Your Talent Development Roadmap: Navigate With Confidence

Although COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on employment, the tech industry is still doing well. The stability of the tech sector throughout the pandemic can get attributed to the increased demand for technology infrastructure and services to support eCommerce, remote work models, and revamped supply chains.

As the world continues to digitize, we expect tech workers to become even more relevant. Nevertheless, attracting, managing, and retaining tech talent is often easier said than done. The limited volume of tech graduates and tech workers has contributed to a severe skills shortage. As a result, companies need to evolve to compete in order to develop and train tech talent.

We composed a comprehensive guide to support you on your journey to developing tech talent. Through our three-step talent development roadmap, you’ll get a chance to learn the basics of growing your talent pool with confidence.

How to Develop Talent

If you’re wondering how to start your talent development plan, we have good news for you. There are various ways you can develop tech talent. Because all companies are different, they use distinct methods, programs, and models to fulfill their needs. Here are the three main options you may want to consider for your organization:

Upskilling or Reskilling

Instead of hiring new talent, which can often turn out to be highly expensive, consider equipping your current team with the competencies and knowledge required for success. Upskilling is the process of providing an employee with more advanced skills through continuous education and training. On the other hand, reskilling refers to teaching employees skills for new jobs.

Here are some tech skills you may want to upskill or reskill:

• Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML): These tech skills are highly in demand since they can get leveraged across departments and industries. They are handy for gaining customer insights, automating processes, and more.
• Digital marketing: Another prospective skill is the art of digital marketing. It involves using tech space such as social media, search engines, and websites to promote a brand’s products and services. If you want to upskill or reskill your employees, consider doing so with people who have a background in marketing. Those already experienced in the field can apply their knowledge and experiences to digital marketing.
• Analytics: We call analytics the process of spotting, analyzing, and communicating data patterns. Upskilling and reskilling team members in analytics can give them a better understanding of what customers want and need and how your company can improve.

Talent as a Service (TaaS)

Another way to develop talent is through a talent as a service (TaaS) service. TaaS provides high-skilled tech workers on demand through a cloud platform. Like its cousin, software as a service (SaaS), TaaS helps companies cut costs and boost efficiency. Its workers already have the experience you want, whether in digital marketing, AI, machine learning, or analytics.

What’s more, TaaS allows you to switch members based on expertise and priorities. You can even stop working with the team whenever you want since most TaaS operate quarterly or month-to-month. All of these benefits allow you to save money, time, and energy for innovation and strategy development.

Hire-Train-Deploy

Last but not least, you can obtain tech talent through a company that uses the Hire-Train-Deploy model. These companies:

• Find candidates from universities, job fairs, and other sources
• Train them on skills required by clients, and
• Deploy them to clients once they finish training

Since the Hire-Train-Deploy company does all the work, you get to save a lot of time and money. We highly recommend the Hire-Train-Deploy model for companies that need to assemble a tech team as quickly as possible.

The Three-Step Talent Development Roadmap for Companies

Before you choose to go for any of the options listed above, consider your needs and goals. If you want your efforts to be fruitful, you need a solid talent development plan. We recommend this simple three-step roadmap to every company looking to develop talent:

Audit your Current Talent Pool

Auditing your current talent pool is the first step in the process. Look through each worker’s resume, LinkedIn profile, and portfolio and ask yourself:

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of my employees?
• Are there any additional skills they should have?
• Can my current talent pool react to industry changes? For example, if 50% of my industry is already using AI, can my existing tech talent help me catch up?

Identify Your Goals

After you’ve audited your current talent pool, it’s time to identify your goals. Ask yourself the following:

• What are my goals, and how can I reach them?
• How do my goals compare to those of my competitors?
• Can my current talent pool help me achieve these goals? If not, what can I do? Can I reskill or upskill them, or do I need to engage TaaS or Hire-Train-Deploy services?

Work With an Experienced Talent Partner

Once you’ve identified your goals, it’s time to move forward with the right solution. If you need someone to help you with your tech talent, a talent development partner may be the right choice for you.

Revature is a highly-experienced employer of emerging tech talent that can help you catch up to your competitors. Through our unique training programs that hire, develop, and deploy top tech talent, you can take control of your talent pipeline. Moreover, Revature helps train people faster and cost-effectively, so you can ramp up and integrate expert tech teams right away.

Wrapping Up

Developing talent can be challenging in the fast-moving tech industry. Staying up to date with the latest digital advancements and upskilling or reskilling your employees is not an easy task. You may end up losing your precious time and resources and not achieving the results you want.

Revature can make things easier with a pool of cutting-edge tech talent. We provide businesses with on-demand software engineers that have the competence and skills to hit the ground running. Our tech talents go through intensive coding programs to become world-class software engineers and work on challenging, innovative, and rewarding software development projects for Fortune 500 companies, top systems integrators, and government organizations.

In other words, we reskill and upskill people, so you don’t have to. Our professionals are experts in the leading-edge skills you need, whether AI, machine learning, or digital marketing. We fuel the future of work with diverse technology talent, supporting both companies and employees on their way to success.