High-profile tech layoffs have brought over 300,000 tech workers into the market, expanding the availability of digital skills to a labor market that desperately needs them. For non-tech, this could be a once-in-a-generation opportunity. As Gartner® analysts suggest, “Digital companies such as Amazon, Meta and Twitter have laid off thousands of staff globally, and many CIOs are wondering whether these workers can solve the IT talent challenge.” 

But these high-in-demand workers will not join your organization unless you proactively convince them that your company is the best place for them. Tech companies have been able to hoard all the digital talent for the past decade because they’ve deployed best-in-class recruiting strategies to stand out in a crowded employer market. They put forth a brand that inspired workers. They proactively sourced the candidates they wanted instead of waiting for them to apply. Some even went as far as creating a specific brand within recruiting—technical recruiting—focused solely on charming software engineers, data scientists, and the like. On top of that, many of the world’s most successful tech companies, like Dropbox, Robinhood, Lyft, Unity, and Twilo, used Gem to fuel their growth. 

While many tech companies have paused or stopped hiring, many non-tech companies in manufacturing, financial services, and life sciences are still experiencing a hiring surge. For savvy non-tech companies serious about their digital transformation initiatives, there’s a huge opportunity to scoop up the best and brightest digital talent. 

Increasing demand and challenges for recruiting digital talent 

Every non-tech company is making digital transformation a priority, but these initiatives are being held back due to the digital skills gaps in their organizations. They need software engineers, data scientists, cloud architects, security engineers, and other roles that are key to building their digital platforms, but attracting tech (digital) talent has been a serious challenge. 

According to Deloitte, more than half of executives are focusing on digital transformation, yet 46% of them say limited skills, capacity, and ability is a constraint in delivering value from these initiatives. And only 13% of employers say they can hire and retain the tech talent they need!

And while the recent wave of tech layoffs has helped expand the tech talent pool, Gartner® points out, “Layoffs from digital companies will only slightly ease but not materially change the IT talent challenge.”  For non-tech companies, simply being available is not enough. Research from Gartner, Mckinsey, and Deloitte has summarized that the key to winning tech talent relies on a few key strategies:

• Proactive recruiting: Modifying your talent sourcing strategy based on the tech skills you need, because talent availability varies widely by function and role.

• Evolving employee value propositions: Recruitment marketing plays a major role here. Prized digital talent does not want to work for a bland brand. You must showcase employer value propositions that inspire tech talent ( it’s about much more than compensation). 

• Stellar candidate experience: For tech talent, it’s still a worker’s market—which means companies need to ensure they’re offering a consumer-grade experience to every candidate. That means proactive follow-ups, fast hiring processes, and full transparency. 

Note: To learn more about the best strategies for competing for tech talent, check out How to lure tech talent from tech.

Gem: your cheat code for tech talent

For the past five years, Gem has helped tech companies hire with remarkable speed and efficiency. Recently, the need for tech talent has shifted to companies in other industries, and Gem customers in those verticals have seen remarkable success as well. 

• Celestica filled dozens of engineering roles that had been open for over a year within 30 days of using Gem and achieved an 87% offer accept rate on >800 offers extended. 

• Prestige Care hired urgent senior-level roles in the first 12 months of using Gem and saved >$100,000 dollars in agency spend

Why did these teams choose Gem? Our platform automates and personalizes candidate communication, unifies all recruiting touchpoints into a single system, and unlocks usable data across the entire hiring process. It’s why our users recognize Gem as one of the highest-satisfaction products on G2, with a 4.8/5.0 rating.

Sourcing & pipeline building

To attract the best talent, companies must proactively build relationships with the people they want to hire—even those who aren’t actively looking. Gem makes it easy to automate and personalize outreach across multiple channels, engage hiring managers in the process, and deploy the most effective, data-backed strategies to deliver diverse, high-quality pipelines.

Employer branding

 Gem’s Talent Marketing solution helps teams engage and hire talent faster by executing a data-driven recruitment marketing strategy that brings more high-quality talent into the pipeline. Recruiting teams can design beautiful, on-brand career sites and landing pages that match their brand without chasing down marketing or IT resources. Our platform also consolidates event workflows by managing events, lead capture, and automated follow-ups. And most importantly, teams can measure site analytics and track the full-funnel journey of every candidate to make better decisions on how to invest their talent marketing budget.

Data-driven efficiency

Like any other function, Talent Acquisition craves data on their entire operations in one place to drive predictability and efficiency. Gem’s end-to-end analytics unlocks data from the CRM and ATS so teams can debug the funnel, track pipeline diversity, monitor team performance, improve process efficiency, forecast hiring,  and optimize budgets. 

Conclusion

Tech layoffs have expanded the digital talent market, presenting opportunities for organizations that want to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives. To attract these prized tech workers, teams need to engage in a proactive, strategic recruiting strategy that encompasses proactive sourcing, recruitment marketing, and data-driven efficiency. As the premier solution for tech companies, Gem is positioned to help non-tech companies compete for tech talent. 

See what Gem can do for you

If you’d like to learn more about how Gem can help you hire the digital talent you need, request a demo to contact our team!