RITE talent bulletin

1. Semi-Annual Talent Bulletin
Dec 2017

2. About RITE
RITE enhances the economic vitality and prosperity of Northeast Ohio – its companies and its
residents - by speeding progress to a highly skilled, industry-responsive IT workforce.
RITE’s mission is to attract, prepare, and place IT talent through:
 Industry leadership
 Dynamic programs
 Regional, cross-sector collaboration
Formed in 2009 by regional industry leaders to address the IT talent gap, RITE provides a
powerful platform for regional engagement, collaboration and creativity. It is the only
employer-led entity in Northeast Ohio that links and leverages a fast-growing network of
industry partners with educators and other career development professionals from a range of
IT education and economic/ workforce development organizations. RITE engages and connects
IT leaders and professionals as strategists and thought leaders, investors, and volunteers.
About the HR IT Roundtable
The HR IT Roundtable – central to RITE’s work - is the leading group that brings together those
who work on the front lines of recruiting IT talent for their employers. The Roundtable creates
a platform for employers to collaborate with their peers and engage directly in efforts to
address the pervasive and confounding IT skills gap facing our region. Together, we are
generating insights into IT employer pain points beyond what the data reflects. Employers are
discussing ways to band together to address and implement what they think could be feasible
solutions to expand the talent pipeline. RITE’s HR IT Roundtable meetings are organized in
partnership with OHTec, The Greater Cleveland Partnership and ConxusNEO.

3. About the RITE IT Talent Bulletin:
Documenting Actionable Strategic Labor Market Insights
The inaugural issue of this bulletin attempts to document highlights from recent research
quantifying the skills gap for IT workers and subsequent conversations with attendees at the
first and second official meetings of the new HR IT Roundtable. This copy (v.1) is being
distributed for comment on the data and reflections on key issues and challenges facing IT
employers as represented by those attending the last two sessions of the Roundtable. A logical
next step would be to galvanize action through employer consensus on feasible solution(s.)
Then with that shared understanding and unified voice engage with educators to design specific
interventions to address gaps in the very near term (six months to a year) and/or through
development of and/or access to funding/ resources available in the region.
Understanding the IT Skills Gap in Northeast Ohio
Research Highlights 2017
Skills Gap is defined as demand (quantified by the # of job postings) – supply (# of graduates
from post-secondary and vocational education AND core skills/learning objectives of IT
programs).
Of the total no. of IT jobs (21,000) posted in 2016 based on Burning Glass data, the percentage
breakdown for the three levels are:
Entry-level (0-2 yrs.) 23.6%
Mid-Level (3-5 yrs.) 53.1%
Senior Level (6+ yrs.) 23.4%
Postings with specified work experience 13531
Postings without specified work experience 7560
Total # of postings 21,091
Top 5 most-in demand Entry level jobs:
Roles # of postings
Computer Support Specialist 699

4. Software Developer/Engineer 652
Systems Analyst 262
Network Systems/Administrator 159
Cyber Information Security Analyst 146
Total # of postings 3,207
Top 5 most-in demand Mid- level jobs:
Software Developer / Engineer 2,060
Systems Analyst 633
Network Engineer / Architect 444
Network / Systems Administrator 443
Database Administrator 383
Total # of postings 7,185
In alone produced 1,115 completers from all IT Programs in 2015.
Certificates 136
Associates 473
Bachelors 506
Total 1,115
At the bachelor’s level:
a) There is only one graduate for every 6 entry level jobs.
b) One graduate for every 30 job ads for software Developer role.
c) Numeric gaps too large to breech in a few years.
At the Certificate or Associate Levels:
Graduates fall short for several entry-level openings according to the study. There are four
times as many job ads for IT occupations than potential applicants with Certificates or
Associates degrees.
Interestingly, there is also an oversupply of graduates for certain occupations. For example,
there were only 50 job ads but 241 completers from programs with matching knowledge and
skill requirements for jobs like: UI/UX Designer, Telecommunications Engineer, Network/

5. Systems Support Specialists, Data Warehousing Specialist, Web Designer, and Computer
Scientists.
At the Mid-Level, current demand for experienced workers is being met through:
a) Hiring from the IT pool from within and outside the region.
b) Outsourcing
c) Offshoring
The challenges of hiring within the region’s incumbent IT workforce include:
a) Fixed number of IT workers in the talent pool.
b) Incumbents lacking/ needing upskilling in newer skill sets due to tech. innovation and
advancement.
c) Employers responding by filling IT openings from other disciplines like Engineering,
Business etc.

