Learn to make better hires and build loyal, skilled and collaborative teams
A poor hiring decision in IT can jeopardize budgets, the morale of other workers and the future of a company. From writing dated, irrelevant job descriptions to accepting a less-than-ideal candidate because the work is piling up, classic hiring mistakes are just waiting to trip up managers.
“I hated doing job descriptions and usually only made minimum effort to get them right,” says Jim Smith, CEO of IT project consultancy Enterprise Management Group in Seattle. “Also, as I look back at my failings coming up the ranks, I made the mistake of promoting based on ‘he’s a good guy and I think he can do it.'”
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Smith, whose company is called upon to turn around unsuccessful IT projects, warns his peers, “Making due is always a mistake because it’s never the people you fire that get you into trouble, it’s the ones you don’t.”
For instance, Smith consulted on two particularly memorable projects that had been led by inexperienced managers. “One company was forced to write off $17 million with nothing to show for it, and the other extended its project cycle from two to four years,” he says.
To help avert disaster, we’ve identified eight common IT hiring mistakes and tips for avoiding them.
1. Posting a poorly written job description.
By the time companies realize they need more IT staff, oftentimes they already have overloaded other workers. This can lead managers to either rush the job description or pass the task on to HR.
“HR will never be as up to date on [relevant] terms as IT. That leaves them to focus too heavily on skills and years of experience,” says Mark Herschberg, principal at advisory firm White Knight Consulting.
Job descriptions that are too general and don’t adequately address the corporate and department culture create more work later, Herschberg adds.
Rachel Russell, director at Allegis Group’s private talent management subsidiary TEKsystems, recommends prioritizing five must-have characteristics for each position and your organization overall. “While it might be therapeutic to write out every possible skill and attribute you’d like in a new hire, expecting to find someone who meets a laundry list of criteria isn’t realistic,” she says. To develop your list, she suggests conducting an internal audit of your successful employees.
Along with narrowing down the job description, update it. Managers often use company or industry templates or get help from HR to craft postings. “Make sure it’s not the one you used 10 years ago for the same position and that it’s going to be appealing to candidates, describing selling points like growth path, cool projects, and perks,” says Tracy Cashman, partner and general manager of the IT search division at the Boston-based WinterWyman staffing consultancy.
2. Being hyper-focused on technical skills.
Hiring managers, HR and recruiters can fall into the trap of trying to match candidates based solely on technical skills. They zone in on syntax, tools used in a specific development environment, and hands-on experience with the latest version of software being used, says Gagan Singh, executive vice president and global HR leader at mobile e-commerce firm Freeborders.
Companies instead should emphasize behavioral traits such as the applicant’s ability to learn, problem-solving skills, adaptation level, and capacity for innovative thinking and collaboration.
Singh recommends incorporating interviewing techniques that assess soft skills, such as how candidates would handle certain common scenarios, and giving those results equal weight in hiring decisions. Companies should look for strong customer service, problem-solving and communications skills.
Fitting in is also important.
“An organization must adequately source candidates that carry the appropriate social aptitude for quickly assimilating into the team in order to make an immediate impact,” says Joel Capparella, vice president for talent and outsourcing provider Yoh.
Capparella relies on agile development methodologies to determine if a candidate will be a good collaborative fit across an entire IT team, including business analysis, programming and quality assurance.
Don’t forget to have the candidate meet the actual IT team as well, advises Jon Grimes, CTO at office space finder The SquareFoot. “Team chemistry is probably one of the most important aspects of a hire. No matter how competent the candidate might be, if they are difficult to work with, they become a bad apple and can ruin a team’s morale,” he says.
3. Taking a short-term view of hiring.
Hiring managers sometimes recruit for their immediate demands instead of factoring in the technology and leadership skills they’ll need down the road.
For instance, they laser-focus on finding Java developers instead of looking for IT professionals with a broader Web development skill set. “Leaders try to find a needle in a haystack because they believe that one skill is going to make or break the organization,” says Amelia Generalis, vice president of business HR for SAP Cloud.
Will Farley, webmaster at development firm Web Power Labs, says hiring for low wages just to get the job done can be just as shortsighted. For instance, Farley recently posted entry-level developer positions on Craigslist and through a local university.
From those efforts, he hired two university students who would receive class credit in lieu of pay and a local programmer who would accept an hourly wage. “The two students were unreliable and were dismissed for poor attendance and the Craigslist applicant could not perform and was unwilling to learn new methods and was also dismissed,” Farley says.
His conclusion: “I wasted a lot of time recruiting, training, scheduling and the like with no payoff. I will not seek low-cost individuals for an IT position in the future.”
Not only does short-term, narrow recruitment force multiple hiring sessions (now and down the road) for the same position, but limits the talent pool. Creating a long-term vision for the position attracts candidates that could be better assets to the entire company.
One approach is to train current employees to plug immediate skill gaps. Then, hiring managers can take time to consult with their peers across the enterprise to identify upcoming projects and their anticipated expertise.
4. Rushing the hiring process.
When the work is piling up, it’s tempting to say “yes” to a candidate based primarily on the need to get projects off your desk.
“While it’s completely understandable to just want to be done with the recruiting process, patience is a virtue,” TEKsystems’ Russell says. “No matter how tempting, don’t compromise quality for speed.”
Jeff Gordon, founder of online marketing agency Interactive99 and a former industry recruiter, agrees. “Your hiring decision is the most important decision, and if a company chooses the wrong person, it can be more painful than having vacant headcount,” he says.
He believes companies should bring in at least three candidates to get a good understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
Also, if you identify red flags in the screening process, don’t gloss over them. According to Russell, “[Those red flags] will be blazing after you extend the offer so keep searching. A great hire is worth the wait.”
5. Dragging out the hiring process.
Stringing candidates along can be as detrimental as making rash hiring decisions — especially in this economy where certain IT jobs, such as developers, are in high demand.
“Our interview process for IT talent is lengthy with interviews that can go up to four steps,” says Joanne Johnson, director of recruiting at technology integrator Force 3. “This means that we have candidates coming in three times, not including initial screens and tech screens.”
She acknowledges this approach takes its toll on the candidate pool and even can cause those who need to make a move quickly to drop out.
To ensure that the company is not only attracting top-notch applicants, but hiring them as well, Johnson educates IT managers how to expedite interviews and decision-making. In addition, Force 3 is contemplating a move to full-day interviews vs. multiple rounds.
6. Overlooking internal talent.
The best candidate for the job could be right under your nose. However, you’d only know that if you had a “next step” for your workers, according Russell.
“A-players like to have a vision of how they can develop and advance, and showing them opportunities for growth that exist within the company will help retain them,” she says.
SAP uses its SuccessFactors human capital management software to track employees’ hard and soft skills. They map available internal skills against project requirements to identify candidates for promotion or transfer. Employees are able to add skills as they acquire them, such as project management or a new technology, ensuring profiles are always up to date.
Generalis considers this the human capital equivalent of having an inventory of your technology assets, adding the software provides unique visibility into existing resources so you can train up internal staff in time to lead future projects.
7. Not educating recruiters about your hiring requirements.
Recruiters can command upward of 25% of a hire’s first-year salary. Yet, many IT managers don’t take the time to educate them about what they need from the position in terms of hard and soft skills and corporate cultural fit.
This results in recruiters, who might be unfamiliar with the latest technology or changes in work style, piling up managers’ desks with too many or inappropriate resumes.
“Quite often recruiters will ask technical questions and take notes without truly understanding the answers, which prevents them from capably qualifying the candidate,” Interactive99’s Gordon says.
Hiring managers should meet regularly with recruiters and be available for update calls as needed. Also, companies should ensure the recruiters don’t rely heavily on search engine optimization and keyword searches on career sites and overuse social media to identify prospects. A recruiter should have intimate knowledge of the industry, the organization and the open position’s specific requirements.
8. Not sharing your job opening with your peer network.
Most IT executives — and their subordinates, for that matter — are part of online industry groups, peer networking sites and social media. These are optimal channels to unearth highly qualified applicants and referrals.
Hiring managers, who tend to leave job posting to HR, might have more success sharing the listing among their online contacts and friends and offering bonuses for employees who do the same.
“Job boards are a helpful recruiting tactic, but they are missing the communication and relationship aspect of recruiting,” Russell says. “Research has proven time and again that a new hire is significantly more likely to succeed at a company if they come from a referral.”
Companies that sail past these classic pitfalls are sure to make better hires, get projects underway in a timely and cost-effective fashion, and build a loyal, skilled and collaborative team working toward their next revenue-producing challenge.
Gittlen is a freelance business and technology journalist in the greater Boston area. Email her at sgittlen@verizon.net.
