By Chelsea Babin

Although finding the right technical talent to add to your team in 2016 isn’t an easy feat regardless of what company you are, recent studies have found that startups and smaller companies are facing a more challenging IT hiring process than more established, larger organizations. Is there a good explanation for why this phenomenon is occurring?

One of the underlying reasons is that the current market is full of worrying signs that may cause tech pessimists to steer clear of fledgling startups. Even in Silicon Valley the director of technical recruiting at Thumbtack recently told The Wall Street Journal that he’s “having trouble convincing engineers to jump to his company because larger firms offer tech pros the tantalizing possibility of a safe harbor at a time when many startups are facing an investment crunch.” This safe haven phenomenon also affects smaller, lesser known companies because if an IT professional hasn’t heard of them or isn’t familiar with their work they are less likely to think of them as a secure place to work.

Another problem is that the IT unemployment rate, which was at 2.5% in February, is so low that it’s becoming more difficult to attract top talent to new positions, especially those with highly advanced skillsets in cloud, mobile, and other key areas. Larger, more established companies are offering enormous saleries and tantalizing benefits to try to attract the best of the best and that leaves many smaller companies or startups unable to compete. In fact, salaries have gotten so high in recent years for in demand technical talent that several IT professions ranked in Glassdoor’s list of the 25 top-paying jobs in America.

How can startups and smaller companies hope to combat ever increasing compensation and the fear that some technical professionals have that they’re unstable simply because they’re smaller or less established than other behemoth organizations? Offering training programs is a great way to acquire technical talent with potential and give them the room to grow into the professional your team truly needs. Another way is to make room to match compensation, both with enticing benefits and salary increases, in order to compete with the big dogs.

Despite how difficult the IT hiring process has become there’s no sign that the hunt for technical talent will slow down any time soon. A recent Dice survey indicated that 78% of hiring managers anticipate even more hiring in the first half of 2016 than they did in the second half of 2015. If startups and smaller companies want to stay competitive they’ll need to fight for top technical talent, start implementing training programs, or be prepared for a lengthy, costly hiring process.