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Closing your IT skills gap in a gig economy

IT-Information Technology Staffing Solutions from Quest

Is your business one of the 43% with understaffed IT operations?

Recruiting IT talent has become a significant issue for most businesses; in many organizations, more than 33% of HR spending is allocated to IT staffing solutions, i.e., hiring and retaining IT talent.

Keeping IT talent has become a struggle, too; an annual turnover of 25% of a company’s IT staff is common — and surprisingly so, given that, on average, IT staffers report being approached by recruiters six times a month.

Traditionally, companies’ IT staffing solutions have centered on offering (more) lucrative pay packages and extravagant perks. Yet the turnover continues, and oftentimes IT talent departs not for a better deal from someone else’s IT department but for a chance to gain new skills and more control over their career path while enjoying greater personal flexibility.

Tread carefully in the IT gig economy

When it comes to IT staffing solutions, there’s much talk these days of trying a new approach: Hire gig workers. After all, more than half of IT workers now take gigs on the side.

This has potential downsides, of course, including loss of control over the work and the methods used to accomplish it, concerns about quality and worker commitment, and the additional management overhead that accompanies frequently adapting to working with new people.

Then there are the challenges associated with the technical screening of potential gig IT workers. Crowdsourcing sounds nice — until you see who actually emerges from the crowd when you send up a flare.

The technical screening of people working on your it projects is critical , but it takes time and skill. When you shift IT projects to gig workers, your technical screening requirements will increase and diversify, so you must scale accordingly.

One of the best ways to ensure your technical screening meets your needs is to choose an experienced technical staffing agency to handle it.

A matter of trust

Whether your IT staffing needs involve direct hires, contractors, staff augmentation, or temp-to-hire, technical screening of people working on your it projects is critical with the right technical staffing agency, you’ll be able to access a team of dedicated technical recruiters equipped with the best technical screening tools and strategies and a deep pool of highly qualified IT talent.

Rather than conduct only rudimentary talent searches by pulling resumes in bulk from online sources, you need an agency you can trust to dig deeper and put candidates through extensive screening.

The payoff: Your IT work will often be completed a higher standard because the IT professionals screened by your technical staffing agency — as well as the agency itself — have their reputations on the line.

Meet the Author
Tim Burke is the President and CEO of Quest. He has been at the helm for over 30 years.
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