Growing demand for IT talent

Large Enterprise CIOs Are Using Several Tactics to Execute Their Talent Strategy and Meet Critical Skill Demands in 2023. 81% of large enterprise CIOs plan to increase their IT headcount in 2023, as per the report of Gartner. Only 14% expect their IT staff to decrease and 5% expect their headcount to remain the same.

Attracting and retaining technology talent remain critical areas of concern for CIOs. “Even with advances in AI, Gartner predicts that the global job impact will be neutral in the next several years due to enterprise adoption lags, implementation times and learning curves. Only 4% of CIOs surveyed reported AI-augmented worker as a resource producing technology work today.

Secondly, the Enterprises have undertaken various digital initiatives over the past two years, with operational excellence and customer or citizen experience being the most popular. Still, these initiatives often do not meet enterprise needs quickly enough. 67% of Large Enterprise CIOs plan to grow their IT headcount in 2023 by at least 10% to support their enterprise’s digital initiatives.

While CIOs are looking to expand their IT teams, many have faced roadblocks in hiring due to economic conditions. Due to prevailing economic volatility, 41% of Large Enterprise CIOs report slow hiring for IT roles, 35% report decreasing overall IT budget and 29% report an IT hiring freeze.

CIOs are taking proactive steps to combat economic volatility by relaxing geographic and role requirements to expand their IT talent pipeline. Some organizations have found success by hiring early-career technologists and providing upskilling opportunities to fill critical technology needs, says Gartner.

Going forward, with the growing demand for IT talent, the most important candidate qualities Large Enterprise CIOs look for during the hiring process are having the requisite technical skills, soft skills (e.g., communication, relationship management) and cultural fit. Large Enterprise CIOs cite cybersecurity, cloud platforms and customer/user experience as the three most critical technical skills in 2023.

S Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA