and how you expect a role to evolve in the next 12 months to five years.

Perhaps the easiest way to negate the skills gap is to partner with a staffing agency with the capability to provide a range of staffing solutions. This is especially useful to cover for short-term needs, where specific skillsets are required to kick start or complete a project, for example.

To use this last solution effectively, you must fully understand your needs – and address them with full-time, part-time, or temporary consultants. Benefits of this approach include:

  • Immediate access to a large talent pool
  • Reduced overtime pay and employment overheads
  • Reduced (or eliminated) risks associated with hiring the wrong candidates
  • Accessing the skills you need, when you need them

Eliminate the Skills Gap in Your Company Today

Working with Irvine Technology Corporation, our clients benefit from our proven history of sourcing, screening, and retaining top technology resources. We can deliver these on demand, allowing you to focus on your core business and staff-critical projects efficiently and effectively, without the additional overhead of full-time employees.

Offering several staffing options, our mission is to deliver the flexible, scalable, and highly effective technology staffing solutions that help your business to grow and achieve its full potential.

To eliminate the skills gap and have immediate access to the talent you need, contact ITC today.

5 Tips to Get the Most from Work-From-Home IT Jobs in 2021

The Best Job in America, from the Comfort of Your Home

IT jobs are big business. They have been for a long time, but the pandemic has ramped up ferocious demand in IT support, as more people and businesses utilized online solutions to connect.

Additionally, IT jobs have been in demand to create and support vast areas of innovation and increased use, from online product and grocery shopping, to online exercise portals such as Peloton, to ongoing global innovation in automotive manufacturing, and the likes.

In a Glassdoor report of the best jobs in America 2020, tech jobs took seven of the top 10 spots. Many IT professionals are now enjoying incredible careers from the comfort of their own homes.

If you are searching for or have recently transitioned to work-from-home IT jobs, these five tips will help you maximize the benefits of remote tech jobs.

Choose Your Workspace Carefully

Setting up a workstation is a crucial step. This will vary greatly from one person’s accommodation to another.

If you’re short for space, find somewhere in a quiet area where you can switch off from disturbances w

hen working, and walk away from when you’re finished.

Natural daylight has been linked to improved focus, productivity, and wellbeing, so incorporate this if you can.

Most importantly, it should be a space you feel comfortable in, as you’ll spend most of your working day there.

Pay Attention to Ergonomics

When working at a desk all day, you must look after your posture. Consider purchasing the following ergonomic items to protect your musculoskeletal system from incorrect posture, repetitive movement, or extreme temperature, according to your IT role:

  • Chair – select one suitable for your height and/or weight
  • Keyboard
  • Central Pointer devices – replacing the mouse
  • Forearm/wrist support
  • Height-adjustable desk
  • Laptop bracket – preventing slouching and improving posture
  • Footrests
  • Anti-fatigue mat – improves circulation in legs and feet for prolonged standing
  • Headset

We’re discovering more about how your work environment affects your posture, which leads to long-term physical health issues. An ergonomically designed workspace will help to ensure better health as you age.

Set Strict Boundaries

When working from home, self-discipline is crucial to maintain productivity and benefit from improved work/life balance. The following tips will help you to set boundaries between your professional and personal life:

·      Manage Your Time

Schedule each day, and stick to the plan to maximize your productivity. List the tasks for the day and figure when this will be best achieved.

·      Book Your Breaks

Set yourself timeslots like you would in an office. Don’t be tempted to work through them. Doing so will sap your energy and motivation, and cause burnout. Learn to walk away and rest regularly.

·      Use Your Lunch Break

It’s down to you to ensure you go and get some fresh air, a little bit of exercise, and a bite to eat. It’s a crucial part of your wellbeing and productivity.

·      When You’re Finished, Close the Door

Whether it’s a physical oy psychological door, when you have finished work for the day, close it. Shut down your laptop and ‘head home’. Your personal time is important.

Reduce Distractions

Distractions exist in every workplace, but the ones at home can be much more damaging to the quality of your work and productivity if not controlled. The worst offenders are:

  • Fellow residents – Put up the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign
  • Deliveries – Sign for them, put them down, and open them in your free time
  • TV – Never work with it on
  • Social media – Sign out, and only have a browse in your free time
  • Chores – They’re not in your job description

Each time you are distracted, it can take as long 23 minutes to refocus. Distractions crush your productivity and will lengthen your workdays as you try to catch up on your to-do list.

Stay Connected

Working remotely shouldn’t leave you feeling remote, yet it can be tough on your social life. Days turn into weeks, and you forget when you last properly interacted with someone outside of work.

We are social creatures by nature. Yet working from home can cause loneliness that is detrimental to your mental health. So, make a conscious effort to meet up with your friends and colleagues outside of work.

