No Relief in Sight for Tech Recruiting, Retention Pain

If you’re finding that recruiting top technology talent is your biggest headache right now, you might take some consolation in the fact that you’re hardly alone.

According to the results of a recent study, a large percentage of managers are feeling your pain, and there’s no relief in sight.

The study, “2014 Tech Hiring and Retention Survey” conducted by New York executive search firm Harris Allied, found that hiring and retaining tech talent is the No. 1 concern of 42 percent of the managers surveyed. I recently had the opportunity to discuss the findings with Kathy Harris, managing director of Harris Allied, and I opened the conversation by asking her if she found any of the results of the survey to be especially surprising. She said she saw several surprises in the survey data this year:

We were surprised to see guaranteed annual cash bonuses cited in the talent attraction data. We were also surprised by the high number of respondents (60 percent) who reported that they were unaware when one of their team was being pursued by a competitor. Teams generally work closely together and one would think there would be signs if someone were interviewing. The percent of respondents cited using counter offers as a retention tool is also higher than we would expect, and reflects a tightening talent market.

Don Tennant is a contributing writer on IT management and career topics with IT Business Edge since 2009