IT talents are rare, but truck drivers are needed even more urgently.

In the first eleven months of 2021, according to an analysis by the American advertising portal Appcast, the average price for a job advertisement for software developers was $ 22.

In contrast, an average of $ 45 was paid to get an application from a trucker.

"Recruiters in America are currently willing to spend more money to find suitable applicants to hire a truck driver than for a Java developer in Silicon Valley," says Sebastian Dettmers.

"We would never have thought that possible ten years ago."

Jonas Jansen

Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.

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Dettmers is the boss of the Düsseldorf job market company Stepstone, which Appcast is majority owned.

The company generates most of its annual sales of around 800 million euros in Europe, but North America is currently growing the fastest - the US market has tripled recently.

"We also work there with companies that hardly anyone here knows. They hire more people a year than almost any large corporation in Germany," says Dettmers.

"People are missing in every nook and cranny"

Stepstone is active in more than 20 countries, with the United States being a special market.

In the largest economy there is on the one hand a very competitive labor market and on the other hand structurally low unemployment.

In addition, people in the US change jobs much more often.

This in turn also brings more sales to the job portals.

In particular, there is great demand from internet business models.

"Above all, companies that have grown strongly with e-commerce - such as logisticians - and already have a great need for recruitment have recognized our ability to find and retain people," says Dettmers.

The company also benefited from the increased digitization during the corona crisis: "When it came to automating recruiting, the pandemic naturally played into our cards," says Dettmers. "Practically all hiring processes now take place digitally in some form, which used to be less than 20 percent."

Stepstone would like to transfer the momentum from America to Europe.

“The labor markets in Germany are comparatively inflexible.

That is also bad for an economy that is in a process of transformation, ”says Dettmers.

Companies should no longer just plan with steady career paths and also get involved with lateral entrants.

The shortage of skilled workers can only be solved with retraining and advanced training.

“With instruments such as short-time work, the labor market is cemented as if in concrete.

Now we notice everywhere that people are missing.

We need greater flexibility. "

Valuation of more than 7 billion euros?

The burger company McDonald's is going a good way, believes Dettmers. It is increasingly automating its ordering processes, for example using screens on which customers can choose their own food and drinks. In return, more employees are deployed for service, which in turn improves the experience for the guests. The Stepstone boss is not worried that increasing automation will cost jobs. “In our markets there is currently no unemployment, but rather unemployment. This is a huge problem for companies. We'll solve it for you, ”says Dettmers.

According to its own information, Stepstone has around 140,000 corporate customers who process 100 million applications every year.

Most of the 3700 employees are based in Germany, with around 800 more than half of them work at the headquarters in Düsseldorf.

But that's not enough to find your own talents.

“We feel the challenge just like any other company.

That is why we are increasingly going where the people are and opening smaller offices in smaller cities, ”says Dettmers.

For example, Stepstone recently checked its own data to see where there are a particularly large number of programmers and IT people, and shortly afterwards opened a small co-working office with eight employees in southern Sweden, in Malmö.

"We expect it to grow quickly and become a tech hub."

After the financial investor KKR became the largest shareholder in the media group Axel Springer, he first took the company off the stock exchange. However, that does not mean that you cannot collect fresh money on the capital market with subsidiaries of the Berlin publishing house.

Stepstone, in which Axel Springer initially invested in 2004 with a valuation of 137 million euros and which it completely took over in 2009, has long been considered a candidate on the stock exchange.

According to reports, it could be in the first half of 2022;

The French investment bank Rothschild has been entrusted with the preparations.

Springer hopes for a valuation of more than 7 billion euros.

Neither Springer nor Stepstone denied this, but did not confirm it either.

“We are continuously examining all possible options to support our sustainable growth path,” says Dettmers.