These once popular tech skills now have fewer takers

The drop in hiring in the IT Services and Startup sector has impacted the demand for the once popular skillsets such as certain areas of Software Testing and Data Science, JAVA, and Technical Writing . Recruiters note that compared to two quarters ago, there is a 30% drop in demand for candidates in the junior and middle order with these skillsets.

“Software testing, spring, hibernate, technical writing is some of the tech skillsets that have seen a 30% drop in demand over the last two to three quarters,” said chief executive of Ciel HR Services. Mishra said about a year ago, candidates with these profiles were getting recruited for a 100% hike, then in June -July at a 54% increment which has petered down to 33% now. “Besides the larger firms, the medium sized tech firms and startups have also stopped hiring these candidates and this has further added to the drop in demand,” Mishra told Mint.

Software testing is used to verify the software developed and check if the product is working out correctly. JAVA is high level programming language while Technical writing requires one to draft technical communication around software and hardware and document it. Spring and hibernate are used in enterprise applications.

“We have moved towards AI, ML, SaaS, more high-level programming languagues that go beyond coding. There is less requirement of basic programming with increased automation and going ahead there will be more cases where codes etc will get designed and auto-generated,” said Prasanto K. Roy, a technology policy consultant.

Roy added that these skill sets may not be in focus in one sector but their need may crop in others as firms continue to digitize.

After almost a year of hiring frenzy to make up for the pandemic induced stagnation, companies across sectors were on a mass recruitment frenzy to digitize their businesses. That frenzy has ebbed on the back of geo-political tensions with Russia-Ukraine war and now recession in the US. In the startup sector the drop in funding and a push towards cost efficiency has led to 17,000-20,000 retrenchments since the beginning of the year.

“Recruitment is cyclical and those who were in software Testing, certain JAVA skills will see lower demand as IT services are optimizing on the talent hired. However, Cloud-based skills, Fullstack will continue to see a demand as talent available remains lesser than the available mandates,” said Kamal Karanth, co-founder of Xpheno, which specializes in tech and startup hiring.

Mint reported last week that hiring by IT outsourcing companies has dropped by 45% from the same period in 2019 and by 55% from last year.

Karanth pointed out that in this market candidates who are willing to shift jobs are asking for a 40-45% hike since they are “hedging their risks, incase their job remains unstable in the coming quarters”.

Along with reduced mass need of certain skillsets, there are roles in IT and ITenabled Services that have few takers.

“Few quarters back we used to get hundreds of mandates for ‘sales enablement roles’ where the employee should be aware of software solutions and IT products and be able to sell to customers. Now those roles which typically offered ₹3-12 lakh have taken a backseat,” said Saran Balasundaram, founder of tech recruitment firm HanDigital.