Dive Brief:
- LinkedIn reports its Top Companies in the US, are looking for a broader range of talent from applicants than ever before. Business and leadership qualities are important, but tech fluency is critical. Based on interviews with half of the sites’ top companies, LinkedIn points to advancing technical skills as the fastest-growing among current employees and the most pursued by recruiters.
- The most sought-after candidates are leaders with people skills, tech know-how, and the ability to integrate the two. Even bleeding-edge technology (risky new tech that may still be in beta, or never make it to market) skills are prized by recruiters looking to stay ahead of or lead the market.
- Top employers are looking for creative thinkers who search for boxes they can think outside of: a skill set difficult to define, much less recruit for. Deloitte calls them the 3 Ds: Data, Digital and Disruption. A combination of these in a single candidate is a rarity, so the competition to acquire them is fierce. The most desired candidates are software engineers and data scientists with a change-agent point of view.
Dive Insight:
LinkedIn’s top U.S. companies list pulls from a wide range of disparate sectors ─ including tech, retail, financial services, media and consulting ─ not just from the firms traditionally considered “tech evangelists” or cutting edge. It's telling that all those industries point to the same top skills.
To hire candidates that will take your company next gen, rethink your talent priorities. Seek applicants with the hard skills needed, an insatiable curiosity for what’s next, an innovator’s point of view and the daring to incorporate them together. Don’t stand out as a cutting edge tech leader, with applicants beating down your door? Position yourself as a place a 3D applicant can revolutionize and lead.
The marketing department is a prime example of how a specialized discipline embraced the digital marketplace. The top recruiters are prioritizing candidates with cutting-edge tech knowledge, like predictive analytics and AI, to stay one step ahead.
Tech fluency should rank high on your roster of interview questions: what peaks their interest; what have they dabbled in; where do they see tech advancing the work they perform? The ability to apply what we know now, and anticipate what’s coming next, will separate the leaders from the pack in our digitally-evolving marketplace.