“Mediocre” Doesn’t Cut It In Today’s IT Hiring World

You’re in for a surprise, if you’re a company looking to do some IT hiring,  and even for those companies who provide IT staff to business on an outsourcing basis.


It’s a ‘battle’ to find not just good people, but in filling the senior ranks of the IT department, the hiring is just darn hard, according to “Winning the battle for technology talent,” part of a recent, McKinsey Quarterly report.

You’d think with the high unemployment---worldwide---it wouldn’t be so tough to comb the resumes of the IT crowd to find people that were a notch or two above...mediocre.

The report shares a comment from a CIO associated with a very “thriving, innovative company,” who offered this assessment of the IT hiring dilemma during his search for ‘senior architects:’

“I need a few senior architects. Note that I didn’t say good senior architects...I’d settle for a few mediocre ones...”

So what is the successful company doing to hire and keep their talented IT staff? Evidently, there is a method to retaining and nurturing this illusive hire.

Here's a summary of a few of the areas in the report that might bring insight to this issue:

Developing and retaining talent: Put away the ‘old-school’ thinking of bringing talent on board and immersing them in great training programs. Instead, put your energies to keeping and progressing with the “team you have.”

Rotate high performers. The familiar route for new, IT hires, is to place them within less demanding roles, handling areas like “Web development” through “data-center operations.” Today, it’s important to move your IT staff into “business or operational functions as well.”

Make training less technical. Yes, you read this one right: less is more in many cases; aside from the expected steps through the technical morass, some companies are making sure the IT staff “understands the business...(by addressing) the company’s customers, products, strategies and market position, as well as its operations.”

If your team needs support in developing programs to attract and retain top talent ---contact us today.