Art Zeile
We are amidst a sprawling renegotiation between employers and employees as to the very nature of work, and no one has more leverage than skilled technologists — many of whom feel unmoored from their current jobs.
Our 2021 Technologist Sentiment Report — which in the second quarter polled technology professionals who mostly work at bigger organizations — shows 48% of tech professionals expressed an interest in changing companies this year, up from 40% in the fourth quarter of 2020, and a big jump from 32% in the second quarter last year.
It’s a unique moment, one that creates an unusual opportunity for startup founders on the hunt for talent.
Fast-growing upstarts have a lot of advantages. Bigger companies may be more likely to attempt to recreate the office environment of the past — especially if they have leased space and a built environment that will be difficult to unwind. Startups are often nontraditional and may be able to react to create the hybrid work environments many technologists crave as the economy reopens.
While all startups are certainly not focused on being disruptive, they often rely on cutting-edge technology and processes to give their customers something truly new. Many are trying to change the pattern in their particular industry. So, by definition, they generally have a really interesting mission or purpose that may be more appealing to tech professionals.
A migration of tech talent just as the economy is revving up would be disruptive and could also play to startup strengths. The market for tech talent is already strong: Tech hiring has increased every month since November, according to our last tech jobs report released in May. Great data engineers, developers, business analysts and the like are in red-hot demand, and unemployment in tech is just above 2.4% percent, versus 5.5% percent in the economy overall.
Here are four considerations for high-growth company founders building their teams. (Fellow CEOs of established companies should add these notes to their plans for how to compete and win in a changing landscape.)
Lead with mission and inspiration
For many tech workers, a $10,000 salary hike will be much less meaningful than offering work with autonomy and an exciting mission. Technologists are part of the creative class, not unlike artists or musicians. They want to be given an important problem to solve, and then be given the autonomy to use their creativity to solve it through code. That is often the very definition of the work of building a startup product and is a big draw for developers and engineers who may be less interested in the idea of being a cog in a giant corporate machine.
Woo talent to win
In addition to posting roles, startups can attract top talent by leveraging their networks and investors to identify top engineers and actively pursuing and selling them on the mission and purpose.
For example, some technologists could be drawn in by a mature Agile approach or the chance to learn new skills. Tech professionals are also aware that they always need to upskill to stay relevant and grow their careers. Provide them with those incentives.
It’s about creating an entire package designed to entice talent. Matching the mission, the ability to use a variety of skills and a stake in solving an important problem with personalized outreach and ease-of-use in the hiring and onboarding process can make the difference for startups trying to attract the very best.
Flexibility is an advantage
Our Technologist Sentiment Report indicates that 59% of tech professionals would prefer flexible or remote work, versus 17% that want to be 100% in-office again. With CEOs across myriad industries anxious to get people back to the office five days a week, startups may find they can attract talent on the basis of offering flexibility on work location. Tech professionals will find flexibility if they want it — one in three jobs on our Dice recruiting platform today are either “remote” or “work from home.” You may not win every race for talent on flexibility alone, but it’s part of the package.
Go deep on sector skills
A close look at the job posts for tech in your own industry can be enlightening. Winning over people with domain expertise will create new advantages for startups.
One area I’m watching is financial services. It’s currently one of the top recruiters of tech professionals — Burning Glass Technologies, a database of job openings, shows close to 100,000 job postings for tech professionals over the last 90 days.
This could be a case study for what happens with talent in this rethink about where work takes place. Wall Street has been leading the call for workers to come back full time to the office, and the financial services sector itself is undergoing heavy transformation. Fintech startups can certainly swoop in and disrupt the talent pool as much as they are disrupting the market itself. Think back: When was the last time you walked into a physical bank? Subsectors like insurance are also seeing tremendous strides in innovation.
In all, technology professionals are going to be in the vanguard of the economic recovery and will prove critical to efforts to innovate and compete in a new environment. I, for one, am excited to see how the tech talent story unfolds as the world reopens its doors.
As tech offices begin to reopen, the workplace could look very different
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