Hiring an IT professional in a down economy may seem much easier than hiring an IT professional in an up economy right? Not necessarily so; you may have more resumes to choose from but you also have the problem that there are more resumes to choose from. Some employers have found that when they open their position it is not five to ten candidates they need to review but one hundred or two hundred resumes they need to sift through. Even with all these extra resumes some basics still hold true; it is still important to select the right individual for the job no matter what the pay and the good people always get hired first.
Even if you have a lot of resumes this doesn't preclude an effective hiring campaign. Here are tips for hiring the right technology pros to help your business.
First, look at the position you are hiring for; does this position fill a technical gap in your organizations? Or does it merely fill a short term need? Is the job function central to your business or is it something you could outsource? You really have a number of different options when it comes to accomplishing the work you need done. You could hire full time for the position, hire a short term consultant, hire a longer term contractor or completely outsource the job function. It is important you review all your options before diving in and hiring.
Second, make sure you hire someone who can speak your language. That is do not just hire for technical expertise but look at hiring someone who can communicate technical concepts to the rest of your staff. There are many brilliant technical people who can do the work but there are far fewer that can listen, understand and translate your business needs into a technical plan. In the interview process ask them to describe how they gathered requirements; interacted with other team members, how their activities fit into the overall business plan. It is these types of questions that will give you a good idea if the candidate knows more than just their small technical piece. You need people who can translate technical into business.
Make sure the candidate has good people skills. Technical people are often thought to have little social skills, well this stereotype is not always true and you need to make sure the people you hire have the communication skills to be successful in your organization. Depending on the position they should be able to present plans, create justifications for decisions and communicate with end users. In order to assess these skills ask the candidate how they have handled tough situations, when have they had to take a stand and justify a position that was contrary to the general consensus. Have they ever had to do a presentation or make a proposal. At Northwest Computer Support when we hire IT consultants much of the interview is focused on the soft skills. We have found that it is much easier to teach a technical skill than it is to teach the soft skills such as interacting with customers or communicating IT concepts to non-technical people.
If you are like most companies technology is terrific but having clear instructions and documentation in the project is also critical to success. A project or system that works when the consultant is there is good but one with clear documentation will keep the project or software operational and successful. Make a point to have tech applicants show documentation from prior projects that explain how the system was built and how to use it. This addresses two fronts: first people within your firm need to know how to use the solution they implement. Second since turnover of technology professionals is typically high that means someone else will likely have to learn from the documentation left behind. You do not want to end up in a position where you cannot terminate a tech person because they had never drawn up documentation to make them replaceable. We have personally seen many companies held hostage via technical blackmail.
Make sure your tech pro has an aptitude for learning. Technology is ever changing and with most businesses your technology will change over time, you need a tech pro who will keep up with the changes and embraces new IT challenges. Too often with the day to day rush it is easy to put learning aside, the most successful tech people will put aside time for training and learning new software. While at Microsoft we had the philosophy that if the candidate had the basic coding skills, a strong algorithmic thought process and a strong aptitude for technology and learning they were a great hire. Specific knowledge could always be learned on the job. I would not go as far as Microsoft in this philosophy since you probably have a job that needs to get done but it is important you probe for that passion for technology. Ask what books they have read, what are some new features of a software package they tried or how particular software could be improved. This will give you some insight into their technical passion.
Finally in the interview process be very careful about the word ‘we’ when it comes to technical work. Ask specific questions about what they did and how they contributed to the end product. You are after all hiring for a tech position you will want to probe and ask what they specifically contributed to a project or task. Where they under someone else’s direction, did they take initiative and fix issues themselves?
Finally if you are in doubt or would like a second opinion on your IT professional you can always call Northwest Computer Support and we can offer an unbiased technical screen of the candidate from one of our consultants.
Contact Us today if you would like to find out how we could help with your recruiting needs.
James Watson, CEO
Northwest Computer Support