Applicants report that HR managers do not understand their qualifications at all.
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Do you know the difference between a data scientist and a data analyst? Many German companies don’t know him – but they should, in order to find the right staff for a future-oriented company. While a data scientist only knows the problem and tries to solve it with machine learning, for example, the data analyst has a huge amount of data from which she wants to gain insights.
In a Handelsblatt survey of the 40 Dax companies on personnel plans for 2023, 19 out of 22 said they were looking for IT. Not everyone was able to name specific job profiles. Instead, some companies used vague terms such as IT expert, digital specialist or IT specialist. When there is talk of a lack of IT specialists in Germany, a number of professions are simply summarized. This is a problem for two reasons.
Firstly, unclear job descriptions mean that fewer young people are interested in the job. According to the digital association Bitkom, the 137,000 open IT positions cannot be filled with domestic staff anyway. If, in addition, the requirements are not tangible, an application appears unattractive. There are no nerds behind software developers – the basics of a programming language can be learned in a few months.
Second, if a HR department doesn’t know exactly who they’re looking for, it takes much longer to fill the position. High unnecessary costs arise. For example, applicants report rejections because HR did not understand in the interview that the qualifications were sufficient.
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Some already have a clear idea. For example, Heidelberg Materials is looking for “SAP S/4HANA Specialists”, i.e. expertise with an explicitly named software. Allianz and VW even train and develop themselves.
Even such targeted searches do not solve the shortage of skilled workers. But they send clear signals to the labor market. Other companies, especially medium-sized companies, should take this as an example.
More: The Dax companies will advertise these positions in 2023