The 5 Hardest Jobs to Fill in 2012

An article posted on LinkedIn by Keith Cline in December suggests that the 5 hardest jobs to fill this year will be Software Engineers and Web Developers, Creative Design and User Experience, Product Management, Marketing, and Analytics.

http://linkd.in/yL1v4U

Whilst this article has a US bias we are seeing a similar trend in the UK within our specialist markets.

Here’s what some of our consultants are seeing and experiencing:

SharePoint - Richard Higgins commented “ Throughout 2011 it was apparent MS Gold Partners sought to grow their SharePoint practices with permanent resource. This was driven by the need to grow and retain knowledge and reduce their reliance on expensive contract resource.

We anticipate the demand for technically competent permanent SharePoint developers to increase in 2012. This demand and the potentially lucrative contract rates has seen an increase over the last 18 months in candidates calling themselves “SharePoint experts”. In reality many lack the necessary commercial experience and have limited or no stakeholder management skills.

The major headache for the SharePoint market is demand heavily outweighs the supply. This means that SharePoint professionals with technical competency and proven stakeholder management experience will be at a premium for the foreseeable future.”

Product Management in Pharma industries- Chris Parker commented “My view is that although this article doesn’t lend itself specifically to pharmaceutical marketing, there are some similarities in terms of our clients being cautious with the individuals they hire. There is more of a demand these days for specific experience within a desired therapeutic area with a view to hit the ground running.”

Max Tullis-Turner added “In the main, Product Managers were originally commercially driven individuals whose focus was heavily around “shifting boxes from shelves”, this certainly remains true for the Pharma sector. However this sole commercial focus is starting to disappear. The role of a Product Manager is evolving, becoming a far more complex beast. This is particularly prevalent from vacancies we’ve seen with big corporate clients in the telecoms, financial services and utilities sectors. They see their point of difference being unlocked from leveraging the swathes of data they hold about their customers. So more often than not, companies are not only seeking very good commercial skills, but also solid insight and analysis capabilities. Designing products and propositions which reflect an understanding of the customer’s wants and needs in terms of service and products, but can also provide a commercial opportunity and point of competitive differentiation.

Equally, as this seems to be a more recent transition (over the last 5 years), it comes as no surprise there is a shortage of key talent who have good quality experience of operating in this way. In essence it also means candidates used to operating the old way will find it harder and harder to transition to a new employer as they may find their way of working not being in sync with new industry expectations.

For Analysts the old adage “knowledge is power” rings rather true, and in more than one way. It’s not just about knowing the methodologies, but whether you can also utilise the right tools to the appropriate level. It’s all well and good having the word SAS in you CV, or propensity modelling. But when you’re aiming to get on board with the big boys, you need to know how to deal with both of these at the appropriate competency levels. This is where this market can be a minefield.

There seems to be an ever growing hunger for knowledge and information based strategies in end employers. So naturally there also seems to be a new data agency or analytics consultancy springing up (what seems like) each week, offering a slightly different take on how to approach analysis and insight to meet their needs. They naturally look for the same skills and experience as their clients in this area, so it helps drive the skills shortage even more.

However ‘good’ analysts are few and far between. There are a lot of candidates out there who know the buzzwords and claim to know their pivot tables from their regression analysis, but would someone capable of building a propensity model for a small company with hundreds of customers be able to cope with doing the same job for a BT or a Barclays where they will likely need to be capable of building a model with over a hundred variants and millions of customers? It’s unlikely, which is why this space can be a minefield if your recruiter doesn’t know what they’re looking for themselves.

Marketing and Analytics - Colin Doree commented “There was a lot of negativity coming out of 2011, which was natural if you watched the news. European economies stagnating or going bankrupt and predictions on UK growth almost at a stand still, it was understandable. So our initial perception of 2012 was one of pessimism.

However we are delighted to see it’s been a record start to a year for the marketing function. There has been a dramatic increase in vacancy volumes when compared to the same trading period of the previous two years.

In terms of talent shortages, the trends and challenges remain similar to those faced in previous years, with analytics and statistical marketing positions (on and offline) remaining the hardest areas in which to find highly skilled talent.

But there are other positions which have evolved due to an increasing focus on companies taking a data centric and insight driven approach to commercial decision making. It’s this evolution which has led to similar skills shortages, as the early adopters of these changes find it hard to locate suitably skilled talent.

Things like proposition development, originally highly commercial positions have evolved in recent years to be become more customer insight focused. Leveraging data to identify trends and needs in customer groups and creating commercially viable solutions to meet them. The blend and balance of commercial skills and insight led approach at times can be hard to find.

Or web analytics, where the evolving sophistication and maturity of the field has seen employers in the UK take it more seriously. Originally, when the tools were clunky and businesses didn’t know how the data could help drive commercial success online, the trend was for candidate backgrounds to evolve out of traditional online marketing disciplines. However, now the channel is more mature, these types of background are not perceived as statistical enough to meet the evolved need of these types of position. Especially now companies are starting to understand how blending on and offline data together can produce a more rounded picture of things which can help drive deeper insight. But web analytics only coming to maturity in the UK over the last three years, there’s only a limited talent pool available where people have really good, solid demonstrable abilities.”

Finally Kate McDermott added “Although this may seem like bad news for recruitment consultants and their clients, it’s great news for candidates ! Given my speciality in analytics and data driven marketing, I am hoping this may encourage some of our connections to take advantage of this candidate shortage and start putting the feelers out for new opportunities.

From personal experience over the last 6 – 12 months, and in line with this article, jobs within analytics are abundant but the candidate shortage is like none I have ever seen before. So even if you’re thinking about making a move in the Summer, it would be wise to get ahead of the pack and start looking at what’s out there now.”