IT Staff Selection – Searching and Selecting IT Talent

The process involved in IT Staff Selection is probably one of the most time-consuming activities for HR Consultants in an IT environment.  Between the calculated risk of making an appointment and what you have to weed out, hiring is the most dreaded and difficult activity performed by any HR Consultant because failure to hire correctly is statistically NOT in your favour.

How can we improve this?

How can we have more confidence in our hiring decisions, and how can we make better hiring decisions – better in terms of both cost and productivity?

To achieve this we need to look at our IT Staff Selection processes AND the tools that we use to improve these processes.  Today there are a number of “computer applications” available to improve the staff recruitment and selection processes.

But if the information used to “drive” the application is not good, the results are not going to be any better – the old adage GIGO (garbage in – garbage out) applies just as much today as it did 50 years ago for computer applications.  You need the very best of information for the automated recruitment and selection processes to be effective.

But there are also other considerations when it comes to selecting the actual application.  Many of these applications are “stand alone”, meaning that they don’t easily interface with other applications used, or more importantly COULD be used by the organisation for effective Human Capital Management.

The Goal

The goal of every organisation today, whether they know and understand it at this stage or not, is optimised Human Capital Management.  That is, optimizing the Return on Investment in the skills, competencies, attitudes and experience that reside within the organization.

So, think carefully before making these decisions as changes in the future are inevitably more expensive than making the right decision up front.

If you need assistance with selecting your HCMS, give us a call

 By Gail Sturgess – TalentAlign

June 2010