A Wake-Up Call for Technology Professionals

SINGAPORE
-�Media OutReach - 17 May 2019 - Think you are all set to ride the new wave of technology
disruption? Think again!

 

Shortage of IT
professionals as well as the high wages offered have been hitting the headlines
in Singapore and other developed countries. However, even IT professionals are
not immune to disruption.

 

Technology skills are constantly
changing. Look towards the market for advice.

Digital
disruption is not homogenous where only repetitive and mundane tasks will be
automated. Digital jobs are also being disrupted. Buried in the day-to-day
operations at work, it is easy to miss out on up-and-coming developments that
are critical to future-proofing one’s careers.

 

The hottest
technology skills are changing at an increasing pace. The same job role now,
for instance, a database administrator could involve different tasks, and hence
require different skills, than a database administrator three to five years ago.

 

A relatively
newer database, MongoDB has been steadily on the rise since its inception. In
recent years, it is gaining popularity in the Singapore market with growth
predicted to remain buoyant in the near future. Moreover, its demand is not
concentrated on only a few large companies.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XRIhF9t3VamHNkxzzoHK6wUGlzNKesgu

 

Since January
2018, there are more than 2,700 jobs posted that require MongoDB and the top 10
companies hiring for this skill only contributed to 21% of these jobs. Demand
is relatively scattered throughout other companies rather than a handful of
companies.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HF4APE2AZz2fwSO4oxarnd61x9Z7hCBF

 

In addition, database
administrators are increasingly tasked with data engineering responsibilities
such as Extract, Transform and Load, database monitoring and Hypertable. IT
professionals will have to constantly adapt to the changing work scopes and new
technology stacks in their workplace.

 

One source IT
professionals can derive inspiration from is the general market trends in the
economy. As can be seen
from the headlines, big data analytics and artificial intelligence has been on
the rise. The number of data analytics jobs posted has increased by more than
40% from more than 2,700 in 2017 to close to 4,000 in 2018. To live up to its
hype, the foundations has to be laid first and foremost. Consequently, this has
exerted an important influence on the responsibilities of database
administrators. It is becoming increasingly necessary for them to possess the
know-how to maintain data pipelines to fuel downstream tasks such as machine
learning and visualizations.

 

Another
important source of information is through labour market insights. Job descriptions are a useful source
of gleaning emerging technology skills in demand by employers. For instance,
from JobTech’s data sources, Redis, an in-memory database for optimising data
access, has been experiencing strong growth in the Singapore market. According
to JobTech’s econometric models, Redis is predicted to continue growing rapidly
into the near future.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=14G7j0ISDjrU1iFaLCf6DgMY-otnQ39Km

 

Soft skills becoming ever more vital

The hottest
technologies are constantly changing. This is why nimble learners who are able
to learn fast are highly sought after by employers. To deal with the demanding
pace of change, learning to learn is essential. There are even online courses on
neuroscience techniques to help one learn. However, this is not limited to deep
technical skills but also to ‘less technical’ tasks such as consulting,
presales, product management etc.

 

Other than
demonstrating your ability to learn, communication skills are also crucial. It
may sound cliché but many still experience inertia putting in the time to hone
their communication skills. These skills are not limited to just writing and
presentations but also listening skills — to practice active listening when
interacting with clients and team members.

 

A combinatorial approach to future-proofing
oneself

Professionals
who can successfully combine their domain knowledge and technical skills across
diverse fields will be able to be more resilient in the face of disruption. Bringing
a different set of domain knowledge introduces a unique value one might bring
to his/her team. By tapping into other domains, it provides one with additional
perspectives and create innovation from gaps between different verticals.

 

For example, an
Internet-of-Things (IoT) engineer with knowledge of urban farming technologies
would be able to provide digitisation solutions for urban farming management. Agri-tech
requires expertise in both fields and requires the engineer to be able to
design and develop urban farming products, and lead and manage urban
agriculture projects. The engineer who possesses this combination becomes a valuable
member of the team making him/her a rarer find compared to his/her other peers.

 

Similarly, a
finance professional who picked up deep skills in data analytics would be
better positioned to adapt to the evolving nature of quantitative analyst
roles. For instance, an investment analyst has to employ newer machine learning
techniques to model and forecast financial instruments and learn to wrangle
datasets that are increasingly larger in today’s data-rich world.

 

The idea of a
combinatorial approach is that one can improve the value he/she brings to the
table not just by acquiring unique and niche technical skills but also through
unique combination of domain knowledge and technical skills to result in creative
and novel applications.

 

JobTech
Data API

In order to provide real-time access to Online Jobs Census
data, JobTech has developed 2 data APIs (Application Programming Interface) for
its strategic government and industry partners to acquire up-to-date and
structured jobs market data automatically. The 2 APIs will allow users to
obtain sectoral data for both the de-duplicated job counts as well as the top
skills demanded in real time, from the JobTech database which has more than 50
million data points.

 

JobTechwill continue to provide flash reports
covering different sectors in Singapore, with a focus on highly sought-after
skills and labor market trends. In this regard, JobTech is using its Big Data
Analytics and Artificial Intelligence capabilities to provide visibility and
analysis of the online jobs market in Singapore to support companies and
decision makers there.

 

For more information on the full version of JobTech
Analytics Reports (Quarterly Sector Reports) and Real Time Analytics, please
visit http://analytics.jobtech.co/

About JobTech™

JobTech is driven by a
desire to change the labour market for the better. We have made it our mission
to find the right match between people and jobs more efficiently, and
continually build products and solutions that enhance human resource productivity.

We are Singapore’s
leading Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics start-up that provides
optimised job matching tools and real-time labour market intelligence. Our core
technology is the result of 10 years of research and development by top machine
learning experts and data scientists. This drives our ability to analyse more
than 1 million job postings every day, providing complete and accurate
visibility of online jobs markets around the world.

We serve a multitude of
customers. For employers, we provide candidates that have been vetted for
quality and interest. For job seekers, we provide a platform where they can
find jobs across thousands of sources. For businesses, financial institutions,
the government, recruiters and consultancy firms, we provide information on
hiring trends that they use to inform policies and guide business decisions.