4 Key Factors for Hiring in ICT
In the world of ICT, there have been many infamous quotes such as Thomas Watson, President of IBM in 1943 who said: “I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers”.
These inaccurate quotes were not all in the days before television, 34 years later in 1977, Ken Olsen who founded Digital Equipment Corporation said “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home”.
The message these quotes give us is that the pace at which technology moves it is very difficult to predict what is going to happen and therefore one must be ready to change as quickly as possible. It is a fact that there are students in our education system today who will work on technologies that haven’t yet been invented.
So how can we ensure we hire the right candidates? What are the vital ingredients to ensure we get it right most of the time?
Today ICT can mean so many things and there are so many areas where the expertise is required. At Intuity we engage in regular recruitment campaigns and we have come to recognise that there is a need to balance the intake of candidates because we require a balance to our team. Most ICT professionals have a ferocious appetite for all things technical, the team at Intuity are no different. When something new comes along engineers are anxious to get involved to see how it works. In an ideal world, this is great, however, the bills also have to be paid so it must be balanced with the normal activities such as customer support and customer projects being prioritised and research and development carried out afterwards.
We have four key factors which are critical to our hiring process at Intuity:
1. Attitude is King
Based on the rather simple recruitment philosophy, we hire attitude. It is our belief that skills can be taught later. A candidate with basic skills but the right attitude can develop into an excellent ICT professional.
2. Expertise is specialised
Given the far reaching impact of ICT, it’s not possible for engineers to be expert in all areas. Therefore we look to develop our teams with complimenting abilities so that they possess several different areas of expertise within a unit. Given that we’ve hired the right attitude it is possible to have everyone work together to give the customer what they want.
3. Straight Talking is a secret weapon
Good Communication skills are a vital ingredient in the ICT Engineer DNA. Customers see ICT as mysterious, unknown and frustrating when it doesn’t work. When things go wrong they just want it fixed and what they like in these situations is clear concise straight talking.
4. Technical Ability
This is naturally a critical factor in the recruitment of an ICT professional. Hiring someone on a graduate programme and identifying the skills gap can ensure that they will fit into the organisation better. At Intuity we carry out a technical interview as part of our recruitment process, this allows us to identify the basic abilities of the candidate. With our knowledge of what is required, we can then ensure our engineers partake in different strands of self-development with our partners in Microsoft and Dell among others.
Why take our word for it?
As an ISO 27001 company, we work a lot with common operating procedures. This means that engineers can follow predetermined processes to ensure the same results are provided every time. We are constantly reviewing our processes to identify potential improvements so that prevention of issues is the cornerstone of what we do. When ICT is working correctly it enables businesses to improve the service they give to their customers. Our focus at Intuity is to ensure our customers have this experience consistently and we believe that the genesis of the process is the recruitment of the right people.