Self-Inflicted Challenges: IT Recruiting

Response to "Four reasons why IT recruiters face huge challenges"

http://www.it-recruitment-blog.com/four-reasons-why-it-recruiters-face-huge-challenges/

One of the issues in the IT recruiting world is the idea that a candidate must have specific knowledge with a particular product, device or technology. IT is an extremely dynamic sector and new solutions emerge rapidly. The key to staffing for those roles is to find seasoned or proven IT professionals, not necessarily with experience in the specific flavor of the day technology, but one with the proven ability to thrive and prosper  in a related area. Good IT people are adaptable, we always have been, and it is innate to our profession, industry and our personal beings. Great candidates aren’t always going to have experience in the solution you are looking for, but can they learn it?

When I had the responsibility of hiring I always asked “can this person be trained?” For instance, if I was looking for a network administrator to work in a predominantly Juniper shop, I wasn’t going to turn down proven candidates simply because their experience was only on Cisco products.  For that matter, I wouldn’t turn down a candidate I felt really good about even if they possessed only a foundational and core understanding of large data networks. Company’s need to realize that if they want professionals, right now, to work with products that emerged yesterday, they are going to have to invest in specialized training of their professionals. Vendors offer training on their products for good reason and too many companies are reluctant to tap that resource. 

IT skills are more complex than whether a programmer simply knows how to code in Java. A great programmer can learn to code in Java. Not everyone is capable of that, but proven software developers are. The same is true of others in the IT field, it is what distinguishes us from others.  While IT evolves rapidly, the core fundamentals remain steady. Claims that there is a huge skills shortage for cloud computing professionals are not entirely true. Experts that understand cloud computing understand that it is an evolution of concepts that have been used since the beginning of digital computing. Cloud computing is based on the same core technologies and principles that have been used for the last 20 years. It is more of a strategy shift in cost management for corporations than it is in technology.