Keep up to date on articles and news and subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

IT Managers Face Crunch in Filling Open Positions

Last month, Timothy Ramsay, assistant vice president of computer and network services at the University of Miami, filled a security manager position. But it took a yearlong search and a 30% increase in pay over the original offer.

Ramsay said the search was so difficult because of increased IT hiring activity, particularly in hot job areas such as security, database administration and project management. Salaries also have become a big issue in South Florida, where housing prices have soared. The university is now studying across-the-board pay increases for workers in IT and other departments to help them deal with the region’s high cost of living, Ramsay said.

But the hiring crunch that he experienced isn’t limited to South Florida. The IT job market is improving nationally, according to several recent reports on technology employment trends. At the same time, though, it appears to be getting harder for employers to recruit people to fill the job openings they have.

That’s partly because the increased demand is creating competition for IT workers, and partly because some employers are seeking people with a range of skills that may be hard to find. For instance, Ramsay said the University of Miami was looking for someone who had policy and administrative skills, a technical background in security with certifications, and the ability to address key issues such as identity management.

In addition, there may be more reluctance among IT workers to move to new jobs than there has been in the past, said some technology managers and recruiters. “The market is picking up,” said Nate Viall, president of Nate Viall and Associates, a Des Moines-based company that recruits workers for jobs involving IBM’s System i server line. But Viall added that some of the IT staffers he has encountered are wary about switching jobs.

“People are cautious,” said Viall. “They either got burned themselves at the beginning of the decade or know three friends that did.”

Steven Strout, CIO at Morris Communications Co. in Augusta, Ga., said via e-mail that he also thinks IT workers aren’t jumping at new job opportunities. “People seem to be a little scared of the economic times and are ‘living with the devil they know,’” Strout wrote. But he noted that despite the hiring difficulties, he is filling the open positions at Morris, a media company that owns publishing, radio broadcasting and outdoor advertising businesses.

Market Trends

Last week, The Conference Board Inc. said that about 4.37 million online job advertisements were placed in April, a 24% increase from the same month a year ago. Of that total, approximately 323,000 ads were in the “computer and mathematical” category, which is defined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as including occupations such as computer programmer and database administrator. The online ads in that category were up about 15% from last April, The Conference Board reported.

Gad Levanon, an economist at the New York-based executive association and research organization, said the year-over-year increases in online ads could signal an improvement in the job market. Levanon said it may also be an indication of a tight labor supply, such that companies “need to advertise more aggressively because the number of people looking for jobs is smaller.”

The AeA, a Washington-based trade group formerly known as the American Electronics Association, said in a report released April 24 that there were 5.8 million high-tech jobs in the U.S. last year — up by 3% year over year. In 2005, the number of jobs grew by only about 1%, the AeA said.

Last December, Robert Half Technology said its quarterly survey of more than 1,400 CIOs showed that 16% planned to hire additional IT staffers during this year’s first quarter, while 2% planned to make cutbacks. The net positive of 14% was the highest that the Menlo Park, Calif.-based recruiting firm had seen since the fourth quarter of 2001.

The firm reported in March that 14% of the respondents to its latest survey said they expected to add IT workers during this quarter, with 2% again planning reductions. “It’s harder to fill jobs because the demand is so great,” said Brian Gabrielson, a vice president at Robert Half Technology.

David Foote, CEO and chief research officer at Foote Partners LLC in New Canaan, Conn., described the current IT job market as “robust.” The need for workers who have SAP or .Net skills is high, and business analysts and enterprise architects are also in demand, according to Foote. “Nobody can find enough architects,” he said.

Another issue is that many employers are getting very specific about the workers they’re looking for, Foote said. For instance, he said, a company may want someone who has experience on a certain SAP application module or with the Information Technology Infrastructure Library.