Today’s quickly evolving IT skillset s – software/web development, data analysis, IT security, IoT, etc. – can be hard to come by. More than 60% of IT execs say they face challenges attracting appropriately trained and experienced IT professionals . Nearly a quarter seek the skills necessary to upgrade existing systems, while 22% need expertise in keeping systems and data secure.
Losing a key IT talent can cost plenty, too – from 50% to 150% of that IT person’s annual salary .
Nor will this struggle cease anytime soon. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ research indicates that by 2020, a million more IT–related jobs will be available than applicants with the skills to fill them.
So how, then, do your clients acquire the IT skillsets they need? Incentives, of course. But when it comes to IT staffing, several other factors besides money are important , most notably an ability to learn and grow , opportunities to work on interesting projects, and the chance to use new and innovative technologies.
To help your clients acquire the IT expertise they need, I recommend you lead them to these 4 best practices:
- Gaining intelligible, manageable, actionable information;
- Validating and justifying long-term goals;
- Outlining a holistic technology roadmap in support of those goals; and
- Creating a baseline for enterprise security and success.
1 Understanding the relationship between their organization’s business goals and how its IT operations fulfill those goals
Bring in an experienced technology advisor able to guide your clients’ executive and IT leadership through discovery workshops focused on:
2 Linking IT requirements to IT work
Your clients may struggle to provide those opportunities IT talent seeks most in addition to salary. So encourage exploration of whether the IT expertise your clients need is best acquired via long-term, full-time positions or short-term contractor arrangements. Your clients may benefit from bringing in a technology consultant’s team of expert IT professionals on a project basis, especially if they’re in critical need of cybersecurity expertise .
3 Providing certified learning and training opportunities
Technical training boosts productivity, return on IT investment, competitive advantage, and staff loyalty. Some IT staffing advisors provide ways to make technical training easy for your clients’ IT people.
- Can help strategically plan your clients ’ IT hiring with an eye to short- as well as long-term goals, types of IT expertise required, best mix of permanent staff and contractors, etc.;
- Attracts top IT talent, thanks to extensive industry connections and a team of dedicated technical recruiters;
- Retains top IT talent because of its own worldwide data center , networking , cloud / managed services , and application development operations; and
- Conducts searches for permanent IT staff, contractors, or consultants based on the needs your clients identify and using sophisticated technical screening processes and an automated resume retrieval system.
4 Hiring a highly qualified, deeply experienced IT staffing advisor
Encourage your clients to bring in an IT-specialized staffing advisor with an in-the-trenches grasp of technology trends and requirements as well as a top-notch IT talent pool and excellent customer service.
Your clients will be best served by an IT staffing advisor that…
When it comes to finding the IT skillsets your clients need, the right staffing advisor is one that both recruits top IT talent and engages that talent in its own leading-edge IT operations and services.
