By akademiotoelektronik, 22/12/2022

In Tech, the talent war resumes with renewed vigor

The economic recovery has revived recruitment in the artificial intelligence and cloud professions. The sector, already in tension before the crisis, shows a crying lack of candidates.

Crisis? What crisis? In the IT professions, there is a serious lack of arms and brains. "We have never had so much work, explains Alison Donadieu, recruitment consultant at the specialized firm Silkhom. For the sector, we have one candidate for six offers."

It is particularly the Tech professions, especially those in artificial intelligence, data and the cloud that are struggling to recruit. And it's actually nothing new: the war for talent between companies has been raging for years. “It is quite obvious that the market is very demanding and everyone is recruiting”, underlined last week on BFM Business Aiman ​​Ezzat, CEO of Capgemini.

Developers, data scientists, devops… so many highly sought-after positions, whatever the size of the company. But the crisis has accelerated the movement.

The sudden demand has created a bottleneck for these professions, which are also evolving very quickly. So wages swell to attract talent that small SMEs can rarely afford.

Fundraising is increasing

But it's not just a question of candidates on the market. The profiles do not necessarily meet current expectations, warns Alison Donadieu. "Companies want experienced profiles and on the market, we mainly have juniors", she underlines. In these still recent, often changing professions, the large groups do not always have in-house trainers to welcome young graduates.

As for startups, they are also looking for solid profiles. And here too, the demand has increased. “For three months, we have seen an explosion in fundraising,” explains Maeg Horeau, Tech Recruiter at Urban Linker. BackMarket, Ledger, ContentSquare… French Tech is doing like a charm but needs to recruit massively to take a new step.

And here again, the candidates are a step behind.

However, French courses are renowned for making excellent theorists, but less focused on industrial projects. Finally, employees who have made retraining towards these professions, with rather short training courses, struggle more to get a job.

AI to the rescue of AI

How to get out of these multiple impasses? Cabinets are trying to convince companies to choose young people, even if it means waiting a few months for them to be fully operational. "This makes it possible to have an employee trained to measure for the position", underlines Alison Donadieu.

And sometimes AI can come to the rescue of AI. “Startups are starting to offer tools that relieve developers by removing certain time-consuming tasks,” explains Maeg Horeau. Clearly, AI could well reduce business demand.

However, this will still take time, while the crisis has accelerated the digitalization of companies. But this should especially be felt at the start of the school year and at the beginning of the year 2022, indicates Alison Donadieu. The war for talent is not ready to subside.

Thomas Leroy Journalist BFM Business