40% are afraid of being fired. How programmers (and not only) are looking for work in 2022

In September 2022, we conducted a traditional survey on how Ukrainian IT professionals are looking for work, whether they monitor salaries and vacancies, and whether they are afraid of losing their jobs. This year, we collected 4,701 questionnaires from Ukrainian IT specialists of all specializations and with different experience.

From an interesting point of view: we see that the market has changed — recruiters are less likely to write first, almost half of IT specialists do not plan to change jobs this year, and 40% of employed respondents are generally afraid of being fired. Experts began to devote less time to market trends, but everything is more or less clear here, the news agenda is now, unfortunately, different. As for the sources of job search, there are no changes here — recommendations, Djinni, LinkedIn remained the most effective.

IT professionals are less attuned to changing jobs

This year, our questionnaire was filled out much more actively by specialists who do not work, but are actively looking for work: if a year ago there were 8% of them, now it is 19%.

A quarter of those who do not work and are actively looking for work are developers, testers — 17%, 28% — other technical specialists. Another quarter are non — technical specialists.

Most often, specialists with up to 2 years of experience are now looking for work (72% of them among all job seekers). 11% of those who are actively searching are trying to find their first job in it — among them there are switches and students without experience. Only 15% of job seekers have 5 or more years of experience.

However, the situation differs between some categories of specialists. 29% of developers who are currently not working, but looking for a job, have at least 5 years of experience. Among RM search engines, 24% have been working in their specialty for more than 5 years, and among designers — 22%.

Portrait of survey participants

At the same time, among employed IT specialists,there are fewer people who are looking for a better job: if last year 16% indicated active searches, now 10% do. The share of those who do not plan to change jobs within the next year increased from 41% to 48%. But, just like last year, almost half of employed IT professionals are ready to change jobs if they are offered better conditions (42% of respondents now against 43% a year ago).

Do you plan to change jobs this year

41% of employed IT professionals are afraid of losing their jobs. Most often, these are specialists with up to 2 years of experience, testers and HR specialists — more than half of them are afraid of being out of work. Specialists with at least 3 years of experience, as well as developers, DevOps and data Science specialists, feel more confident — more than 60% do not worry that they will be out of work.

Recruiter activity has fallen slightly compared to previous years

The decrease in the activity of specialists in finding a new job was most likely influenced by the lower activity of recruiters. A year ago, 45% of the IT professionals we surveyed said that recruiters often write to them, while this year only 22% of them do. The share of specialists who have never been written by recruiters increased from 7% to 13%.

Do recruiters offer you vacancies in social networks

Recruiters began to write less frequently to all categories of IT specialists, but the group with up to 2 years of experience suffered the most. Now recruiters are mainly interested in specialists with at least 3 years of experience: 75% of such IT specialists receive letters from recruiters once a month or more, compared to last year's 84%. A year ago, specialists with 2-3 years of experience were interested in recruiters in the same way as experienced specialists, and this year they are contacted much less often: 67% of them receive offers from recruiters at least once a month, compared to 75% among specialists with more experience.

Experienced employees are needed in all cities: almost everywhere where there are prominent IT communities, more than 75% of the surveyed specialists with at least 5 years of experience and approximately спеціалістів specialists with 1 to 5 years of experience receive letters from recruiters at least once a month. The situation for beginners with up to a year of experience is much more complicated: only about a quarter of them receive letters from recruiters at least once a month, and specialists in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and abroad have a slightly higher chance of receiving such an offer.

Developers and project managers are most often searched for: at least once a month, 73% of developers and 65% of RM's receive offers (in 2021 — 83% and 75%, respectively). A year ago, testers were in the greatest demand — 81% of them contacted recruiters once a month or more, and now only 51% of them are.

Djinni's popularity among search engines continues to grow

The top three most popular ways to find a job among Ukrainian IT professionals are recommendations (thanks to them, 23% of respondents found their last job), Djinni (21%) and LinkedIn (19%).

How did you find your current place of work

Recommendations help all categories of IT professionals find jobs, while Djinni and LinkedIn are more often useful for technical specialists.

Djinni continues to gain popularity: a third of Ukrainian IT specialists who found a job in 2022 found a job through this resource. The role of recommendations, on the contrary, continues to fall: this year they helped only 16% of IT professionals find work.

For professionals working as freelancers, recommendations remain the most important way to find a job: 35% got their current position in this way. In second place — freelance exchanges (14% found the last job through Upwork, another 7%-through others). Djinni and LinkedIn are much less useful to freelancers — only 6% and 9% of respondents, respectively, were last employed thanks to these resources.

How you found your current job: Djinni and LinkedIn positions are considered the most effective for finding a job

The assessment of various channels for job search in Ukrainian it has remained virtually unchanged over the year — Djinni and LinkedIn are considered the most effective.

Djinni became slightly more likely to be rated as an effective channel (70% vs. 68% a year ago), and LinkedIn — slightly less often (60% vs. 63% a year ago), which brought Djinni to the first place in this parameter.

Which of the job search channels seems most effective to you

Somewhat more often, Djinni is called an effective channel for job search by developers, QA, data Science specialists, and HR. LinkedIn is popular among all specializations, although HR specialists are slightly less likely than others to consider it effective. DOU was most often called effective by HR, analysts, data Science specialists, and testers. Other Ukrainian job search sites (Work.ua, Robota.ua) designers and analysts are more likely to be considered effective.

Specialists with at least 1 year of experience determine the effectiveness of Djinni and LinkedIn above others. Less experienced specialists are somewhat better than others at evaluating DOU, other Ukrainian job search sites, as well as sending resumes directly to the company.

IT specialists have become less attentive to the labor market

Changes in the situation in the country and in the IT market also affected the behavior of IT specialists in monitoring the labor market. Although the majority of respondents monitor the market situation, the share of those who do not has increased from 4% to 7%.

Do you monitor the labor market regardless of whether you have a permanent place of work

The share of those who read DOU's salary surveys has fallen from 80% a year ago to 70%. 48%, as in the previous year, read newsletters from Djinni. IT professionals are somewhat less likely to communicate with recruiters (43% vs. 49% a year ago) and view vacancies on DOU (42% vs. 49% a year ago).

IT professionals with at least 1 year of experience are more likely than others to read DOU salary surveys and Djinni mailings, as well as communicate with recruiters more often. Beginners with up to a year of experience are more active: they regularly view vacancies on DOU and other job search sites and respond more often to interesting offers.

Analytics: Irina Ippolitova Data Visualization: Igor Yanovsky