What are the top software developer skills in 2020 and in high demand in the global job market?
During the past 10 years, the Software Engineering industry has been undergoing significantly rapid changes.
According to EDC, in 2019, 26.4 million people globally were engaged in programming, and by 2023 it is expected that the number of software developers will exceed 27.7 million people.
In this article, we will cover the latest job market news in Software Development and how it affects trends in hard and soft skills that are requested in this industry.
Essential skills types in Software Development career
In general, each software developer needs to have 3 main directions of the skillset:
👉 Some fundamental knowledge related to the professional field. For example, to become a machine learning engineer, you must have strong math skills.
👉 Basic skills in related fields. For example, Design, UX, Back-end development, project management for Front-end Web Developer. This kind of knowledge helps you communicate effectively with colleagues.
👉 Personal qualities (soft skills) in areas such as leadership, emotional intelligence, self-control, mentoring, etc. They are necessary to be able to express your ideas and work results clearly, build trusting relationships with your teammates, managers, and subordinates. Soft skills also help to cope with your own and team failures and build informal relationships.
TOP software engineering jobs that companies are looking for
During the last 3 months, the trends on the job market have changed significantly. But the demand for software engineering job offers remains on a high level.
Among 19 specialties currently available on MeetFrank, Software Engineering roles take 57% of the total.
Besides, some of them lie in the top 10 job offers with the highest number of applicants.
Based on the number of job offers and applicants in the MeetFrank app, the most popular software engineering job openingis .NET Software Engineer followed by Full-Stack Developer and Front-End Developer. 🚀
Looking for a similar position? Check how your salary ranks on the job market.
Most in-demand Software Engineering hard skills in 2020
By looking at the job market changes’ speed now and beyond, it is obvious that if you want to be in a safe place, you need to maximize your marketability via pursuing a mostly demanded skill-set. What software developer skills should you focus on now?
We analyzed the job market for programmers and prepared a list of most sought hard skills globally.
If you want to start your career in software development, one of the most common questions you may ask yourself would be “What is the top best programming language to know?”. Here is the most up to date list 👇
Despite current trends, there isn’t a right or wrong programming language choice. You need to pick the one or two that suit the specific field you want to work in today. See the examples below:
Soft skills as a secret weapon
Employers and recruiters have long been saying that software development professionals can no longer succeed with technical skills alone.
Today, the classic techie should have “flexible” skills. According to a McKinsey poll, it is high-tech industries that are most in need of them. One-third of the respondents indicated that the most problematic areas in terms of soft skills in 2021 would be data analytics, IT, mobile, web design. Here are TOP 4 essential soft skills every software professional needs to consider in his career.
📢Communication
It may sound weird to you, but communication is one of the core skills in the software development world.
This skill is highly needed for self-presentation on interviews, writing documentation for libraries and frameworks, teamwork, and writing emails, or slack messages to coworkers. You need to be able to hear, convincingly argue, be customer-oriented, and tuned in to the result.
⏰Self-management
This skill involves the management of emotions, stress, and energy, the ability to reflect and give feedback properly. It also includes time management.
💪Effective thinking
For productive work, it is essential to control the processes in the head. You should learn the systemic, creative, structural, logical, and design types of thinking. The ability to collect and analyze information to correctly conclude will not hinder as well.
🙋♂️Leadership
Leadership is especially important for team managers and senior roles. This skill includes an ability to plan, set tasks for employees correctly, motivate them, control, and give appropriate feedback on time. Managing people is not about making subordinates do what you want. This skill is about the ability to inspire and help others reach their highest potential. Therefore, the manager’s expertise is super crucial for those planning career growth.
Final words
The most important software developer skill is the willingness to learn continually.
This is relevant for all professions. But for programmers, if they want to be in demand, it is crucial to keep abreast of technological development.
Interested in challenging yourself in one of the most popular Software Engineering positions? Check these ones out and apply via the MeetFrank app!
There is no surprise that the global pandemic made the job market highly competitive. With a lot of layoffs and closed businesses, the job search may appear gloomy for the average job-seeker. From now on, simply sending an excellent CV won’t be enough to land a good job.
It’s high time for standing out and giving companies a strong reason to choose you over other applicants. So let’s discover the most meaningful steps to help you land a job during a market downturn.
Having a catchy LinkedIn headline is the very first step to make recruiters and hiring managers to notice your profile in the ocean of job seekers.
Instead of typing your current or previous job position (LinkedIn does that by default), use the headline to name your biggest expertise or the job you’re looking for right now.
Add multiple positions if you’re handling different projects at once. The more precise your title is, the faster it will draw recruiters’ attention.
2. Broaden your location, think remote
Job market decline during the global pandemic made finding new career opportunities harder.
At the same time, it finally pushed most companies to review their working policies and allow people to work remotely. As a result, now you have a huge chance to get a dream job from any location worldwide.
