Tips and Trick for Hiring the Best IT Professionals
Cisco CEO John Chambers once said, “A world-class engineer with five peers can out-produce 200 regular engineers.” Yet a recent survey of CIOs revealed that 65% believe that finding skilled professionals today is a challenge. So how do you hire the best and avoid the rest? Recruiting is both an art and a science—tap into the perfect blend of both by following the 5 P’s of successful IT hiring:
1) Proactiveness – Instead of waiting for candidates to come to them, top organizations spend more time actively searching for high-caliber people. This means utilizing traditional networking skills, in addition to newer methods like social media and industry blogs to find candidates and position your company as an industry leader worth working for.
2) Preparation – You need to develop a solid job description, the best of which are created by analyzing the position’s expected contributions to the organization. Input from current employees can also be very valuable in crafting a job profile. In addition, you need to determine any prerequisites for the position—including specific skills, knowledge and/or certifications – that are needed to perform successfully. Finally, hiring managers should familiarize themselves with a candidate’s resume prior to the interview.
3) Process – Good interviewers develop a set of standard questions to create a structured interview process. A combination of behavioral-based questions (which help evaluate judgment and initiative) and situational-based questions (which help assess ability and knowledge) will help you uncover the most information in the shortest amount of time. A structured approach helps avoid bias and makes things fair and consistent for all applicants.
4) Personality – This is one of the toughest parts of an interview, but it is important to get a strong feel for the applicant’s personality. The best candidates will match up in temperament not only with the job itself, but with the corporate culture and the level of customer contact and/or peer interaction the job requires.
5) Professional Help – Research shows that organizations who spend more time recruiting high-caliber people earn a 22% higher return to shareholders than their competitors. However, many resource-strapped HR departments or hiring managers simply do not have the time it takes to develop the networking skills or technical familiarity required to successfully recruit high-quality IT candidates. This is where engaging the services of a professional staffing agency that specializes in IT recruitment can be of immense help.
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that it costs one-third of a new hire’s annual salary to find a replacement—so making the right IT hire the first time is critical, both from monetary and productivity standpoints. Yet author and business consultant Gregory P. Smith estimates that 2 out of 3 hires prove to be a bad fit within in the first year on the job. By partnering with an IT staffing expert like Triumph Services, you can improve those odds – and your organization’s bottom line.
