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Employer Quotes

The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Information Technology (IT)

They are talking about this topic: General Skills

 

The quotes below are about this issue:
Employers in the IT field look for well-rounded new hires. The ideal candidate has strong communication skills, business sense, leadership abilities, consultation skills and broad technical knowledge. Small businesses tend to look for generalists since their positions are less specialized and require a variety of tasks.

Employer Quote Region
"My business is strictly a software-developing host. The major problem we have is the personality issue. That's huge, and I don't even know if we have a plan on how to solve that. It's not just writing the code. Historically, IT has been a good career for people that want to put their head down in front of a computer and write code and develop software packages. But the software market and the software community have shifted so much that they are required to think outside of just being a coder. They've got to think about the ramifications their work has on other systems or applications. Getting people to think that way is very, very difficult. And I think that's the hardest part. We want those people that think outside of just software development." Central
"The customer service skills—that's a big part of our entry-level positions—placing them in our help desks. From there, that kind of molds them into our company. We've struggled to find well-rounded applicants." Central
"New hires have to have the business basics. They have to have communication skills. And they have to have a personality that fits into our organization." Central
"I think one of the things we look for is someone that can really think critically. Not just a heads-down programmer, but somebody that can also think about things from a business perspective." Central
"They've got to cross-train. It's no longer just writing code. We're really big in the unit testing, testing your code up front, and testing your software package up front. All of my clients are looking for even new grads out of college that have some sort of testing skill set. They also have to have database back ends, and they need to have programming languages. There is so much to learn. It's the combination of skills that is incredibly important. And they've got to want it. If they don't, it's just not going to be worth it to them in five years. They've got to have all those skills together and really want to actually learn those different skills." Central
"So, trying to find that person that's got high risk proofing skills and also the ability to have a conversation with a business partner. We have a fairly strong outsource model, so our employees really need to have that ability to connect the dots, if you will. They have to have that coming in. Otherwise, they'll be behind the eight ball fairly quickly. So, it really is important to have that combination." Metro
"I just want to follow-up on the comment about IT being about software and hardware. It's a gross misconception to characterize the profession that way. It's much more specialized and getting more specialized as we move forward. IT is a service organization within an organization. It does interface with a lot of different aspects of the business. So, those relationship skills become ever more important because we are negotiating, and we are service providers on a daily basis. Technical skills are so important because we have to do the translation to the enabling technologies. But if you cannot present yourself in a professional manner with the business partners, you don't even get in the door to begin with." Metro
"We break down our leadership competencies into four major groups: thought leadership, results leadership, people leadership, and personal leadership. Underneath that there are 13 competencies with robust definitions. So, we evaluate candidates on all four of those areas. How well do they collaborate? What's their learning agility? What kind of personal integrity and internal standards do they demonstrate? What's their ability to be strategic and to be thoughtful—business acumen? It all falls in there. The technical skills are certainly important, but we have challenges finding candidates that really round-out nicely to fill all four of these competencies. Because you can be the greatest strategist, but if you can't deliver on the results, what good does it do the organization?

So, one of the things I was hoping to put on the table today was that we need those fully-rounded candidates that are taught the leadership skills and the soft skills alongside the technical. Technical will always be there. In fact, it's easier to teach the technical skills. It's much more difficult to train the soft skills and how to get people to influence, collaborate, and work together. And all the competencies that I mentioned."
Metro
"I absolutely agree with the comment about business acumen, and having some of the softer skills. Particularly with what's happening in the industry as we move towards as-a-service platform and as-a-service software. Those skills are becoming more and more important. I want to emphasize that the technical skills do not go away, but the nature of the job is changing. So, you need the technical skills for the evaluation, but perhaps you need less of them. Equally important, if not more important, are the soft skills around better management and negotiation. Leadership and management competencies are all the more important going forward." Metro
"It may not be intellectual horsepower, but we made the mental model switch a few years ago. We don't hire technologists anymore. We hire businesspeople that might have a technology competency. That's really the way we look at it. I can source technologists, and we do. But I don't really think we're going to compete successfully in that area. What we can do is meet with businesspeople that have competencies and that have value and tradeoffs, like any other business would." Metro
"We look for very highly-technical individuals, but we also have competencies that we look for, like strategic agility, intellectual horsepower, and leadership. So, that's very important. That's something that we're seeing a lack of." Metro
"We're a very small company. So, people have to do everything. They have to have skills across the board. I'd ask for more cross-training in the engineering disciplines so people can do a bit of IT—maybe more than a bit." Metro
"Basic skills will go a long way, along with communication." Metro
"I run a business within a company. We're a big, expansive, complex business and we have to do everything that goes with running a business. We have to operate efficiently. We have to manage our budget effectively. Yet, we run a P&L [Profit and Loss]. And that's not something most technologists understand how to do. Unless you come out of the services or you've actually worked in a profit center, the notion of running your function as a P&L is almost totally alien, and it's something that they're going to have to get in their toolkit." Metro
"The optimum combination now for technology professionals is the ability to leverage technology in the context of a business process or an operating model or something that produces an outcome that drives your business forward—whatever that means in your context. It's a different way to put those pieces together. You have to understand how the business actually works. You have to understand how the business makes money or—if you're a non-profit—how you operate. But it really is about pulling all those skills together as a technologist and solving problems. It's not one or the other. I think we're seeing the amalgamation of those roles and, particularly in senior levels, being able to run your business." Metro
"It's really true that technology people are asked to bring skill sets to the table that most operations people are not. For instance, not only do they have to be competent in the language they are using, they have to be consultants. They have to be strong communicators." Metro
"There were days when you could have your technicians and they could just sit in their little cubicles. Those days are gone. These people are constantly being put in front of the customer and sometimes the customer is an external customer, not even within the business. So, this is going back to the critical thinking skills and communication skills." Metro
"They need to be able to think on their feet. They need to be able to be collaborative and consultative. And they need to communicate effectively with those business partners. We're asking them not just to be tech support. We're also asking them to be consultants, and how do you train on that? That is something that they have to come with." Metro
"It's becoming incredibly important to find that magical mix of someone that can speak both to our business partners about stuff that they are interested in—and in language that they understand—and to also be able to come back and talk to our technical folks in the technical language that they are accustomed to. So, it really is becoming an important shift, and I think an important one for us to try to build." Metro
"Employer: There's the technology piece, but then you come back to the soft skills piece. I'm seeing more and more as we are consulting, businesses are pushing their IT from the centralized out into the business units. So, as you have Salesforce.com with all of these various platforms, they need to be wrapped around the business function. There are a lot of roles for individuals that understand the IT, understand how the business works, and can take these platforms and actually derive the business value on them.

