Guest Blog: ThinkFUL
In 2018, CBRE listed Raleigh as the eighth best city in North America for tech talent. For those of us who live or work in the area the accolade rubber stamped something that many of us already knew - Raleigh is a great city for tech.
But what happens if the word about Raleigh doesn’t get out - especially among job seekers? That’s the question being posed after my company Thinkful, which runs a Raleigh coding bootcamp, published a new study of America’s Most Underrated Tech Hubs. According to the analysis, Raleigh is the 2nd most underrated tech hub in the country. In other words, there is an enormous disconnect between the actual strength of the Raleigh tech community and how job seekers around the country perceive it.
What does this mean for Raleigh?
To conduct the analysis, my colleagues surveyed job seekers aged 20-34 with a college degree and an interest in technology. The survey had about a 5% margin of error but the results were still quite conclusive- only a small segment of job seekers (less than 3%) identified Raleigh as a top tech city. Compare that result with that of Austin, a city ranked only two spots ahead of Raleigh on the CBRE list. A whopping 47% of folks in the job seeking group identified Austin as a top tech city.
With over 23,000 high tech job openings statewide, attracting and retaining talent has never been more important. The results of this study should at the very least put “public perception” as a risk to sustaining our current level of growth.
What should Raleigh do?
Like any problem, I believe the best way to understand and address this information is through collaboration.This organization is home to some of the best and brightest minds in North Carolina so I have little doubt that collectively we can figure out how we can increase awareness of Raleigh and North Carolina on the minds of job seekers. Help jumpstart the conversation by sharing your ideas on your company’s blog or by tweeting at Thinkful using the hashtag #NCTechRocks.