IT Career Change: How Newcomers Find Their First Tech Projects
With tech talent scarce, companies turn to career changers. Smart onboarding and entry-level projects help newcomers transition successfully into IT roles.
(Image: stockfour/Shutterstock.com)
- Andreas Monschau
In the political context, the buzzword "skills shortage" is often used – denied by some, affirmed by others. Statistics show that in 2022 alone, a total of 137,000 IT vacancies remained unfilled in Germany.
Skills shortage: unfilled positions in IT
Apart from the fact that recruiters are struggling to find suitable applicants, unattractive salaries for advertised positions could be a reason for unfilled vacancies. In addition to vacant IT positions, there is another major problem: companies and public authorities in the IT environment generally want to fill their projects with technically competent people, but there is a shortage of them everywhere – this applies not only to software development, but also to DevOps, software testing (especially test automation), security, data protection or agile practitioners.
Ideally, there should be constant access to capable people at mid and senior level, but unfortunately the personnel market often does not provide the right staff. Lateral entrants could therefore be a promising alternative – People who are just waiting to prove themselves in the IT sector. However, they are often denied the opportunity because the prevailing opinion is that they "can't actually do anything that is really needed in the project".
How can they still be given a chance? What needs to change in order to find people with the potential for more? What support do they need in order to become project staff who create real added value?
This experience report shows what measures we as an IT consulting company have taken to build up a successful trainee program (not only) for lateral entrants over a period of almost ten years. The article presents some solution strategies and highlights how we dealt with setbacks.
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Where do lateral entrants come from?
There can be many reasons for lateral entry into the IT sector. Some candidates are interested in computers in their spare time, while others are attracted by a better salary. It was fascinating to see how individual and varied the applicants' reasons for taking part in the training program were. The spectrum was broad: from graduates from a wide range of disciplines to university drop-outs or trained IT specialists.
The search for suitable candidates
Suitable career changers need specific qualities: Curiosity and the drive to familiarize themselves with new topics are important. A quick grasp and a high willingness to learn are required. A good ability to reflect and teach is also essential – these are points that we attach great importance to and where a small number of trainees have failed over the years.
Certain basic technical knowledge and experience are an advantage, but much more important is how a candidate copes with (new) challenges. After an initial meeting in which the basic parameters are discussed, candidates are given a small task to complete, which takes between 20 and 60 hours, depending on their existing level of knowledge. If they are interested in the Java trainee program, for example, they will be given a practical implementation task with predefined boundary conditions. Depending on the candidate's previous knowledge, this task will be more or less demanding. It always involves the use of technologies that they are not sufficiently familiar with, as independent familiarization is part of the task.