Question: So, somebody in the organization who can take the sales force platform and tailor it specifically to what your company is doing?

Employer: Right."
Metro
"Yes, they have to be able to present themselves and communicate, or they won't work at a small company. That's for sure. But we certainly want a technical emphasis coming out of that two-year college." Metro
"On day one, our company expects you to be nimble, adaptable, to be able to collaborate well with others, to take feedback, and to give feedback. And even though you might have a technical job, you also have to be deeply ingrained in what our company is all about. And I think in other companies, as well, you have to show that. I don't think that you will be successful just having those technical skills." Metro
"Technical skills will definitely get you in the door. Your resume will get through. And you might be able to sell yourself through an interview, but what's going to keep you in a company are those critical thinking skills, the ability to be adaptable, to collaborate with those around you, to be a good team player, to communicate, and work well together. That's what's going to keep you in the door and have the career progression. So, if you want to move through the ranks, you know, those skills are definitely important." Metro
"Employer 1: If you are looking for somebody to come in and do programming, if you are looking for a network person, leave them there. Let them be good at their job. They don't have to be the communicator. They have to be very good technically. But that's very different than in a smaller organization where they are going to be walking down the hall and they are going to have to talk to the CFO one day and talk to the CEO another day because they bump into them in the hallway. That's a very different situation.

Employer 2: I think you get that in a larger organization, too.

Employer 3: Absolutely.

Employer 2: Especially at [Company X]. It's an Agile job, right? So, the developers are working with the testers and the business analysts and the end users. And it's changed a lot more than 'stick the guy in the cube and he just cranks out programs.' There's a lot more interaction with other teams."
Metro
"We are going to look for the well-rounded person. We want them to have the personal skills, communication skills, technical skills, etcetera. But we are going to look a little more for technical aptitude, which is one of the reasons why the MIS doesn't work as well for us—because we don't see the technical aptitude. Generally, if they migrated in that direction, they are not as interested and have not learned much on the technical side. And, we want people that we can move into some of these other areas. We don't necessarily hire directly in the network services, or database administration, or security, or whatever else. I know some others do, but we don't." Metro
"We want to have the technical aptitude. We want people who are interested in knowing about multiple things and who are willing to jump in and learn more—whether it's on the technical side, or maybe migrate over into the project management side or the analysis side. What we see happening is that more students are migrating away from some technical aptitude." Metro
"We need good soft skills. Being able to present a well-rounded resume, and being able to articulate the things that add value. The question isn't, 'What did you do in your internship?' but, 'How did you add value?' And just an ability to speak and feel comfortable in an interview environment. Because in our environment, the day you start working you are client-facing. You are now serving your clients. And if someone cannot go through an interview and be confident in their skill sets, we can't put them in front of our clients. So, just the soft skills. Students are not coming out—we are very limited in the colleges right now that we can recruit from. Not a lot of colleges have programs that take their students and give them the technical skills and also help them with general communication skills." Metro
"Employer: I don't need the technical people. I don't want the technical people. They are going to be bored at my company. I want a generalist. The well-rounded communication skills, that's where we are really having a hard time finding people.

