A global pandemic, unstable economies, developer shortages, advances in AI… It’s fair to say that there’s a lot going on with tech hiring these days.
I’ve been working in the tech talent industry for 10+ years and even I’m amazed by how tech hiring continues to transform. Without a doubt, I can sympathize with the 61% of HR managers who believe hiring developers will be their greatest challenge moving forward.
As you plan your talent acquisition strategy for 2023, it’s important that you have a good grasp of these emerging tech hiring trends for Latin America. By understanding them, you can better prepare your recruitment team to attract top talent, fill your teams for productive product development and retain your best developers in the long term.
Top Trends in Latin America for Tech Hiring
1. Developer Shortages in the U.S. and Canada Will Continue To Drive More Tech Hiring from LATAM.
Developer shortages in the U.S. and Canada keep looming over organizations requiring specialized tech talent to build their products. The need is dire, with experts predicting a shortage of four million developers by 2025.
Given these circumstances, U.S. companies are looking beyond their borders to find and hire talented tech professionals. In the second half of 2021 alone, tech hiring from Latin America increased by 286% – more than any other region worldwide.
Why Latin America? In addition to having over one million talented software developers, LATAM is a nearshore outsourcing location offering workday overlap with North America. In addition, developers here are known for their top technical skills, English proficiency, and budget-friendly costs (about 50% less compared to the U.S.).
2. Contract Recruitment Will Boom in the Tech Sector During 2023.
Contract recruitment – when companies hire interim tech professionals to immediately fill their specialized needs – is another top tech hiring trend to watch for in 2023.
Companies have had enough of understaffed and burnout IT teams, resulting in lagging product development. Instead, they’re filling vacant long-term positions through contract and freelance recruitment in the hopes of keeping up their product schedules in a scalable way – and perhaps even turning these contract hires into long-term partnerships.
This is especially true because the current global recession has slowed down hiring and made it desirable to find talent now without the initial high cost of a direct hire. Just consider that Google’s contract workforce outnumbered its direct employee count for the first time in 2018, a trend that many more U.S. companies will likely follow.
3. Companies Will Increasingly Focus on Soft Skills.
Tech recruiters are more focused on soft skills than ever before. Companies are catching on to the fact that 75% of employment success is driven by mastering soft skills, while only 25% is determined by technical skills.
(Source: Digital Information World)
In fact, the soft skills training market is expected to expand its market size to $66 billion by 2030. For the tech industry in particular, soft skills are “must-haves” to create emotionally smart, creative, and user-driven teams. Some of the most in-demand skills include collaboration at 22.5% and innovation at 19.2%, among others.
4. Diversity Efforts Will Become a Priority for Companies and LATAM Partners.
Recruitment has undoubtedly become more tech-centered with AI-based tools to discover talent, streamline applications, screen candidates, and even forecast tech hiring trends.
Besides greater efficiency, the biggest benefit of a tech-oriented approach is that it helps erase unconscious bias during recruitment and opens up roles to global locales with more diverse candidates.
This is especially important for companies that hold diversity as a core value and want to diversify their teams to benefit their products and workplace culture. (Not to mention that diversity leads to enhanced innovation!)
In 2023, organizations and their talent partners in LATAM will continue to prioritize efforts to hire more women in tech and boost inclusion through diverse developer profiles.
5. Remote Hiring in LATAM Will Become a Must to Attract Top Candidates.
In case you missed it, remote work has boomed since the pandemic and is here to stay. And companies should take notice to attract top developer candidates worldwide.
Nowadays, it’s no longer unusual for tech talent to demand remote and work-from-home benefits. For example, a whopping 88% of job candidates want more flexible hours, and 80% want work-from-home options, according to the Harvard Business Review.
(Source: Harvard Business Review)
Remote hiring in LATAM is having its shining moment as well, with a 10x growth in remote work and the most in-demand remote tech workforce worldwide – according to the Deel State of Global Hiring Report 2022.
For these reasons, companies need to provide generous and flexible work-from-home benefits to appeal to the best tech workers in Latin America.
6. Recruitment Partners Will Be Key to Connecting to Tech Talent in LATAM.
It’s not easy to recruit top talent from a region you’re unfamiliar with. You may face language barriers to skill tests and/or struggle to network with local universities, coding programs, and companies. Even certain aspects of a typical LATAM developer resume or skill test may be difficult to understand without deep regional expertise.
That’s why recruitment partners are vital in connecting you to tech talent in Latin America. There’s no doubt that the LATAM software industry is booming, with $22.1 billion revenue in 2021. However, without an expert to help you navigate the local tech scene, you may fail to attract the right candidates for your company’s tech requirements.
Prepare Your Company for Tech Hiring in 2023
Buckle up because I’m sure that the tech hiring scene will continue to change in 2023. My hope is that these top trends above will help you refocus your recruitment efforts and leverage opportunities to hire talent from LATAM – though we may be in for more surprises.
No matter the challenges ahead, be sure to keep the pulse on new tech hiring trends, so you can more successfully attract and retain the best developers today!