Technical skills were once considered an employment mystery – too complicated for a layman to understand and therefore unchallenged by HR or anyone beyond the IT department. The specialist skills required for a role were often enough to determine whether a candidate was appropriate for the job. But as IT continues to permeate every aspect of business life, from ERP systems in HR to CRM applications in sales, the people behind these operations need to demonstrate more than technical capabilities to become fully integrated into the business environment.
Historically, technical employees weren’t interacting with the business, IT didn’t have a role in the boardroom and was even seen by some companies as a cost centre. But business needs are changing and this change is impacting the role of the technical candidate.
Even pre-recession, pressures to justify spend and evaluate employee effectiveness have made everyone throughout the organisation more accountable. Post-recession the truism that a business is only as successful as its people will really hit home and the value that each employee delivers will be under even closer scrutiny.
With this in mind, HR needs to revaluate what it looks for in technical candidates. Specialist skills cannot be underestimated but if the candidate is lacking broader business acumen and the ability to communicate throughout the organisation, the value they deliver won’t be recognised.
If IT professionals really want to succeed, they need to be able to sell themselves, their achievements and deliver exactly what a business needs, not just what is technically possible.
To find the candidates capable of this the HR function must start working closely with the IT department to understand the context of their recruitment requirements, not only the technical skills that are needed but who they will be interacting with, reporting into and what impact their contribution needs to have on the wider organisation. From here the recruitment process can start identifying valuable ‘softer’ skills as well as technical capability in candidates.
Employers now need candidates to demonstrate their understanding of how their performance impacted the business, the objective they were working to, how they interpreted their brief and how their delivery was received by the business.
It is only right that these qualities are demanded of IT professionals the way they are of other functions. Holding IT candidates up to the same standards on commercial understanding, management style and communication skills will have benefits throughout the organisation; successful candidates will better understand the needs of their employer and the organisation will better understand what the IT department can, in turn, deliver.
Richard Nott is website director for CWJobs.co.uk
