IT recruitment: inside advice

It may be a job seeker's market, but IT executives say prospective candidates better show their business chops if they're going to command an employer's attention and money.

"We're definitely looking for a customer-service mentality these days," says Michael Iacona, CIO and senior vice president at TMP Worldwide Advertising & Communications, a recruitment advertising firm based in New York.

Iacona knows first-hand that most job seekers have a long way to go in wowing hiring managers. Since TMP spun out from Monster Worldwide late last year, he's led dozens of interviews to fill 18 technology positions, ranging from local help-desk support to IT managers.

"Some candidates were technical whizzes, but they couldn't carry a conversation and weren't good listeners," he says.

Iacona, like many hiring managers today, has been looking for a blend of "soft" skills, such as an excellent ability to communicate, and "hard" skills, such as knowledge of the latest hardware, software and programming languages.

"We're not a very large company -- only 630 people -- so we need people that are flexible and adaptable and can wear many hats. A programmer may be great at cranking out code, but if he can't work with a client, then that's a problem," he says.

Iacona has seen resumes during this intense hiring period, which is almost complete, that are laden with technology buzzwords, such as Web 2.0 and AJAX. "Rather than just throwing out buzzwords, I'd like to see what they accomplished by knowing that technology. How did their knowledge help their employer? What value did they bring to the company?" he says.

Joanne Kossuth, CIO at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, U.S., says she also looks for leadership trends when hiring, but finds it difficult to ferret out because of the format of electronic forms.

"Online forms don't lend themselves to doing a great resume, so we ask people to bring a printed one with them. What they bring in often looks different than what you see online," she says.

Kossuth, who is in the process of hiring a lead help-desk technician, says candidates should spend more time on their resumes. "Technical resumes tend to be the worst resumes you'll look at. Many people never get past their hardware and software skills," she says. She recommends creating an executive summary that highlights critical achievements, such as project management and company cost savings. "An executive summary -- rather than a list of programming language skills -- is essential," she says.

Martha Heller, managing director of the IT Leadership Practice at recruiting firm Z Resource Group, agrees that candidates need to dig deeper. "Companies are getting smarter about the need for project-management skills and business acumen. Candidates need to show that they understand revenue is important," she says.

She attributes this change from the technology-driven resumes of the late 1990s and early 2000s to the trend toward outsourcing parts of the business. "In the boom, it was all about technical skills. Now that there is a lot more outsourcing; you have to be well-rounded. It's about communication, vendor management, global experience and industry experience," she says.

One way for candidates to put their business savvy on display is to create bullet points in their resumes that "monetize their skills," Heller says. "Rather than just saying you led an SAP deployment, you can say that by leading the SAP deployment, you were able to reduce overall expenses by a certain dollar amount. Everything you've done should have a business impact," she says.

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Heller says putting these successes in bullet points also highlights your loyalty to the organization. "You're showing employers that you care about their business as a whole," she says.

She encourages candidates to call out their leadership experience. "Outline opportunities that caused you to get out of your comfort zone. For instance, if a new project started up in Beijing, and you offered to be part of it, make sure your prospective employer knows that," she says.

Kossuth calls it "being involved in the big picture," and it's one of the things she looks for from an applicant. She also makes sure that candidates aren't chronic job-hoppers. "We want to see that someone has stuck around a bit," she says.

This attribute is important, because the positions she is looking to fill take almost a year to get comfortable in. "It takes about a quarter of the year to learn the technology and another portion of the year to get to know the people you'll be helping. I want to see that someone can stay at a place for two to three years at least," she says.

The reason is simple: "It's expensive to keep hiring people. You want to get the right person, because you're spending time and effort each time," she says.

Kossuth has even added a new step to her interviewing process to make sure she has the right fit - interviews with a cross section of the client community. She invites faculty, students and staff to do a round of interviewing with candidates. "We want to know if they feel they can work with that person. Everyone makes wrong choices, but we want to narrow that potential down," she says.

Iacona also relies heavily on the interview process as well as an in-house survey that his team creates. Candidates should be prepared to answer more than just the standard questions. "I like to see a lot of human interaction during the interview process. I ask them how they define 'accountability' and 'entrepreneurial.' The definitions they choose give a clear indication if they have good customer-services skills," he says.

Both Kossuth and Iacona say they are more interested in finding candidates with verbal and written communications skills than over-the-top technical ability. "If someone had great listening and communicating skills and acceptable technical skills, I'd be willing to get them more technical training. I think customer service is much harder to teach," he says.

Kossuth says that while all these skills are critical, one of the biggest things that candidates often walk into her office without is the most basic. "You need to know a little bit about the organization you're applying to. At least visit their Web site," she says.

Gittlen is a freelance writer in Massachusetts, U.S. She can be e-mailed at sgittlen@charter.net.