This is the first article in a 5-part series highlighting Vantage’s 2015 hiring trends and 2016 predictions. Over the next few weeks, more articles will be posted. Sign up for our newsletter to receive new article alerts, on the right.
Gartner predicted that “the advent of intelligence everywhere and the technology impact of the digital business shift” would be two of the top strategic tech trends for 2015. At Vantage, we saw executive hiring reflect both trends. Just as Deep Learning is rampant across all technology verticals, we’ve seen a similar demand in hiring executives.
Dovetailing into analytics, the requirements to make products omni-accessible to consumers through devices, wearables, applications and websites, created a large demand for highly skilled operations, product design, and engineering teams. That ‘s where business disruption is happening for many technology companies.
Data and Operations Leaders in Hot Demand
The universal need for analytically-driven leadership positions was a significant theme in 2015. Not only were data scientists in high demand (up 300% from 2014), but also operational leaders, who support the infrastructure and are responsible for data capturing, delivery, and response.
In 2015, operations placements by Vantage grew 100% from 2014. We also saw operations take on more of an IT crossover role, pivotal to deployment and experience monitoring. Within this category, the most common roles we placed in 2015 included VP of Infrastructure and VP of Strategy and Operations.
Data science has finally come of age. With the huge promise of big data holding the keys for the next wave of SaaS analytics, companies everywhere are strengthening their bench in data science. Netbase, a client of Vantage’s, which has built a world-class social analytics platform, is discovering multiple ways they can leverage their vast repository of social data. Data scientists are opening up new business models.
Jodi Shah, Managing Director at Vantage, has experienced similar spikes in the Data Science fields. Data Scientists are getting pulled up the ranks into leadership positions and are no longer an off-shoot of the IT department. The challenge is talent supply has been tight and the demand for this finite group is forcing companies to get aggressive with their approach and hiring tactics.
High growth companies like RocketFuel approached their data science search correctly by creating an innovative role that’s independent of IT, and evaluating data scientist candidates not only by their analytical skills, but also by their industry experience and comprehension. By recruiting a leader that understands the space and inherent market need, RocketFuel’s analytics team will readily identify insights, drive innovation, and deliver company value at an accelerated pace.