IT Recruiter: We look more at the actual capabilities of the candidates than at how they obtained them or if they have a college degree

The IT industry is one of the few in Romania that registers evolutions at the level of Western standards, thus managing to bring on the territory of our multinational country in search of labor. I talked with the Senior Recruitment Manager of ALTEN Romania, the local subsidiary of the French group specializing in IT consulting and engineering ALTEN, about the challenges of the labor market in this sector.

A Keysfin analysis from the end of 2018 described Romania as the Silicon Valley of Europe, mentioning the fact that our country has a higher number of engineers per capita than in the United States, India, China or Russia.

"These features that make it so attractive to employers also mean that the local labor market is one of the most competitive in the region, if not in Europe. Every year, in Romania, tens of thousands of students graduate from technical faculties, but the need on the market is even three times higher. Moreover, the competition on this market increases from year to year, as more and more players come to open local offices, thus putting pressure on the available labor force ", states the specialist.

Also in the same analysis, it was stated that our country continued to be one of the best markets in the EU, the return on investment in this sector being higher than in developed Europe or the US, with an average annual cost still low, about 12 euros per hour.

"Due to the ratio between cost and quality, Romania seems at the moment a good target"

Two years later, analysts at Keysfin mention that Romanian IT specialists have excellent productivity, increasing by over 18% in the last 5 years and over 11% compared to 2018, reaching an average level of 56.2 thousand euros / employed in 2019.

"Beyond attracting talent, however, I believe that all countries in the group face the same macro challenges. Romania seems at this moment a good target for the development of local activities, due to the good ratio between cost and quality. This means, from my point of view, that especially now, when most companies are extremely attentive to this aspect, as well as due to the accelerated digitization that allows us to work more efficiently from a distance, we will become more and more attractive as country ”, explains ALTEN Romania's representative.

The ALTEN representative states that it is not unusual for, in such a competitive market, the identification of the right person for a role in a company in the IT&C industry to take several months.

"We are always looking for experienced specialists, but beyond that, we also look carefully at the personality (...) The technologies for which we have insufficient IT specialists on the market are Java Script profiles and, especially, those with frameworks Angular and Node.Js ”, adds Vasilescu.

"We look much more closely at the capabilities than at the way they acquired them."

An international trend in the IT industry in recent years is the employment of people without a degree in the field. Technology companies such as Google and Apple are also trying to innovate in the field of education, offering new programs that encourage the development of highly sought-after skills in the industry in which they operate and for which students are not prepared in school.

Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, said in 2019 that about half of those hired in U.S. offices in the past year did not have a degree to complete higher education. Along with Google and IBM, the tech giants form a group of companies that do not require this diploma to hire in certain positions.

"Indeed, this trend characterizes the market and recent recruitment efforts. The demand for labor currently exceeds the supply, and this makes any company, including us, look with much more attention and openness to the concrete capabilities of people than to the way they acquired them or if they are accompanied by a college diploma ", states the specialist.

Courses, webinars or services such as Bookster and 7Card are some of the benefits that ALTEN brings to employees to cover both their professional development needs and leisure activities.

ALTEN Romania registered a 5% increase in turnover in the first nine months of this year, compared to 2019, adding 11 new customers for which it offers technical consulting and engineering services. By adding these partners, the ALTEN Romania portfolio reaches a number of approximately 100 companies operating in industries such as: production, telecommunications, banking, automotive, insurance, pharmaceutical, retail and aeronautics.

The ALTEN Romania team is involved in software development projects, business analysis, business intelligence (BI), project management, technical support, automotive engineering or hardware design. In fact, the company's IT&C division includes consultants specializing in Java, .NET, PHP, C #, C ++, Siebel, Cognos, MS BI and Oracle BI, BSCS, while the technical division has a team of consultants specializing in CATIA V5, NewPDM, SolidWorks, Matlab / Simulink, HIL and Autosar.

Article published by Wall-Street.