Jobhop Jobhop's blog : The Race For Digital Talent Isn't Getting Easier

Companies have been panicking about the lack of digital skills for many years now, but it hasn’t got any better.

More than 4 billion people are internet users, that’s half of the world’s population, but companies are not digitally equipped with the right people. By 2022 the UK alone will need an extra 500,000 digitally skilled employees, but where will we get them from?

Currently, the lack of digital skills costs the UK £63billion a year and companies are all trying to fish out of the same talent pool. Within three years, 90% of jobs will require digital skills, and you’ll be amazed by what types of industries require digital skills. When we talk about digital, most people think city offices, but even the farming industry is desperate for digital skills. 89% of Scottish farmers say that recruiting people with such skills will make the UK competitive on a global scale. Statistics by The Open University, say that 94% of SMEs are struggling to find and recruit digitally skilled people, they also reckon that the skills gap is getting worse.

Digitally skilled candidates know they’re sought after, and they can take their pick of the best employers. If you’re not a preferred employer, then your business is going to struggle.

What can you do to make sure that your business doesn’t lose the digital skills race?

Employer of choice

Make sure that you’re the employer of choice. When a candidate weighs up whether to work at your business or your competitors, you want them to choose you. They’ll only choose to work with you if the company culture is great, you offer fantastic training, a good working environment, brilliant benefits and so on.

Upskill

Train up employees that you already have, give them the digital skills needed to help make your company grow.

Upskilling should be a regular occurrence in businesses; all employees should always be learning new skills to ensure the business doesn’t stagnate.

Appeal to a wider demographic

Think about how the words in your job descriptions, career sites, career blogs sound, etc.. Do you tend to attract the same type of candidate? There could be a reason for that. A simple tool like Textio accurately predicts how your writing will compete for talent, and it suggests changes to get a more diverse candidate pool.

Remote Working

Think bigger than the four walls of your business. If you can’t get the people in your current location, then think further afield. With technology, you can source globally for digital skills; certain countries might have a challenge with the time difference, but there are always workarounds. Anyone with excellent digital skills will be familiar with remote working.

Agile working

Technology can change job roles quickly, so companies need to adopt agile working. Agile working means that if someone in operations wants to try out SEO, they should be encouraged. Some people are skilled in picking up new skills quickly, and they may go onto be a huge success. The other bonus of having agile workers is that they can step in when required. Agile workers are happier, stimulated, better connected within the company, and they don’t have to look outside the company to obtain new experiences.

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Julie Bishop Jobhop.co.uk

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