Don’t let the widening digital skills gap impact your digitalisation delivery

The Digital Skills gap is widening – is your candidate experience the best it could be to compete for Digital Talent?

75% of companies said they expect a lack of digital skills would impact their future profitability, while only half said they were able to provide such training to new employees. This comes from recent research by The Learning & Work Institute (LWI) – an independent policy research organisation.

The race for digital talent has never been stronger, and its not going to get easier. The LWI study found:

• The number of young students taking IT subjects at GCSE has fallen 40% since 2015
• The number of young students taking IT subjects at A-Levels, advanced courses and apprenticeships has also dropped in the last 5 years.
• Young women accounted for just 22% of IT subjects GCSE entrants and only 17% at A-level.
• 70% of young people surveyed expected employers to invest in their digital skills.

So what is the Candidate Experience? The candidate experience is the experience the candidate has of your organisation at every touch point, up to and including the job offer. It’s the recruitment process. From the first application or telephone call with a recruiter, to understanding the role, what value they will add, what challenges they will face, where their career will go, the culture and the interview, just to mention a few.

Why does the Candidate Experience matter?  If any the above is flawed through failure in the process, lack of clarity in the role or strategy, poor quality interviewing or indecisiveness, then the candidate experience becomes a negative one, and the chances of the candidate accepting a job offer are slim.

Think of the best experience you have had when purchasing products or services. Organisations like Apple, First Direct Bank and Waitrose have been recognised for their customer service and you probably have your own favourite where you’ll buy from again. We need to apply the same level of customer service to the recruitment process to win digital & IT talent from your competitors.

What is a great Candidate Experience? Here are some of the key things:

• Be clear on your requirements – both the role, challenges, what you need the person to deliver and the expertise you require. Don’t go to market before you have defined these
• Fast response to applications and swiftly send out interview invitations or reject unsuitable applicants
• Share business strategy at interview to give the candidate confidence of the longevity of the organisation plus role and be prepared to share details of where the candidate will add value to meet their aspirations 
• Show a decisive process through prompt interview feedback (within 48 hours) and share the positive as well as the negative feedback with candidates.

If you’d like to find out how to make your organisation’s candidate experience fit to compete, then please get in touch.

Vicki Douglas

vickidouglas@genium.biz

07973 788308

#digitalcareers #digitalskills #digitalskillsgap #itjobs #ittalent #candidateexperience #digitaltalent #digitalisation #digitaltransfromation

Posted 24.03.2021

Category: IT market news | For clients