To understand what’s hot in the IT job market today, just ask yourself a simple question: When is the last time you checked your mobile device or used the mobile Web?
According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, the number of mobile Web-connected devices will exceed the world’s population in 2013. As for mobile apps, the global market is expected to make $25 billion in revenue this year, up 62% from a year ago, according to Gartner.
It’s no wonder, then, that mobile development (for both iOS and Android) hit the No. 1 spot in a recent study by tech recruiter Cybercoders that looked at today’s hottest tech skills. Tech pros with mobile development skills were getting an average of four to five job offers, according to the Framingham, Mass.-based company, which analyzed more than 10,000 tech companies and their hiring requirements.
The trouble is, given the fast growth in mobile, market demand exceeds supply. The question for companies is how to acquire mobile skills quickly enough to fulfill their mobile strategies.
“We’re definitely seeing a lot of pain in trying to find mobile developers these days,” says Scot Melland, CEO of DICE Holdings, Inc. One of the fastest growing areas, he says, is HTML 5, a mobile optimized language that is seeing a 52% year-over-year increase in demand on Dice, Melland says.
Additionally, demand for IT professionals with iPhone development experience is up 20% from last year, he says. Interestingly, he adds, Android demand is up just 8%, despite Android being a bigger market, globally. That finding is likely due to Dice’s focus on the North American market, he adds.
[TOP TECH HOARDERS: 15 companies with hugh cash piles]
One idea is to simply buy the talent, as Walmart did last year, in its acquisition of mobile agency Small Society. But that strategy isn’t feasible for everyone. Here are some ideas from recruiters and IT professionals who have tackled this challenge head-on.
1. Team up with marketing: Much of the interest in mobility stems from the marketing function of the business, which Gartner has famously projected will outspend IT departments on technology investments by 2017. “It’s a significant shift,” says Michael Kirven, founder and CEO of Mondo, a New York-based technology resource provider. “For the first time, marketing is spending on technology solutions to drive revenues and shareholder value. We’re seeing a tremendous amount of competition at the marketing level for these technology resources.”
In-demand skills, he says, include front-end user interface developers who understand how the user experience needs to appear on the mobile Web, as well as experience with HTML5.
In many cases, he says, CIOs can find themselves competing with chief marketing officers for the same resources. “Each has the same deliverables, and this is driving up the froth in the market for these high-demand skill sets,” he says.
2. Be ready for action: With a skill set as hot as mobile, Kirven advises hiring managers to be ready to pounce. “We advise companies to make decisions quickly,” he says. “You’ve got to be prepared to move fast, have your budgets aligned and people ready to make a decision quickly.’’
3. Mine your networks: For Prime Lending in Dallas, mobile apps will be a focal point in 2014, according to CIO Tim Elkins; with just one mobile developer on staff currently, it will also be a focus for hiring. The mortgage company currently has one mobile app designed for business partners to track loan status, and another is being developed to improve the mortgage experience for customers.
In order to find developers, Elkins says, “We’ve had to get very creative.” After working with major tech recruiters, “We couldn’t find anyone, and if we did, they already had three offers.” As Elkins puts it, he’s now “going old-school” by tapping the networks of current staff, peers and colleagues. “You’ve got to get people who aren’t looking,” he says.
4. Motivate current staff: Elkins is also providing his own staff with opportunities to explore mobile development, and several have become motivated enough to get up to speed on their own time. “Where we can, we’re giving people that opportunity, as long as it can happen in a timely fashion,” he says. Last year, for instance, as part of its annual Halloween celebration, the development team built a mobile game app that people could play. “It gave them a chance to tinker and experiment,” Elkins says.
5. Encourage a staff-wide mobile mindset: At Needham Bank, a community bank in Westwood, Mass., the skills and overall mindset required for mobility extend beyond the development team, according to James Gordon, vice president of IT. With an increasingly mobile workforce, Gordon is implementing an infrastructure that enables his staff to support remote workers using Apple iPhones and iPads who increasingly need access to corporate applications. The infrastructure components he has implemented include Mobile Iron’s device management system and Accellion’s secure mobile file sharing system.
“We’ve moved from supporting remote e-mail to mobile device management, and that has given rise to out-of-office productivity, Gordon says. “Now, people want to access content from their device of choice without a series of log-in steps. And that requires a skill set to architect that in a completely different way.”
For instance, SharePoint doesn’t work directly on the iPad, he says, and it’s clunky for workers to use a VPN to access the system. “It takes a crafty administrator to enable that in a secure way while keeping the user experience pristine,” Gordon says.
With Accellion, remote workers can use native versions of corporate applications on their mobile devices, within a secure “workspace.”
To build and support the new infrastructure, Gordon believes it’s more expedient to augment the skills of his current staff rather than hiring. “When you create a professional discipline internally, you can be right with it as opposed to taking time hunting down skill sets that are a hot commodity,” he says.
6. Stay ahead of corporate needs: When Gordon walks around the bank, he sees users increasingly using their iPads rather than their large-screen monitors. Still, not everybody is aware yet that they can work just as efficiently outside of the office as in it. And that’s fine – he wants to be a step ahead of the mobility onslaught rather than catching up later.
“There’s this unrecognized need that users haven’t quite gotten that they can be just as productive out of the office, and we’re laying the groundwork so the groundswell doesn’t happen after they need it,” Gordon says. “We’ve been mobile since 2008 and have supported tablets since 2010, so we’re living it as opposed to trying to catch up.”
Brandel is a freelance writer. She can be reached at marybrandel@verizon.net