6. 2017 HR IT Roundtable Insights
The Skills Gap research identified opportunities for greater alignment of IT post-secondary
education and training as well as the need for more responsive delivery models like boot
camps. To generate real actionable intelligence, employer feedback is needed to validate and
dig deeper than what the data may reveal on face value.
Expanding the perspectives of education and training providers as well as other workforce
providers will ultimately result from labor market insights generated by a representative cross-
section of IT employers.
RITE attempted to undertake precisely this objective by vetting findings from the research with
a cross-section of employers from NEO through the HR IT Roundtables in June and September.
At the June 15 HRIT Roundtable, we elicited feedback to generate new insights regarding some
of your toughest recruiting challenges in general and certain hard-to-fill roles and skill sets in
particular, like the mid-level software developer. Based on your feedback to a series of
questions, here is an attempt to summarize what we learned. (Responses are verbatim and
being listed for convenience as they vary on several dimensions and are as diverse as the
organizations themselves and the unique challenges they may face.)
June 15Th
HRIT Roundtable Participants:
1. AmTrust
2. Binary Defense
3. Dakota Software
4. Eaton
5. Expedient
6. Hyland Software
7. Jump Start Inc.
8. OnShift
9. Sherwin Williams
10. Staffing Solutions
11. TMW Systems
What are the main talent challenges facing your organization?
 The Mid-level developer is a challenging role to fill.
 Unqualified applicants.
 Sponsorship needs, H 1-B.
 Python/ Open Source hard to fill.

7.  Not enough talent, every agency presents the same talent, everyone wants to be a
Project Manager, not enough coding experience, employers do not want remote
employees.
 Need for soft skills
 Lack capacity to teach new grads or boot camp grads.
 Need for a culture fit.
 Not many entry level needs.
 Hire people to move up, don’t have the time to teach.
 Difficult to find senior talent for start-ups in the region.
How are you trying to deal with these challenges now? What’s working and what’s not?
 Employee branding/ marketing
 Brand is huge help.
 Struggle with branding, marketing to Colleges as an IT company
 Front end employee branding and marketing, Name is not a brand name to attract early
talent.
 Finding the right level of talent, interns (early)
 Colleges, boot camps, co-op program, moved team agencies to internal security,
engaging managers.
 Recruiting team is innovating to get young kids in technology.
 Formalizing career paths for folk’s younger, in school.
 Mid-level talent compensation wise can’t compete. Internal equity issues. Hire fresh
grads, create pipeline.
 Skills could be trained internally. Better for retention. 240 IT vs 700 applicants in
Accounting and Finance.
 Building awareness on campus.
 No degree requirement.
 Entry to Mid-millennial impatience
 “Coding challenge” to assess skills of candidates; not every job needs a bachelor’s
degree-
 Present a “perfect” candidate at a higher price and then present some of a lesser
amount
What are some current assessments being used to gauge technical and soft skills for an
experienced hire?
Prove IT Skills, In-House Assessments, Behavior Based Interviews, Hyland 8 questions, Para
Coding, Lominger, HackerRink, hands-on assessments, Case studies, Technical Assessments,
Internships- mix of technical and behavioral, Handle in Customer Scenarios, Personality,
Wonderlik

