ACM CareerNews for Tuesday, June 4, 2024
ACM CareerNews is intended as an objective career news digest for busy IT professionals. Views expressed are not necessarily those of ACM. To send comments, please write to [email protected]
Volume 20, Issue 11, June 4, 2024
10 Most Difficult to Fill IT Roles and How to Address the Gap
CIO.com, May 28
With AI, cybersecurity, and data analytics talent in short supply, IT leaders are finding new ways to secure the talent they need. To a large extent, this talent shortage is the result of many companies looking for the same type of talent at the same time. In 2024, the jobs that are hardest to fill include those related to AI and machine learning. This is a shift from previous years, when the in-demand jobs were related to cybersecurity and data science. In addition, skills and experiences related to business and digital transformation are very much in demand.
According to recruiters, AI has leapfrogged cybersecurity in terms of skills most requested by hiring organizations. The emergence of generative AI has begun reshaping human capital requirements, necessitating new skills and roles. As a result, candidates trained in large language models (LLMs) are sometimes getting million-dollar compensation packages, with some companies poaching entire engineering teams to onboard AI talent en masse. In some cases, hiring organizations have been leveraging AI and machine learning for years. In other cases, the shift is more sudden, with a new-found emphasis on generative AI to solve business problems.
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AI Skills Bring Higher Pay and More Interview Offers
CIO Dive, May 24
Employers are significantly more likely to offer job interviews and higher salaries to job candidates with experience related to artificial intelligence. Specifically, college graduates with AI experience related to business listed on their resumes and cover letters were far more likely to receive an interview invitation and higher wage offers. According to experts, this is part of a broader shift as organizations attempt to enhance the AI skill levels of their workforces.
As part of an experiment, researchers submitted matched pairs of applicants (one with AI experience and one without) to hundreds of different companies. The goal was to see if this AI experience on the resume would have any impact on the hiring process. Overall, men with AI experience received an interview invitation 54% of the time, while men without AI experience were asked to an interview 28% of the time. Similarly, women with AI experience received an interview invitation in approximately 50% of cases, and those without AI experience were invited to an interview in 32% of cases. At large firms, applicants with AI experience were 36 percentage points more likely to be invited to an interview than in small-to-medium firms. Beyond that, men with AI experience were shortlisted for job offers with wages that were 12% higher, on average, and women with AI experience were offered interviews for jobs with wages that were 13% higher.
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Less Than a Third of Job Postings Require Years of Experience
HR Dive, May 24
As more employers focus on skills-based hiring over traditional educational degrees, less than one-third of U.S. job postings now include requirements for years of experience. This is down from 40 percent in April 2022, according to a new report from Indeed. The shift has occurred across sectors but most prominently in sectors that pay well and that typically require more education. In the past, employers often included experience requirements in job postings to screen for strong candidates, lower training costs, and reduce the risk of hiring unqualified workers.
In their job postings, employers are not just reducing the number of years of experience required. Instead, they are removing them entirely. Since April 2023, the share of postings that did not include any requirements or explicitly asked for applicants with no experience rose from 60% to 70%. Although some postings may still ask for some type of experience, fewer require a specified amount of time. One takeaway is that employers appear to be responding to the tough labor market and adapting skills-first hiring practices. Companies may also want to attract new workers with fewer requirements, as well as hire talent with less experience and education to help control costs. On top of that, experience requirements have fallen more dramatically in high-wage jobs. Since April 2022, experience mentions have fallen by more than 20 percentage points for high-wage sectors, as compared with 10 points or less in low-wage and medium-wage sectors.
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Crypto Jobs on the Rise as Bitcoin Trades Near All-Time Highs
BeInCrypto, March 23
Signs of a new Bitcoin bull market rally is fueling a surge in crypto market job opportunities. Thanks to the rapid ascent of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies over the past 12 months, companies and institutions are now expanding their teams once again. This includes crypto companies such as Coinbase, as well as traditional financial powerhouses like Fidelity. A broad range of companies are on the lookout for fresh talent, indicating a broader industry revival.
Specialized job boards for the crypto industry are experiencing a surge in demand, with postings skyrocketing. The trend has been especially noticeable in the period from January and March. Companies are now looking to fill different crypto positions, from marketers and content writers to engineers and programmers. The tide appears to be shifting, signaling strong growth prospects for companies in the blockchain and crypto space. This resurgence is closely tied to the performance of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The revival of business development roles, previously slashed during downturns, reflects a robust recovery for the sector and its readiness to scale in anticipation of future demand.
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5 Tips For Hiring the Right People For Your Startup
Inc.com, March 13
As a startup founder, hiring the right people is one of the most important things you can do to ensure the success of your business. There are many different reasons why finding the right team is important. For one thing, resources are often limited during this time, so you can not afford to make mistakes when hiring. Moreover, you need people who are committed to your brand and want it to grow. As a result, you should look for people aligned with your core values, and who have the types of skills that may not show up on resumes.
If you are hiring for a startup, the first thing you need to do is determine your core values. Your values are driving factors and goals that impact everything you do, including who you hire. If you do not understand your mission statement and what you want to achieve with your business, how can you find the right people for it? It's much easier to locate good candidates if you establish core values as early as possible. Companies should aim for three to six values that are memorable and inspiring, and that appeal to customers and employees. Of course, setting standards will not mean much if you do not act on them. So organizations should be willing to show job candidates that they are serious about their core values.
