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5 Best Practices for Hiring Your Next IT Rock Star

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Finding top tech talent is a goal for every company. Often, these roles are critical to the functioning of other business areas. With that in mind, you want to make sure you find the best candidates possible. But, how do you separate the rock stars from the rest of the pack?

While traditional mechanisms, like resumes and educational qualifications, can provide a good start, they only provide a fundamental understanding of their capabilities. Essentially, you are testing a top-of-the-line graphics card by observing the picture on a CRT monitor.

If you want to see who can shine in the position, consider these five best practices to get you the kind of information you need to make a better hiring decision.

1. Put Their Skills to the Test

Just because an applicant looks like they have the right stuff on paper doesn’t mean they can put that knowledge into practice. Remember, you don’t have to be a straight-A student or employee of the year to have these items show up on a resume. If you want to know what they are made of, consider a test.

Now, this doesn’t mean you need to give everyone access to critical systems to see what they can do. Instead, see if there is an adequate simulation that can do the job. If that isn’t available, even having them provide solutions to problems on a whiteboard can help. This will help you see what they can do, as well as how passionate they are about doing it.

2. Always Check References

Contacting references allows you to see how the candidate’s previous work was perceived by others. It gives a resume context and can give you insights you would otherwise miss. Even though most applicants wll list references that will say the most positive things, it can still be valuable.

When references are limited in what they can say, and the candidate no longer works with the reference, consider asking them if the person would be eligible for rehire into the same department or position, or if they would work with the applicant again. This can give some people an opening where a simple yes or no response can mean more.

3. Consider the Content of Cover Letters

Thanks to the internet, it is easy to design a professional-looking resume. So don’t pay too much attention to the format and really zero in on the content. Their cover letter should be engaging and designed to market them as an ideal candidate. Standard copy-and-paste jobs can be a sign of a rushed job or an assumption the content didn’t matter. Applicants who craft individual letters targeting the position to which they are applying, are likely more passionate about the work and more engaged when doing their work.

4. Focus on Things You Can’t Teach

Given the opportunity, most people can learn any hard skill a job requires. However, soft skills are harder to pass along. If someone has the enthusiasm, desire and drive, but only has fundamental skills, they may be in the perfect position to be molded into exactly what you need. In contrast, someone with all of the skills but no excitement about the work may remain disinterested over the long term.

5. Don’t Rush

As challenging as it is to be without a body in that chair, rushing could lead to less desirable results. Take your time to complete every step of the process well. If you don’t find a great candidate from the first batch, consider advertising the position in different ways to attract new interest.

For those times when you can’t sort through the sea of resumes alone, consider working with a staffing company to help narrow the field. Resolution Technologies has the industry-specific experience you need to help you make a more intelligent choice. Contact Resolution Technologies today, and you can have a new IT rock star employee before you know it.

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Check Out These 4 IT Management Best Practices

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IT management is a broad term that can apply to any of your IT systems, expenditures and plans. To make sure you have all of your bases covered, you need to focus on best practices in four key areas: strategic planning, enterprise architecture, asset management and security. By addressing concerns within these core functional areas, you can make sure your overall IT management strategy is designed to produce optimal results.

IT Strategic Planning

To create a robust IT strategic plan, you need to have input from a diverse group of employees and managers. This helps create a big picture plan for the direction of IT in the organization and ensures all key stakeholders have input into large-scale decisions. Get everyone committed to regular meetings and status updates, and use the overall framework to drill down into individual milestones.

Regardless of anything you do, trying to manage IT needs without a plan will likely run into trouble. However, the program can be flexible enough to allow for changing priorities or new technological advancements of interest.

 

Enterprise Architecture

Your enterprise architecture is the backbone of all of your IT operations. Without sound architecture, you can encounter many functional frustrations that can otherwise be avoided. Understand your current technical capabilities and limitations, and consider how to address the constraints in the future.

Further, make sure your infrastructure is prepared to grow with the needs of the business. This can require a significant commitment of resources, but failing to keep pace with the speed of business today, you will find your organization suffering as a whole.

 

IT Asset Management

Outside of your primary infrastructure, you are surrounded by a variety of other IT assets that must be managed appropriately. Determine the lifecycle of current equipment and software solutions, and create a method for addressing equipment needs before a solution becomes obsolete.

Additionally, make sure there is a solidified process for managing broken and outdated equipment. If confidential information is contained on machines, you need a disposal process that accounts for the destruction of this data, even if it means shredding components. Failure to manage this side of your IT assets can lead to information being found by someone out of the organization, which can pose a significant risk to internal operations.

IT Security

Securing your network and assets is critical in today’s connected workplaces. Make sure that all equipment meets current security standards at all times. Automate security software updates for employee devices and restrict access to the network to only company-approved devices. Failure to have security protocols in place puts you at greater risk of intrusion or infection. This can compromise the quality of your data, allow information to be viewed by unauthorized personnel and render systems unusable.

Do You Have the Right People for the Job?

If your organization does not have critical skill sets available, some of these practices may be challenging to institute. That’s where Resolution Technologies can help. Contact Resolution Technologies for all of your IT staffing needs and make these best practices a reality for your organization.

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You Need Top Performers: 3 Things to Look For in Your Next Hire

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While the goal of every hiring is to find the best candidate for the position, it can be challenging to determine which characteristics are most valuable.  While an ability to perform the tasks associated with the position will always be a key, additional traits can take an employee from mediocre to excellent within a workplace.  Before you send an official offer out to your next hire, consider these three signs of a top performer in the making.

Emphasis on Their Craft

While all technical employees are expected to understand their area of expertise, top performers push to excel at the technical aspects of their job.  Often, they keep up-to-date with industry trends for their own benefit, and may even pursue outside training to keep pace with the evolving industry.  While they may also possess generalist skills in other technical areas, they demonstrate a true passion for their specific area, and will likely bring an increased level of energy to the position.

This level of focus often accompanies a tendency to take the initiative in regards to their work, as well as the development of their skills.  These workers generally seek out new assignments when the opportunities arise, and are open to exploring new and different ways to handle tasks as they are assigned.  They tend to believe that challenges within their work provide them an opportunity to grow when others may see it in a less positive light.

Respect for Organizational Priorities

Regardless of the personal preference, top performers understand that respecting a business’s bottom line is essential to overall business success.  With that in mind, they are willing to contribute to whichever tasks best support the business, and will always make critical tasks a priority.  Additionally, they treat business priorities as their own, making the success of these tasks a personal priority worthy of extreme care and attention.

While adequate employees may hem and haw about taking on responsibilities outside of their core focus, top performers will accept responsibilities that are within their capacity in times of need.  This often makes them a go-to employee in moments of crisis, and ideal candidates for future development, as their flexibility can make them easy to work with during times of change.

Relationship-Oriented

Top performers know how to network.  They are comfortable working with personnel from within all of the levels of an organization, and handles external contacts with ease.  Additionally, they are often willing to jump in and lend a hand to coworkers who may be struggling or overwhelmed by current tasks

Relationship-oriented employees often have large support networks outside of their current organization, allowing them access to additional sources of knowledge in cases where assistance is needed quickly.

Often, top performers are also seen as emotionally stable, and brings a level of consistency to their work and their environment.  They are willing to compromise, and have an open mind when it comes to hearing the concerns of others with a stake in a project or issue.

Are you looking for top performers?

By focusing on candidates who bring these traits to the table, you increase your odds of finding the kind of employee who will be a top performer for your business.  If you would like assistance in locating your next superstar employee, contact Resolution Technologies today and let their experience guide you along the way.

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