8. What kind of training and development opportunities are in use to promote talent from within
to meet your hiring goals?
 Internal promoting, Employee referral for 50% Hires.
 Internal Mentoring, HR-emerging, leading internal training example, C#
 Teaching mid-level developers
 Security talent unit developed in the area
 Staffing Agencies
 Rigorous Leadership
 Third parties, Strategic BI type people- Development, Internal Internships- mix of
technical and behavioral
Boot Camps
 Spreading knowledge for other than Software Developers
 Good to have relationships w/ Boot Camps and give them feedback
 Boot camps should educate participants on other paths
How do you change systems?
 Require co-ops/ internships (relevant)
 Streamlined strategy for schools in the region
 Better employer exposure- panels, career paths.
 Need to make NEO more Tech. attractive
4) Given access to funding/grant-based-opportunities, what would be a sustainable
approach/model to build the incumbent workforce for the mid-level developer?
(Unanswered due to time constraints)
At the HR IT Roundtable on Sept 27th
, we asked attendees to react more formally to the Skills
Gap research to determine how the findings compared with the perspectives from a sample of
our Industry partners. We also asked a key question – if the region could rally around the need
to develop a sustainable pipeline of talent for 1-2 key roles, what would they be? And further,
for those key roles, what could be done to close the gap between the available and insufficient
supply and the demand.
Sept 27th
HRIT Roundtable Participants:
1. Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank
2. Dakota Software

9. 3. Expedient
4. Form Fire
5. Hyland Software
6. Hyper Productive
7. Jump Start Inc.
8. OEC
9. OnShift
10. Secure State
11. Sherwin Williams
12. TMW Systems
The HRIT Roundtable discussion centered in particular around talent needs where employers
could organize an effort with educators to make a significant impact on one –two occupational
shortages in the near-term.
HR practitioners and managers in September identified the following occupations:
Entry Level Mid-Level
 Software Support Specialist
 Help Desk
 Software Developer
 DBA
 Tech Sales
 E-Commerce Analyst, Architect
 Risk Management/Audit
It is important to note that although the HR IT roundtable employer picks for top entry and mid-
level roles may differ from what the data shows, it is the broader skills and skills sets that
should be the area of focus. Occupational titles in the data reflect postings from all employers
in the region and in and of themselves may or may not directly align with specific titles being
currently used by employers at the HR IT Roundtable.
The following solutions were identified along with their pros and cons by the employers
participating at the Roundtable.
a) Produce more experienced graduates through significant ramp up of paid
internships and co-ops with small to medium sized companies and non- traditional
Entry-Level Talent:

10. student populations (e.g. transitioning adult workers at community colleges)
Pros Cons
 Liberal Arts approach
 Soft skills
 Culture fit
 Funnel
 Hyland- 110- 83% hired on or retained
 hired 33, 31 still with the company
 Budget limitations for Interns
 Managers lacking the time to focus
 Funding
 Process around Intern Applications
 Time around intern approvals can be
long
b) Maximize enrollment in the right programs.
c) Expand enrollment in for-profit boot camps e.g. Software Craftsmanship Guild, Tech
Elevator, We Can Code IT and others. Increase partnerships of boot camps with credit-granting
institutions; CBE, PLA,
Pros Cons
 Passionate Individuals
 Some open to non-traditional career
paths
 Not enough training
 Skills not strong enough
 Do not want entry level roles
 Not many interested employers
Pros Cons
 College Credit saves $
 Reduce IT Career Stigma
 Teachers/Faculty
 HS + Higher
 Not Career Services
Pros Cons

11. d) Launch an intensive career advisement and assessment process with students with
significant degree attainment but in wrong programs or non-IT majors into
e) A RITE pilot / intervention which can become an annual event is aimed at producing
better equipped entry level talent from participating NEO universities and colleges.
Students are selected and assessed on employer specified soft and technical skills and
assessments prior to receiving a 1 or 2 week long crash course, delivered collaboratively
by college career services and faculty and/or Industry reps to address specific skills gaps.
They can then be screened for culture fit by participating employers for summer/fall IT
internships and/or potential entry level opportunities.
a) Overhaul employer job descriptions in specific classifications.
b) Target veterans.
Pros Cons
 Certifications and skill codes out of
military
 More loyal, hardworking and
dedicated
 Identifying skills in relation to
 Getting into the schools; advisors and
counselors would welcome quality
training on breadth and requirements
of IT roles
Pros Cons
 Provides Clarity/ Modernize
 Mid. Vs. Senior
 Standardization
 10 yrs. stagnation
 Adaptive Excellence
 Challenge to change perception of
tracks
 Not specific enough to attract
Mid-Level Talent:

12.  Well skilled
c) Organize boomerang marketing initiative
Pros Cons
 IT CLE branding
 Mid-senior
 family
 East side- west
 Source from Columbus-Amazon
 Bringing talent to Cleveland
 Has anyone done this yet?
 Career Services
 OSU draws IT
 Cool factor
 Centralized
 Young
 Seeing how great Cleveland is now
and comparable to major cities
 Accurately showing diversity of City
At the HR IT Roundtable on December 14th, we circulated this Bulletin to ask for any additional
feedback about the data or insights being generated.
We communicated that this bulletin would represent the output of the HR IT Roundtable and
after the Spring Meeting with Educators scheduled in March, would be presented to RITE’s
Board for discussion and consideration.
Members of the HR IT Roundtable also received a presentation from Eaton on their Early Talent
programs. For a copy of this presentation, please contact RITE.
Jennifer Carlson, the Executive Director at Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA)
Workforce Institute. presented information regarding Apprenti Initiative which combines paid
on-the-job training and education for placement in, in-demand mid-tier IT occupations.
Developed by the Washington Technology Association, Apprenti is establishing itself in Ohio
and working across the state with several partners. In Northeast Ohio, RITE, OHTec/Greater
Cleveland Partnership, and ConxusNEO are taking the lead to gauge interest among regional
employers. The question before employers is whether or not this model should be
implemented to address identified talent shortages and needs.
Apprenti focuses on getting women, veterans and underrepresented minorities into tech fields
through assessments and addresses skills gaps through training and Industry certifications.

13. Upon training, the candidates are matched with companies for a year long apprenticeship
contingent upon successful completion of the training and certification.
Here is a list of occupations that are in focus for Apprenti:
Database Administrator
Project Manager
Network Security Administrator
Web Developer
Software Developer
Windows Systems Administrator
Linux Systems Administrator
Cloud Support Specialist
https://apprenticareers.org
Dec. 14th HRIT Roundtable Participants:
1. Blue Chip LLC
2. BlueBridge Networks
3. Cleveland Clinic
4. Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank
5. Dolbey Digital Systems
6. Eaton
7. Expedient
8. Experis
9. FormFire
10. Hyland
11. Hyper Productive
12. Jumpstart Inc.
13. On Shift
14. Parker Hannifin
15. Sherwin-Williams
16. Taazaa Software
17. TMW Systems
18. Vertical Knowledge
Based on the findings of the HR IT Roundtable to date, the Spring meeting is designed to discuss
with higher education partners of the RITE Board what they are doing to meet employer
demand for IT workers relative to the findings in this report and what else could be done to
leverage the assets and capabilities of the higher education system to meet both entry-level as
well as the more advanced, mid-level needs.

14. Ultimately, the objective is to identify opportunities where employers could organize an effort
with educators to make a significant impact on one –two occupational shortages in the near-
term.
JUST IN!!!
IT OCCUPATIONAL DATA FOR 2017- Burning Glass
Entry-level (0-2 yrs.) 24.4%
Mid-Level (3-5 yrs.) 51.8%
Senior Level (6+ yrs.) 23.8%
Total # of postings 16,689
Total IT postings = 16,689
Ads Stipulating Work Years 10,909
Ads with no info 5,780 34.6%
Top 5 Entry level In-demand occupations for 2017
Software Developer / Engineer 544
Computer Support Specialist 540
Systems Analyst 228
Data Entry Clerk 155
Cyber / Information Security Engineer / Analyst 117
Total # of postings 2,660
15.9% entry level
Top 5 Mid-Level In demand occupations for 2017
Software Developer / Engineer 1,588
Systems Analyst 590
Database Administrator 315
IT Project Manager 304
Computer Support Specialist 276
Total # of postings 5,650
33.85% are mid-level jobs

15. Total no. of postings for 2017 = 16,689
Footnote: The job postings in 2017 were down significantly compared to 2016.
35% of the total jobs posted did not include prior job experience as a requirement, even when
preferred.