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How to Use ChatGPT to Build Your Resume
ZDNet, May 29
Whether you are seeking to launch your career or have been in the labor market for decades, you can leverage ChatGPT to build a resume that attracts the attention of recruiters. Finding the right words to summarize what you have done in a role for an extended period in three bullets is difficult, but an AI chatbot like ChatGPT can make the resume-building process much easier. For example, you could use ChatGPT to generate ideas and bullet points for your role from scratch, or to refine and optimize your current points that are not hitting the mark.
Beyond just generating bullet points, AI tools can help you create a structure for your resume and then organize this content in the most effective way possible. While ChatGPT can help you with the text in your resume, you will need to pick a template before you get started. The program you are using to write the resume will likely have a resume template already. If you want ChatGPT to generate text for your resume from scratch, all you have to do is ask. Whether you want it to generate your professional summary or an individual bullet, you can ask it directly. For example, you can ask ChatGPT to write a short, professional resume summary about your role as a software developer. Within seconds, it can generate this content Although ChatGPT can create content ready to be copied and pasted into a resume, you should tweak the text so it is personalized to your experiences and does not look like a chatbot wrote it. Employers want to learn about what makes you unique. Without your assistance, the chatbot will only have access to generic content about your role.
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Exploring 7 of the Hottest Niche Skillsets Within Tech
Dice Insights, May 24
One way to stand out in a competitive job market is to demonstrate that you possess high-demand skills, work experience or industry knowledge. In addition, you should show that you know how to apply these skills and experiences to generate positive business outcomes. Given that 65 percent of executives say that finding workers with specialized skills is a major challenge, highlighting a niche skillset or specific in-demand expertise could help you land interviews and receive the job offer that you really want.
According to Udemy, there was a 22% surge in consumption of artificial intelligence (AI) deep learning courses during the first quarter of 2024. That is because knowing when and how to apply deep learning to solve problems represents the next level of machine learning and puts you at the cutting edge of cutting-edge technology. This trend reflects a shift in demand from learners not simply learning about AI but understanding how to implement it effectively across businesses and workflows. Suffice to say that demonstrating the ability to apply deep learning to real-world projects in medical research and healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, customer service, gaming, robotics, self-driving cars or other industries or functional areas is a surefire way to make yourself more marketable to employers.
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How the AI Bias Problem Can Affect Your Next Job Application
Hackernoon, May 22
Although AI has significant potential when it comes to automating the job application process, an increasing number of job candidates say it is leading to bias in recruitment. This occurs when systems and tools that are used to screen and select candidates, inadvertently perpetuate or even amplify existing prejudices. These biases often stem from the data these systems are trained on, which can reflect societal prejudices or historical hiring patterns that favor certain demographics over others.
While reporting has already been widespread about biases within applicant tracking systems, AI chatbots may come with their own prejudices as well. If these chatbots are trained on keywords and data that align with previously successful candidates, they may be more willing to choose candidates from certain backgrounds, or even with certain types of demographic characteristics. The good news is that AI developers say they are aware of the potential problem and are working to fix it. Researchers are now looking for ways to address concerns related to bias, fairness, and disinformation. At the same time, job seekers are coming up with new ways to circumvent AI bias.
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How Does Life Change Post Academic Tenure?
Blog@CACM, May 28
A professor of electrical and computer engineering and computer science at Purdue University weighs in on the system of academic tenure. The common perception is that tenure is a magical elevation in academia that grants you the power and opportunity to do adventurous things, secure in the knowledge that you have a permanent job. However, as the author points out, this is not always the case. While academic tenure does open up more research opportunities, it does not mean that you can say no to the requests of university administrators, or that you will necessarily have a better work-life balance.
In terms of better work-life balance, the benefits of academic tenure are mixed. In theory, tenure should bring more time to work on personal projects, and more time to spend with family. However, it turns out that post-tenure, despite the lack of the obvious external stimulus, we tend to do more than before tenure, in terms of papers published, research dollars attracted, and students graduated. This can be taken as an indication of the success of the tenure system. In terms of the traditional metrics of productivity, the median for faculty members in the post-tenure period is actually higher. Though, as before pre-tenure, one can put a personal cap on what one needs to shoot for. Thus, the balance is a personal choice and one that, despite illusions to the contrary, is not imposed from up above.
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Is Computing a Discipline in Crisis?
Communications of the ACM, May 28
The launch of ChatGPT in 2022 has led to a broader discussion about the future direction of a computer science industry led by AI. Suddenly, the dream of artificial general intelligence, which always seemed beyond the horizon, does not seem so far off. And that has some wondering if we are on the right path or not. The computer science community clearly has deep concerns about where the AI field is heading. Significant risks include the spread of false information, large-scale manipulation of public opinion, authoritarian control of populations, worsening economic inequality, and potentially even human extinction.
Among computer science practitioners, there is disagreement about whether faster or slower AI progress would be better for the future of the industry. However, there is broad agreement that research aimed at minimizing potential risks from AI ought to be prioritized more. Going forward, it will be interesting to see how conferences and other industry events approach this issue. As of now, the topic of AI risks has yet to become a major focal point at academic conferences, and only a small number of researchers are tackling the problem. At the end of the day, addressing AI concerns will require collective action. And that means key professional societies and industry groups must be willing to come together in order to solve the problem.
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