Online job postings for tech and accounting professionals have cooled significantly since 2013 when so many companies were hiring accountants and software engineers that the jobs were among the most advertised online.
Now they’ve been replaced by retail and customer facing jobs on Wanted Analytics’ list of the Top 25 Most Common Jobs Posted Online.
What this means, as an earlier report from Wanted said, is that employers are giving up recruiting for the toughest jobs, and instead are turning them over to agencies and staffing firms to fill.
Where previously jobs for software engineers, java developers, accountants, and senior accountants all ranked in the top 25, sales associates (No. 6), cashiers (No. 10) and merchandiser (No. 17) jobs made the list instead. Also making a first appearance are certain jobs in trucking, an occupation where worker shortages have become keen enough to warrant notice by the Federal Reserve.
Few of these jobs pay enough to interest headhunters. Those that might are still more cost-effectively filled by in-house recruiters.
But with IT unemployment hitting a seven -year low of 2.3 percent in the first quarter of this year and the rate for accountants at 2.9 percent, recruiting for these jobs has become intense enough that employers are calling on agencies for help.
Wanted’s analysis of who’s placing various online job postings found that the percentage growth of agency ads for IT and accounting jobs is exploding. Agency ads for software and applications developers grew by 73 percent; for accounts, by 68 percent.
Said Meredith Amdur, president and CEO of Wanted, “Staffing firms are being hired to fill excess jobs that HR teams can’t fill internally either due to overall challenging conditions or lack of internal recruiting time and resources especially for these jobs with niche skill sets.”
Wanted’s recommendation: “Employers may be able to reduce the time to fill and cost per hire by enlisting a third party agency that specializes in these areas and has the industry-specific resources to connect with qualified candidates.”