The entire IT market in Serbia “suffers” from a lack of employees, and the problem is even more pronounced in the gaming industry. Due to the fact that the education system does not want to follow the changes in the world of high technology, personnel from other unexpected fields come for this job, writes Helloworld.
Judging by the job advertisements, in both of these high-tech spheres there is a lack of professional staff, primarily trained for high positions, such as senior programmers, managers, engineers…
According to the data of the Republic Institute of Statistics, more than 100,000 employees work in this industry. Also, according to the data of the Vojvodina ICT cluster, today 20 percent of all students in Serbia are in some field of IT, but this is not enough for the needs of the market, which is growing by about ten percent per year.
Currently, domestic IT has a predominantly engineering educational profile, and it is mostly attended by graduates from Belgrade faculties – FON, ETF and mathematics, Novi Sad – FTN and mathematics, Kragujevac – FIN and FTN and Niš – electronic and mechanical. There are also RAF, Singidunum and Metropolitan.
Svetlana Mikić , brand and communications manager at Playstudios Europe in Belgrade, told Helloworld that actors, architects, painters, chefs and theologians also make video games in their company.
Similarly, IT companies are increasingly hiring programmers who used to be philologists, chemists, teachers, lawyers, and so on.
According to the director of the Vojvodina ICT cluster, Milan Šolaja , who has been organizing retraining from other professions in IT for a decade, this market has great potential and a growing “thirst” for talent.
“As far as the workforce is concerned, as the years go by, the lack of managerial staff in IT companies is becoming more and more pronounced, that is, people who are specialized in various fields but with application in the IT industry. Simply, there are not many educational institutions that train such personnel, nor a sufficient number of such students (management in IT, marketing in IT, HR in IT, etc.),” he said.
As he added, when it comes to retraining, it is much more important what kind of attitude and habits one comes with than what previous education.
“If a candidate wants to learn and knows how to learn, he will have no problem mastering the knowledge and skills he will need in the IT workplace. When it comes to developers, knowledge and skills related to logic and mathematics are always welcome, but that is only the basis. “Readiness for constant learning and improvement is necessary and constant in this branch,” said Šolaja.
