Beyond Computer Science: Why Tech Teams Need to Consider Non-Traditional Backgrounds
Ben Alexander
Building meaningful partnerships with Technical Leaders to understand business challenges | ?? Host of OnPoint podcast
We know there’s a major skills shortage and huge demand for talent in tech right now. Chances are you’ve even experienced it yourself.
The scale of the issue is actually pretty staggering. The CBI says two in three businesses already have unfilled digital skills vacancies, and 95% expect their digital skills needs to grow in the coming years.
Confounding the matter, everyone’s fishing in the same candidate pool. Unable to source the talent they need within the UK, almost half of businesses now say their go-to solution for filling digital skills gaps is to hire from overseas.
So what does this tell us? That we need to start considering a different, broader talent pool.
How? By looking for people who don’t necessarily fit the mold of the “traditional tech employee”.
Or, as Expedia’s Technology Director, Jonathan Rigby, told me recently on The Insider podcast:
“In the future, we're going to need people from all sorts of different areas, including what we wouldn't have considered as tech roles in the past. People who've got philosophy degrees or people with language degrees. And it won't be that traditional, ‘You've got to have a degree in computer science.’”
Thinking about it, it’s hard to understand why we became so blinded by computer science (and other related qualifications) in the first place. After all, some of the tech industry’s leading figures – including Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg – famously dropped out of college. David Karp, founder of Tumblr, didn’t even make it through high school.
Lacking a formal degree, or a directly tech-related degree, simply shouldn’t be a barrier to working in the industry. But, from my experience, there’s definitely a mindset that you need a relevant degree to get into an engineering or programming role.
I recently placed a junior candidate into a data engineering role. They had a degree in geophysics – so they weren’t from what you’d call a traditional tech background.
Once I scratched even slightly beneath the surface, it was obvious they’d be a fantastic fit. Their degree covered mathematics, problem-solving and analytical skills. It also incorporated data analysis and Python.
A relevant background for a Data Engineer, right?
Yet it would have been easy for me (or the client) to dismiss them out of hand because they didn’t have the “right” qualification.
We’re going to see this sort of thing happening more and more, because the fact is that degrees simply can’t keep up with technology.
Take a second to think about the most in-demand skills for data scientists and you’ll probably list things like Python, R and SQL. How many candidates have taken degree-level courses in any of those? Far more likely they’ll pick up those skills through micro-courses or on-the-job training, or by reading the documentation.
So here’s my advice: stop missing out on potentially amazing candidates because you don’t like what’s listed in the “degree” section of their CV.
What do you think? Are tech employers and recruiters losing great talent by focusing on the wrong things? Or are computer science and data-related degrees really that important? Let me know in the comments below!
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Ben Alexander helps ambitious businesses change the world through the power of technology. He’s Co-Founder and Director of technology recruiter Tech Intellect and AmarTi, a technical consultancy. He also hosts The Insider webinar and podcast series, where he interviews some of Europe’s most influential tech leaders. And he’s even learning Python in his spare time!
Consulting Manager @Snowflake
3 年The desire to do a job is more telling than a qualification. A qualification that grows out of desire to be better at what you do is very valuable for employer and employee, a qualification for it's own sake tends to be detrimental. We are running an academy for this reason and, as you say, growing our own data engineers. Combining passion, real world experience and targeted development benefits both a company and the individuals and therefore the industry as a whole. When you start out a qualification is generally all you have. Once you have been working for a few years your experience and the way you present it is the major differentiator as non-fundamental qualifications age out in a few years. Moral has been to look at the whole package rather than one make or break skill / endorsement.