The right information can make all the difference, whether you want to negotiate a higher salary, steer your career into a leadership role, or weigh the value of contract opportunities with employers.
Agile, the IT staffing company, shares the insights below to guide you in your job search. The data, compiled by branch director Matthew Marini and his team, comes from applicant tracking systems, job board information, and employer and candidate reporting over the previous year. See the results of the research, and contact Agile to learn how we can support your career.
There is a growing divide between employer needs for IT talent and the number of candidates available. Agile’s article on the best IT career paths shares more details on this trend.
As a result of increasing competition for talent, our Atlanta headhunters are seeing employers hire candidates with less experience for higher-level roles. Software developers can often move from entry level to a mid-tier role within only a year or two and see a big bump in their compensation.
You may look at the “14 years” figure for senior-level roles and think that this number seems high. Remember, this figure represents the average years of experience for all job candidates — not the experience that candidates have when they first start applying to senior-level roles. The senior-level stage of a person’s career can encompass the majority of their professional life; IT workers might be in a senior-level job for 30 years. We have seen professionals with as little as seven years of experience being hired for senior-level positions.
The takeaway: there is a higher percentage of less-experienced candidates filling IT jobs. If you have been delaying a move to a position with more responsibility and higher compensation based on your time in the profession, you may be able to advance sooner than you thought.
Agile works with candidates at different points in their career, often helping them make the leap from one plateau to the next. Our Atlanta headhunters found that successful candidates for C-level positions most often came from the vice president role.
This isn’t to say you should limit your professional plans if you aren’t currently a VP. Look beyond the job title when you evaluate opportunities.
The compensation, responsibilities, and prestige of jobs at different companies can vary greatly even if they share the same title. You can be the CTO of a business with a handful of employees and have a completely different experience than if you were a vice president at a Fortune 500 company. Carefully consider a position’s fit before you make your move to the next level.
CareerBuilder puts the average salary for an IT director in Atlanta at $120,000. On average, director-level job seekers who partnered with Agile received $152,000 in total compensation.
Professionals who worked with our Atlanta headhunters earned more compared to the average (as provided by CareerBuilder’s compensation portal). This is the result of a few different benefits that Agile offers:
Most of the employers that Agile supports enter relationships with contractors with the intention of bringing on those workers full time. These companies typically hire on a contract basis because they want greater flexibility, both to get to know a candidate and to grow the company at a predictable rate.
Several years ago, candidates weren’t as open to contract positions, particularly if they were already in a full-time job. Now, they have greater confidence that they will receive a full-time offer through these opportunities. Because of growing competition for talent, businesses are motivated to hire contract workers rather than losing them to another company. Agile also makes contract-to-perm easier for candidates by providing the type of support they would receive as a full-time employee, including benefits, life insurance, and 401K eligibility.
Beyond reviewing job-related statistics, Agile asked job seekers about why they decided to partner with an IT staffing firm. Here are the most common reasons that they gave us.
Agile specializes in IT staffing. This focus means that we have experience and connections with many employers, including those you may want to approach. This goes beyond knowing if a company is hiring and which positions are going to be opening up soon. We can also give you insights into their recruiting process, help you decide if the company culture is a fit, and describe common career paths to you.
IT job seekers are frequently bombarded with employment opportunities that don’t fit their interests. Professionals tell us that they worked with Agile because we present them with the types of positions that they want, and we handle the administrative challenges of exploring multiple openings and offers.
The statistics above bear this out, as the average compensation package, we help candidates get can be significantly higher than the norm. When you work with us, you will not experience any surprises after investing time and effort in rounds of interviews. When we present you to a potential employer, you will already know the salary ranges, benefits, and other details.