Question: So, in a smaller company like yours, that well-roundedness becomes really critical?

Employer: Absolutely."
Metro
"I think it's critical in huge companies that we have around here. I don't think I would even think about hiring somebody that wasn't really well-rounded." Metro
"I was just going to expand on the other employer's comment on business acumen. When I look at my top performing analysts, it's because they understand the technical concepts, the software development, and the lifecycle concepts. And they can sit at the table with senior leadership and talk to them on their level. They can explain the implications of their decisions, the options they have, and the results of those options at the business level." Northeast
"One thing we struggle with is finding that type of background combined with certain electronics—electrician and IT—all in combination." Northeast
"I don't even know if our technical people need to understand the marketing, so to speak, but they need to understand what they're doing and how it plays into the marketing." Northeast
"We look for three things when we're hiring someone, especially entry-level hires. Raw technical talent is one. Communication skills are second. That's a huge bonus, if you get someone that you know can write well and speak well and is comfortable doing it, because they will automatically be more effective. The third, which we don't always get, is business acumen. People who can sit in a meeting with a customer, and can understand where the customer's coming from. We're lucky if we get that. But communication is critical." Northeast
"People come in from a lot of different angles but, again, the common trade is technical aptitude and business acumen." Northeast
"I think it goes back to the re-occurring theme here: You need critical thinking skills and communication skills. Those are really the two big things. Part of me thinks it's just that IT in general attracts more of an isolationist-type person, because people don't get into IT when they're freshmen in college and say, 'Hey, I'm interested in computers.' Most of them started younger and the expectation is, 'It's just me and the computer, it's not a group of people and computers.' It's just an isolationist-type mentality. So, I think that introverts naturally migrate to this industry. I think our focus on teaching communication along with that IT skill set is very, very crucial." Northeast
"The new people are going to bring us to the future, and it's harder to find a person with an IT background in manufacturing, I would say." Northeast
"Technical skills are key, but we've had people—I think one in particular—who scored a zero on our technical test. But she did so well on the customer service side that we hired her anyway, and she's still an outstanding employee to this day. So, it depends on the circumstances. Technical skills are going to bring you the top, but employees should also have the skills to figure out how to respond to the customer when you don't know the answer." Northwest
"Those soft skills are key to being able to work with other people. It's not just the technical part of it..." Northwest
"Employer: Something that's available for some grunt work is the hardwire all around. But as a specialty kind of thing, we would prefer to look for somebody that's got some manufacturing background so that—when they set up our server and database and collect our information—they've got an understanding of what manufacturing an ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] system might need versus some of the other manufacturing software.

Question: So you need somebody with a broad range of abilities and experience with some manufacturing?

Employer: Yeah."
Northwest
"They need to have the basic stuff on how technology works and how networking works and math and obviously engineering skills. But we can get them into our specialized niches if they come with a hard-work attitude." Northwest
"When we design a network, we also typically have to produce a budget for our customer that says, 'It's going to cost you X.' They have to develop a business plan to ensure that, if a client invests so many millions of dollars, that it's going to pay for itself in a given period of time. Or maybe it's an investment that needs to be deferred until later. So, it's not just the technical. The design, budget, the business planning—all those types of things—go into it." Southwest
"A lot of what we do is software development and software testing. So, we're looking for someone with that passion and that drive for IT, good communication skills, and some good business knowledge." Southwest
"We deal with lawyers' offices, nursing homes, and they all have their own software. And our people have to be able to go in and install and maintain it. And when there are issues, they have to take care of them. The different software packages have different features to them. So, it takes going to those sites, meeting those customers, knowing each of them, and fulfilling their needs. That is all learning while on the job." Southwest
"We have a wide range of technologies that we deal with. We have employees that range from technicians that are preparing the equipment all the way to highly-skilled electrical engineers that are designing our networks. In some cases, they're designing our network that we use to provide the services. In some cases, they're designing a customer network. So, not only do our employees need to be able to work on the equipment, but they have to have consultative skills as well. They have to be able to have that customer interaction and be able to work with the customers. They also need budgeting skills because they're going to be managing a project from start to finish. They need to manage it so that we're not going over the cost associated with it." Southwest
"A lot of the students that are going to companies—and the students we have—a lot of their roles blend." Southwest
"The engineers will bleed into the management and administration side. There aren't hard, clear, defined lines. In what we do, you have to have broad knowledge and experience. So, you cross-train into other areas and fields, particularly the higher-skilled people." Southwest
"It's pretty varied. I think IT typically focuses on software testing and software development. But there is some IT administration and things like that. It seems like a lot of the students we're seeing now are realizing that IT is a lot broader than just programming. At a younger age, they're realizing that. It's not just sitting down at a computer." Southwest
"We're looking for people with degrees who can manage budgets, communicate, work with teams, and do project management. Just a different perspective. I mean, we want individuals who are not only technically savvy, but also business-minded." Southwest