Set your LinkedIn location as a whole country rather than one small city. This will make it easier for companies to find you.
Tip: If you’re applying for a job in other countries, you could set your LinkedIn location to that country to show up for recruiters looking for talent in their local region.
You will also get more job offers in the MeetFrank app if you select “Remote work possibility” and “Relocation” while setting up your profile there.
Most people are pretty lazy to invest some time into the LinkedIn summary in the “About” section.
Why is it so important? Because summary can quickly show up your skills and expertise in the most interesting and engaging way, like a universal “cover letter”.
Put some effort and write a memorable summary of your career that says exactly who you are, what is your professional passion, and what value you can bring to the companies. Don’t overload it with the information listed in the “Experience” part. Let your professional summary be your most important content masterpiece. Rock it, make it sell you as a top talent.🚀
Here is an example of a well-written summary section from Karola Karlson, Growth Marketing Consultant.
Why is it good?
✅ It answers the question “Who are you?” ✅ It mentions all key expertise and skills ✅ It shows up the most important experience being handled so far
✅ There is a call to action in the end
Tip: Do an extra step andrecord a short 2-minutes video clip. Add the link to your summary part. It will bring a human touch to your personality and help to catch recruiters’ attention faster.
You can also use it later when applying to job openings via the MeetFrank app or during your interviews. ☝️
4. Start building a personal brand to stand out from the crowd
A nicely presented personal brand is a powerful tool for marketing yourself and your career expertise. It shows what you stand for and what you’ve achieved so far.
Before you start mastering your personal brand, think how would you answer on these 3 questions:
What motivates you to tackle the day after waking up every morning?
How are you unique?
What is your biggest passion?
This information will help you to set the right focus for your further steps.
The best way to make you visible through the brand is by creating content.
Don’t be scared about that word. You don’t have to be a super copywriter. All you have to do is to present your daily job experience in a format you like the most:
Written – daily posts on LinkedIn, articles on Medium or your own blog
Audio – podcast
Video – Youtube channel, IGTV series
Start generating content regularly. Tell your best stories and key lessons learned.
Don’t be afraid to share what challenges you’ve met. This is a nice chance to show how you’ve overcome them.
Here are the links of nicely built personal brands in different formats:
Overreacted.io – a personal blog by the main developer of React.js, Dan Abramov
Neil Patel – a youtube channel by professional marketer Neil Patel
Don’t be shy – share and pin your content on your social media profiles to get more reach.
When you published your first article – Image Source
5. Ask for recommendations
One more step to improve your personal brand on the job market is to get references from your previous employers, supervisors, clients, suppliers, and co-workers.
LinkedIn recommendations are a vital part of an effective professional’s profile. It supports your skills, experience, and accomplishments as well as brings light on your soft skills.
How many should you get?
A rule of thumb is to get 10 recommendations. If you ask 2-3 different people in each company you’ve been working for, you will quickly get enough of them written from different angles.
How to ask for the recommendation?
When you’re asking people for written feedback, try to give a specific context of what you’re looking to get. Explain what kind of job you’re trying to land and what skills and experience are essential for it.
Thus, you will make it easier for the person to outline meaningful information about you as a talent and highlight your key results.
Check out a constructive example below. 👇🏻
6. Grow your network
The job you want to get may not be advertised at all. Here is where networking might matter the most.
But the fastest step you could do during social distancing is to reach out to people via social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
Who to connect?
Put effort into using every networking resource at your fingertips:
✔️ Alumni network
✔️ Job industry online communities
✔️ Local and worldwide friends ✔️ Classmates ✔️ Previous and present colleagues
✔️ Managers you’ve been working with
✔️ CEO’s of the companies
✔️ Career coaches if you had one
✔️ Industry thought leaders
Final word
Job searching is like cooking. If you read the recipe and have all ingredients in place, you’ll definitely achieve success.
Nothing propels a candidate’s level like meaningful hustle does. Do your best to position yourself on the job market professionally.
Implement the listed tips as soon as possible, and you will yield results sooner than expected! 🚀
Stay up to date about the latest job market trends and coolest job offers within your industry by using our Job Market Insights page.
To apply for your dream job opening not available elsewhere, get the MeetFrank app. 😉
Getting top talent onboard takes a combination of creativity and diligence.
But to attract qualified candidates and drive excitement about the role within the company, you need to stand out of the crowd.
MeetFrank Job Marketplace makes it easy to share your job offers to a perfect skill-matched audience.
We’ve already discussed how to build an employer brand for captivating job seekers. Check the full guide if you missed it last time.
Adding job openings is the next essential step. Believe us or not, with the MeetFrank smart job creating system, you will enjoy both the process and the result. 👩🏽💻
Tip before you will start: Check out MeetFrank Job Market Insights to have a better idea of what’s going on in your country and industry from the number of active job seekers to job market competitiveness.