Use your lunch hour to go and meet someone in a local restaurant or coffee shop. Reward yourself at the end of your working week with some after-work activities with friends. Maintain your hobbies with likeminded people. Switch off and enjoy the healthy work/life balance we all could do with in today’s world.

Are You Ready to Benefit from Work-From-Home IT Jobs?

You’re a highly skilled IT professional. Working from home is here to stay. Combining the two makes for an exceptionally rewarding career. But it takes discipline and focus to make a success of remote IT jobs.

These tips are gospel in the work-from-home IT jobs manual, and they’ll help you achieve the quality and productivity you are capable of throughout your IT career.

Contact Irvine Tech for the most exciting work-from-home IT jobs available today.

How to Hire for Flexibility in IT Jobs in 2021

Why Flexibility Is the Future

IT jobs have filled the ranks of the secret army that have kept the nation’s economy supported and connected. Through the entire pandemic, organizations have rapidly increased their use of technology to remain operational and allow essential flexibility for their remote workforces.

But IT jobs are in dire need of support themselves:

  • They’re struggling to keep pace with the constant change in new software developments
  • They’re having to learn new technical skills fast, on top of their day jobs
  • There’s a skills shortage, with not enough newly-qualified IT specialists emerging

The pandemic has seen millions of Americans adjust well to working from home, as it allows them the flexibility for an improved work/life balance – a factor that’s strongly come into focus in the year 2020. But while flexible work trends are on the rise, so are IT skills shortages.

For you to hire the top talent in IT jobs, you need to look beyond technology. The answer lies in providing flexibility – to your employees and within your business.

Employ External Services

Employees in IT jobs need support just like everyone else, especially today, when demands in technical ability have been ramped up to the maximum.

Instead of assuming you need to hire more full-time staff with the financial costs that this includes, it is possible to maintain a streamlined staff level by utilizing cost-effective and flexible external resources.

Start by assessing your business needs. Where do your IT jobs need support? Identify the problem areas and hire on flexible contracts that will help your IT staff reach a successful outcome. Such staffing needs might include examples such as:

  • Isolated intervals
  • To provide expertise beyond your staff’s capabilities
  • Specific projects
  • New software rollouts

Huge benefits are accessible by staffing with flexible contract employees to support your teams as and when required:

  • It won’t have long-term effects on your payroll finances
  • Allows easy transitioning to upscale or downscale – agility is crucial for organizations to respond to adjusting business performance and demand
  • Reduces the management requirements of external staff, allowing you to focus on your internal employees

Having a dedicated team of people to supplement your staffing levels as and when required is a long-term solution for a flexible and highly adaptable workplace in 2021 and beyond.

Market Your Flexibility

By offering flexibility in your IT jobs and within the workplace, you’re strengthening your employer brand and becoming increasingly attractive to top tech candidates.

People want to work for companies that offer a flexible approach and provide support. It also shows that you trust your employees, and in turn, 80% would be more loyal. As a result, your organization will enjoy:

  • Increased staff retention
  • Reduced hiring costs
  • Improved referrals from happy employees

Reputation is key in employer branding, but a loyal and supportive culture is a key highlight in your job description.

Nurture Your Talent Pool

As you hire more flexible workers to support and allow more flexibility for your permanent staff, your talent pool will grow.

Skilled workers will experience for themselves the support you provide to your employees. Equally, you will cross paths with exceptional candidates who fit perfectly into your company or create opportunities for your team to develop.

Be sure to nurture your talent pool so that when business needs call, you know just who to contact.

Use a Staffing Agency

A specialist staffing agency provides exceptional access to a pool of experienced IT talent. The professionals they have nurtured benefit from meaningful relationships with skilled and trustworthy staffing professionals who understand both client and candidate.

Partnering with a staffing agency specializing in IT jobs, you will have the ability to fulfil IT jobs vacancies with the staff who are needed to meet your needs quickly.

Employing external services, though a long-term solution, is an ever-developing process that needs a lot of time and resources spent on ensuring the right candidates fill your unique technology roles.

To react quickly to staffing demands, meet with a staffing agency that takes the time to understand your needs. They’ll provide quality candidates at speed, as well as support them when their contracts end, and nurture them for future requirements.

Are You Ready to Hire for Flexibility in IT Jobs?

Technology is keeping the world spinning, but the masters behind it all need support too. To allow them to flex their full ability, provide the flexibility.

Not only will you maximize your company’s performance, but you will also improve your employer brand, attracting the most skilled IT workers to your IT jobs, reducing turnover in your workplace, and boosting your technical capabilities exactly when needed.

Contact Irvine Tech Corp for specialized bespoke support in your hiring needs for all IT jobs.