Is the battle really on?

Wanted Analytics brings is the following: We all know of the Silicon Valley, the San Jose and San Francisco area known for its large technology-focused community. Over the past years, the Silicon Alley – a nickname given to the emergence of technology, internet, and media companies in Manhattan, NY – has begun to rival California in technological developments and hiring. We thought it would be interesting to compare the hiring trends in these 2 areas and see which market is hiring more and which is likely to see more difficulty in filling these openings.

During January 2012, Recruiters in these 2 areas posted a combined 37,000 job ads for IT and tech positions. New York has consistently seen the higher demand, and during January saw about 20,000 new online job ads. In comparison, Recruiters in the Silicon Valley placed just over 16,000 job ads for tech openings during January. While New York’s Silicon Alley may have contributed more job ads, the Silicon Valley saw a greater year-over-year growth. Hiring for tech professionals in the Silicon Valley grew more than 12% between January 2011 and January 2012. However, the demand in New York grew just 6% during the same time period. In fact, over the past 4 years, hiring in New York declined about 1% compared to the Silicon Valley, which increased about 26% (versus January 2008.)

Hiring Demand for Tech Professionals in the Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley – 4 Year Hiring Trend

 

Source: WANTED Analytics

 

The 10 most demanded technology jobs in New York and the Silicon Valley are listed below. The positions are similar in the 2 areas, with the order and number of job posting varying by location. In New York, Web Developers are the most demanded positions although the volume of online job ads has declined about 3%. Software Engineers are most demanded in the Silicon Valley region and seeing a 23% growth compared to January 2011.

10 Occupations with Highest Demand in the Silicon Alley - January 2012 vs. 2011	10 Occupations with Highest Demand in the Silicon Valley - January 2012 vs. 2011
Source: WANTED Analytics	Source: WANTED Analytics

According to our Hiring Scale™, it’s likely that Recruiters in both the Silicon Valley and the Silicon Alley will find tech jobs fairly hard-to-fill. But which will be more difficult? Surprisingly, the talent pool in the Silicon Valley is significantly smaller than that of New York, making recruiting more difficult on the West Coast. Although, the difference isn’t much. In New York, job ads are posted online for an average of 38 days – or about 5.4 weeks. In the San Francisco and San Jose, ads are posted online for about 39 days – or about 5.5 weeks. The Hiring Scale also confirms that recruiting will be more difficult in the Silicon Valley.

Wanted Analytics brings us the following data: After much speculation, Facebook officially filed for a $5 billion IPO on Wednesday. Now that they are looking to raise capital, how will this affect hiring demand over the next few months for this social media giant? To forecast this, we took a look at hiring trends by some other companies before and after they filed their IPOs during 2011 – Demand Media (January 25 IPO), Pandora (June 15 IPO), and Groupon (November 4 IPO).

As you can see by the below charts representing the volume of online job ads placed by both companies, there are some trends in hiring once they begin trading on the stock market. Before the IPO, hiring tends to remain somewhat steady in the months leading up to the offering. Hiring at these 3 companies didn’t change more than a few percentage points in the 90 days prior to their IPO. After the IPO, hiring tends to increase and decrease over the first few months. It makes sense that hiring would grow since these companies are raising capital, likely being used on various projects or expansions and companies would need to build their workforce for these projects.

Source: WANTED Analytics

 

Although the volume of job ads changes each month, all 3 of these companies have seen growth in hiring since their IPOs. Groupon, now 3 months after their IPO, has seen the volume of job ads increase about 40%. Pandora, has seen about 7 months pass and hiring demand is up about 30%. Demand Media, now 1 year since their IPO, has seen explosive growth recently with 400% more job ads being placed online.

Will Facebook follow a similar pattern? At first glance, Facebook seems to diverge from the typical pattern we see above. While hiring normally levels off in the months before an IPO, the volume of job ads has declined significantly at Facebook . The volume of job ads placed online has decreased 77% over the past 3 months. Only time will tell what jobs (and how many) Facebook will recruit for, but we expect hiring to increase. After all, on top of this IPO, their first engineering office outside the West Coast is expected to open in New York City early this year and, as far as we can tell, they are still accepting applications.

Source: WANTED Analytics