Now, let’s move on to the job opening itself and start from… no, not the job description. 😎
1. Add a new job opening and select your target audience
To make your recruiting workload easier, MeetFrank allows you to target high-matched candidates only. The system starts to weed out unsuitable job seekers right after you pick the employment type, specialty, and seniority for your upcoming job offer:
Choose between Full-time, Part-time, Project/Freelance, and Internship
Select one main speciality from 19 available options
Add the relevant seniorities from Junior to Executive
2. Select a clear and attractive job title
To make it sound understandable, don’t make up a new name for an already established role. Title your job exactly what you’re looking for — “Head of Sales” for the position in sales. In case you need a person to work with B2B clients and worldwide, simply add some context: “Global B2B Head of Sales”. By the way, keep your job title beautiful. Don’t use CAPS LOCK — it won’t add any additional value to the job offer. 😃
3. Choose the skill set you’re looking for
You will see how the talent pool will narrow further once you will select the key focus, (i.e. skills), industries, and languages that are essential for your future candidates.
Choose up to 6 of each. You can skip industries and languages sections if it’s not relevant for your position.
Note that there is a possibility to select one “Must Have” skill.
In other words, the system won’t show your job offer to those candidates who didn’t mention it in their user profile—one more time-saving hack. 😉
4. Pick the target location
Next up, select up to 3 cities where you want to look for talent as well as the location of their future work.
Ready to give the applicants the freedom to work from any place in the world? Then don’t forget to tick the “Open for remote work” line.
Another hack for getting 5X more job applicants is to select global targeting rather than local. 👇🏻
5. Add relocation package if possible
Many companies are struggling to get top people within one city or even country.
MeetFrank provides companies with a great opportunity to find high-skilled candidates across Europe who want to relocate to your place.
Select the “Relocation” targeting if you’re willing to help people from other countries to relocate. 💁🏼♀️
6. Specify the salary range
Specify the gross salary range you’re ready to pay as a full-time monthly salary. Here you can also select a possible salary increase.
For example, if the maximum salary is €5000 and you are ready to pay up to 20% more, your job opening will be shown to job seekers with a selected salary between your minimum amount and €6000.
It’s better not to skip this step as great talents are worth being paid fairly according to their skills and experience.
Not sure what would be a good salary range for your job opening? Check out our live market data with an offered vs expected salaries’ comparison here.
7. Write the job description
Start writing your job offer copy with a “Job Summary” paragraph. Use your free space wisely — don’t spend it for copying the company’s description as it’s already very nicely visible in the company profile. Try to write an inspiring and dynamic introduction instead.
Here’s an example of eye-catching job summary from Scoro that’s looking for an awesome Back-End Developer to join the team:
To sell your nice job quickly, continue the message with the “Job Requirements” part. Remember, making your job descriptions lengthy and over-complicated pushes applicants away. Rather than listing all job specifics, only include the ones that matter MOST to you.
Add a package of key requirements that haven’t been published in speciality, seniority, and skills sections. Example from Bolt recruiters:
End the job offer message with a strong and noticeable call-to-action. It shouldn’t just end. With a powerful CTA, you’ll encourage high-quality candidates to submit their application. Example: “Sounds like a perfect fit? Let’s chat and connect!”
Before you will move to the next step, we highly recommend having a look at a few more nicely written job descriptions. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
Once the applicants apply to your offer, they will see a short automated interview as a pre-screening phase – another meaningful step for saving recruiters’ time and effort.
We’ve already helped you to set the first two questions. Feel free to use them and add up to 3 more on your own or delete ours and create all 5 questions as you wish.
During this stage, try to be specific about applicant experience related to your job position. Use this place to ask details that weren’t possible to set in the targeting step.
Here are some examples:
Do you have experience of selling a SaaS-solution? If yes, what kind?
Do you have experience selling globally? If yes, in which countries?
What’s your experience in leading teams?
Tip: If your message is in a local language, please make sure your automated interview questions are written in the same language, excluding questions if you need to check certain foreign language skills.
Finalize your automated interview with a polite friendly follow-up. You can type in :name: to replace it with the applicant’s name.
9. Publish the job offer and get applicants!
At this point, you can check if everything is in place and notify MeetFrank whether you would like to have an additional promo to your job offer via our social media channels or you want to keep the position in secret.
Of course, we recommend you use this opportunity to get extra reach outside the MeetFrank app for free.
Another quick reminder: We made it possible to use your published job openings as your career page. Everything from a professionally set company profile to detailed job openings is in place. All you need is to copy the published job offer link and share it on your social media channels. You can read more about how to make most of that step here. 🚀
Try out the above guidance to get the highest ever visibility for your job opening and receive top applicants only to any role you’re hiring for!
