Pipeline preview: "If we look and feel the same, we're going to get the same output"

Australian IT firms have had to get creative to fill roles in recent years, including recruiting people from outside the IT sector.

CRN Australia spoke to IT business leaders who have hired people from retail, automotive and other backgrounds.  

Skilling-up these people is a challenge. Programs exist to help with this – including programs that aim to help indigenous Australians, military veterans and athletes enter technology roles.  

But many candidates that enter some of these programs don’t end up in the IT industry, points out Microsoft's Global Partner Solutions Director for ANZ, Vanessa Sorenson.

That’s a problem she wants to address. She will speak at the 2023 CRN Pipeline conference on the Gold Coast in August, where she will also talk about customers’ expectations around value from technology spending, and the divide between Australian organisations that have moved to cloud and are going through their second round of digital transformation, and those that are yet to make the leap to cloud.

Sorenson knows the realities of bringing people from outside IT into technology roles.

For 18 months, Microsoft has been running the 10K Wāhine program in New Zealand, which focuses on women who have had a career and want a change and aims to help 10,000 New Zealand women build skills and confidence to secure digital roles.

The program received 600 registrations in four days.

Sorenson wants technology partners to commit to hiring 10K Wāhine participants, and she said Microsoft will look to emulate the program in Australia. 

“We want to handhold to change the percentages. Not just skilling, but we want to walk the talk and we are going to start mapping how many diverse roles are moving into partnership businesses,” Sorenson said.

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“People are doing the training and then don't know how to start to get the job, and that's the piece that I think all of our partners can help with,” she said.

“It's less about the job, it's more that I'll bring someone in, I will absolutely wrap mentorship around them, and I'll help them on this journey.” 

In Australia, Microsoft has been involved in various programs for people looking to enter IT roles. 

“So we’re working with CareerTrackers in Australia who work with indigenous people. We are working with Adecco. I love Adecco, they have so many ranges of culturally dispersed people of all nationalities. And so we are just building that out,” Sorenson said.

“We just really want to test. That's where New Zealand's a great test bed, because we can easily roll it out, easily test it, and then we can go for gold and widen it.” 

Microsoft has also worked with Generation Australia, which partnered with Microsoft to offer Azure data analytics and cybersecurity courses. 

Meanwhile, the Victorian Government's Digital Jobs program reportedly received more than 26,000 applications in 18 months and 800 businesses registered as hosts.

That program covers such skills as data analytics, digital marketing, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, and includes paid 12-week work placements.  

For Sorenson and IT business owners CRN Australia has spoken to, hiring diverse candidates is not just a way to overcome a tight labour market – it's also about challenging the way partners do things. 

Sorenson explained: “We want someone that will come and challenge us, because if we look and feel the same, we're going to get the same output.” 

CRN Pipeline 2023 is your opportunity to join IT buyers, partners, vendors and distributors to tackle security, cloud, AI, M&A, hiring, revenue growth opportunities, customer cost realities, marketing, the future of your distribution partnerships, and a great deal more topics to be announced in the coming weeks! Click here to discover more!

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