new market landscape
Thus, when preparing the survey (March-April 2022), we included 750 companies in the contour, and we made a strong-willed decision not to remove any companies from the survey until the end of it, no matter how violent changes occur in the market. These 750 companies (their logos, to be more precise) we presented to the participants for evaluation.
After completing the survey, we began to sort the companies. The barrier to getting into the rating is if the respondents do not have a more or less stable opinion about the company. Thus, for the final rating, we took only those companies about which more than 30 applicants gave a detailed assessment according to the criteria (assigned some characteristics to them) – and there were only 99 such companies.
From the list we received, we removed 16 companies that, at the time of the completion of the survey (September 1, 2022), officially left Russia and stopped hiring. In total, there are 83 companies left in the rating, which we have already built according to the attractiveness index (see details a little higher).
And now, in the words of a classic: “I get out of wide trousers …”
Study Passport
The total number of respondents in 2022 is 15,951 people. This is the number of verified questionnaires: i.e. only these questionnaires passed our validity check (there were 11,508 such questionnaires in 2021).
Our main task in the survey is to “organize a meeting” of each respondent and companies that he can evaluate in terms of recognition, attractiveness and individual characteristics. It is clear that not a single person will be able to work with all the companies in the circuit (we remind you that there are 750 of them, for a minute) – and this is not necessary.
The classifier of companies in the contour and subsequent targeting by the completed passport – this is how our preliminary sorting is arranged so that all 750 companies are not dumped on the respondent for evaluation.
In the company classifier, which we do “on the coast” in January-April, we rank companies by areas of activity, specializations, languages (here it becomes more clear which of the candidates is interesting to her and who can know about her) – we take all the data from open sources and questionnaires filled out by companies. Well, and, accordingly, the passport of the respondents in the survey corresponds to the target groups of interest to the company. Before getting into the issuance of company logos, they are checked for relevance (you never know, what kind of rebranding happened).
So it turns out that based on the classifier and the passport filled in by the respondent, we target the impressions of a set of logos (about 70 logos) to the corresponding target specialist (the one who is more likely to recognize the companies in the search results and be able to relate to them somehow).
Therefore, we showed each participant out of almost 16,000 respondents a unique set of company logos, which he could, with varying degrees of probability, recognize, evaluate by attractiveness and give some specific characteristics.
Finally, we turn to the question “who are all these people” – to the respondents, from their demographics and geography to professional specialization.
The proportion of men and women remains approximately the same as always. Nevertheless, taking into account a slightly more expanded geography and a generally increased number of respondents, a positive trend is noticeable: this year it is already almost 2 to 1 – before the gap was larger.
Let’s turn to specializations and programming languages:
Trends-2022
We are going to publish a separate article about how applicants choose employers this year and what is important for them – an interesting observation came out. Here are the key takeaways from the market landscape:
The instability of the market was reflected in the strategies of companies – in terms of attracting and retaining job seekers, and in the strategies of job seekers – in terms of finding and choosing a job. Companies began to communicate more actively, job seekers more often began to look for information about employers. Therefore, the average number of recognizable companies has increased significantly (by 37% from last year), while the average attractiveness has remained almost the same.
So far, the problem with positioning a company as a place of work remains unchanged: only 15% of companies have an employer brand, that is, when the applicant has a strong opinion about the company as an employer. Employers communicate about themselves inconsistently: they talk a lot and about different things, but do not say the main and important thing for the candidate. For example, many companies still promise a friendly team and interesting tasks, forgetting that a good EVP should qualitatively differentiate the employer from competitors and speak about the uniqueness of the company. Well… The lack of a clear positioning of the IT brand leads to a logical result: the applicant has heard something about the company and somehow relates to it, but does not understand what kind of place of work it is and why he should go there.
It is still important for IT professionals to develop their professional identity. This attitude also affects the choice of employer: most often, IT specialists prefer companies where they can make high-quality and unique products (this is generally the first thing they look at), communicate with qualified professionals, solve interesting problems and grow as an expert and personality.
Aviasales turned out to be the market leader in terms of the strength of the IT brand — this is an example of memorable situational communication, a prominent and strong IT brand with a high-quality B2C brand as the basis. It has become well recognizable by applicants, and they already have a clear company portrait with bright characteristic features.
Interest in infobez has increased, and the corresponding demand for specialized IT specialists. In the wake of this interest, job seekers often note the attractiveness of Positive Technologies, an example of a strong IT industry brand based on a recognized B2B brand.
Companies that left Russia lost an average of 13 percentage points in attractiveness. Perhaps many companies slammed the door loudly during relocation, which affected their attractiveness: IT applicants always pay attention to environmentally friendly and careful communication. If the communication is conflicting, then … the sediment remains.
In the top we again have “not giants” of the market. This, by the way, is one of the most frequent questions, and it is also a reason for criticism. Why company X, which has been on the IT market for hundreds of years, in which there are one hundred million thousand employees, which is a recognized industry authority – and suddenly not in the top? We answer. IT giants have a serious vulnerability, and this is due precisely to the size of the companies and their history:
A large-scale company with a large number of projects and employees becomes similar to production. On the one hand, it seems like the processes are more streamlined, on the other hand, a person in such a system is more a cog than an independent piece on a chessboard. Such work experience can be useful for building up expertise, but does not always contribute to the formation of personal attachment to the company.
The long history of the company is also a constant stream of hiring people with different backgrounds and different attitudes (value fit is not always possible on the stream!). Each of those hired will get their own employee experience in the company (not always positive). Combined with fairly high employee turnover/turnover, the company regularly and predictably receives both a certain number of followers and ambassadors, and a steady number of haters. So the history of the company is not only the history of its success, it is (including) the history of disappointment on the part of people who did not take root in it for various reasons. The accumulated trail of negativity is also dragged by the giant company, like a diplodocus, with its tail.
In short, even the turbulent 2022 has not yet shaken the difficulties in relations between IT specialists and IT giants: people are looking not so much for stability as for warmth (this is a spoiler about selection criteria, to be continued).
At the end of the article…
Firstly, we will continue in the near future – we will talk about the selection criteria and priorities of IT specialists, there is something to be surprised at (we are warming up interest, yes).
Secondly, of course, we are waiting for your questions and suggestions – especially on the case (in past studies, your comments helped us supplement the passport and make additions to the classifier, for example), and criticism – where without it.
Thirdly, your hypotheses about the rating itself are very interesting: due to what the leaders have a positive dynamics, why exactly these companies stood out in the top? We shared our vision above, but we will be glad to exchange ideas and practices.
