What are the toughest jobs to fill? According to various sources, the list may look like this:

The competition for best talents is so intense, that, according to a study of Mercer, 79 percent of organizations are focusing on building and promoting their own talent from within. Nearly half (48 percent) are increasing their recruitment from the external labor pool. 

Lack of applicants

According to a study by Manpower Group, the main reason why some tech positions are so hard to fill is the lack of applicants. However, many companies still don’t target passive candidates, which is one of the top 5 recruitment mistakes that can be easily avoided with the right headhunting strategy and the right tools.

But how many of those passive candidates are really out there? And how many of them are currently in the job market? To answer these two difficult questions, we used our business data platform, OxyLeads Prospector, and data from Indeed.com, a global search engine for job listings.

OxyLeads Prospector provided us a number of people that can be considered passive candidates. Indeed.com helped to count how many of them are currently in the job market.

Here is what we found out:

We were able to find plenty of passive candidates for more than half of the positions on the most in-demand job list with our business data platform. To find software developers, business intelligence analysts, data scientists, DevOps engineers, information security analysts and system administrators on Indeed.com is a much harder task as the number of people with these position titles is much lower than on OxyLeads

On the other hand, if you’re looking for data security administrators, database developers, help desk technicians, java developers or network administrators, using business data platforms, such as OxyLeads Prospector, wouldn’t be as effective. A much higher number of people with these position titles can be found on Indeed.com, and searching for passive candidates with OxyLeads Prospector wouldn’t make much sense.

Looking for people with specific skill sets

Today, technology is the backbone of every successful business and plays a crucial role in modern recruitment. Using traditional methods of recruitment may lead to hiring either the wrong person or to keeping your job position open because you won’t find the right candidate. Technology allows discovering people who are the best fit for your organization not only based on their previous work experience but also on their hard and soft skills.
According to LinkedIn’s latest research, the most in-demand skills and promising jobs are bound to fall in and out of favor, but if you’re planning on recruiting in 2018, these are top skills that companies are working hardest to find right now:

Let’s take a look at how many potential candidates with these skills OxyLeads Prospector and Indeed.com can offer.