The IT Hiring Challenge
- Details
- Written by Ali Moghadam
Despite the many tools, approaches, philosophies, and processes available to human resources, identifying and hiring good IT people very much remains a challenge. Whether you are a candidate or a hiring manager, the overall experience continues to be lengthy and often frustrating with questionable results.
Although hiring has always been a challenge in IT, it appears to have become even more difficult due to the growing list of requirements imposed by HR and the organization. There is a significant misalignment between hiring rules and departmental hiring requirements within most companies today. This is highlighted by the size of the staffing industry. In 2015, the staffing industry in Canada had a market size of $8.5B and it is expected to rise to $8.9B in 2017.
Education and experience used to be the main factors weighing into the hiring decision, but today, many other aspects are being looked at to evaluate a candidate’s suitability. These can include soft skills, cultural fit, social media presence, volunteer work, and the list goes on. This has effectively become the new norm for all positions.
The intent of this more elaborate hiring approach is to better identify well rounded candidates who are an immediate fit with the organization’s culture and who are more likely to have long, productive careers with the company. The actual result, in most cases, has been increased overhead and bureaucracy in a world where disruption requires rapid action. This is particularly an issue within IT where the current average tenure of new hires (including CIOs) is around two years.
This complex hiring approach only works well for organizations who are already leaders and visionaries in their respective segments, and where a successful core culture has already been instilled into the very fabric of the company. Examples include Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Netflix – all relatively new enterprises. This approach does not work for the majority of companies who are trying to prosper as they regularly go through leadership changes, which in turn translates into the introduction of new or evolved cultures. Unless an organization is a member of an exclusive club of segment leaders, it’s best not to mimic their hiring practices. The likelihood of successfully competing for the same talent pool is low. It’s best to take an approach that is more likely to produce positive outcomes. This means focusing on short to medium term skill requirements, as opposed to long term ones.
I have witnessed these hiring challenges first-hand as both a hiring manager and a candidate over the last eight years. As a hiring manager, I consistently found myself having to rely on my personal network and third party staffing firms to fill open positions. HR was not able to identify and attract suitable candidates within the required time frame. Red tape also caused significant delays during the approval and onboarding process. It could take the HR department more than two months to internally approve and onboard a selected candidate for a critical position. The processes weren’t aligned with the rapid transformation required to be successful.
As a candidate, a common theme I’ve observed is the unnecessary focus on potential shortcomings as opposed to established and proven strengths. When anyone involved in the hiring process thinks they have identified a weakness, there is a rush to eliminate the candidate and move on to the next one. More often than not, this leads to the search being unsuccessful or the company selecting someone who is unsuitable because hiring managers become frustrated or have run out of time and need to move forward.
The misalignment between HR and IT, combined with increasing demand and competition for good talent, is one of the main challenges for CIOs. It frequently leads to companies failing to meet their IT objectives and increases the reliance on IT outsourcing. There is a critical need within many organizations to shift from “dictate and impose” to “collaborate and adapt”. This requires HR to take a more client focused approach by having a dedicated representative for the IT department who works closely with IT leaders to be constantly in sync with staffing requirements. This allows HR to adapt to the needs of their constituents as opposed to pushing them towards a fixed framework. Moreover, HR needs to have experienced IT specialists on the team who are familiar with IT positions, sources of candidates, and the current recruiting landscape. By combining this approach with executive and HR leadership support, organizations can solve the IT hiring challenge
Ali Moghadam is a Senior IT Leader with over 20 years of experience leveraging technology to add value across all facets of the business. He has successfully led transformations for national and international organizations in manufacturing, wholesale and retail sectors.
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