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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 desire candidates with strong communication skills, both verbal and written. They look for new hires who possess interpersonal skills, which enable them to communicate professionally with their colleagues and work effectively on a team. These skills are often lacking. Some respondents attribute this lack to the younger generations having less experience with face-to-face communication.
| "They have to have the business basics and the communication skills, and they have to have a personality that fits into our organization." | Central |
| "I would agree that we supply resources to our customers. And, a lot of times, the soft skills are short. An employee might be very talented technically, but when it comes to communication skills and teamwork—we're all in the service industry these days—so, just being able to communicate and talk and work with people is important. And I think there's an opportunity to improve in that area." | Metro |
| "Basic skills will go a long way, along with communication." | Metro |
| "You need to know how to write a requirement. Is it testable? Is it this? Is it that? Having that specific training, along with that project management soft skill side—which is asking the right questions, communicating, and doing what's difficult." | Metro |
| "We are going to look for the well-rounded person. We want them to have the personal skills, the communication skills, the technical skills, etcetera." | Metro |
| "Just the soft skills. We are very limited in the colleges right now that we can recruit from because not a lot of colleges have programs that give students the technical skills and also help them with general communication skills." | Metro |
| "I agree with the other employer that the well-rounded communication skills are where we are really having a hard time finding people." | Metro |
| "We are not looking at entry-level like the other employers are, but we still see the same problems with the experienced—the two-year, three-year, five-year—people that we are interviewing. They come in without the social skills. They don't know how to communicate." | Metro |
| "Employer 1: They have to be very good technically, but they also have to relate well within their group. And, in a smaller organization, 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 1: Absolutely. Employer 2: Especially at our company. 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. It's more than 'stick the guy in the cube and he just cranks out programs.' There's a lot more interaction with other teams." |
Metro |
| "I don't think that there are any programs that have a heavy focus on professional development, which might get you some of that experience with networking, presenting yourself clearly, selling your skills, and showing what you can really do. I think the technical skills will definitely get you in the door. Your resume will get through. 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 help you with career progression. If you want to move through the ranks, those skills are definitely important. And I don't think that there's enough attention paid to soft skills and professional development in general." | Metro |
| "On day one, our company is expecting you to be nimble, adaptable, to be able to collaborate well with others, to take feedback, and to give feedback." | Metro |
| "They have to be able to present themselves and communicate or they won't work at a small company. That's for sure." | 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 be able to communicate effectively with those business partners." | Metro |
| "What I think is missing sometimes is the soft skill side. Where are they learning the business-speak? Where are they learning how to communicate? Where are they learning to ask the right questions? If you don't have that as part of the program, coming out, they have to learn that on the job. But, unfortunately, the job expects that right away. So, that soft-skill side has to be part of the curriculum." | Metro |
| "The days of sitting down and banging out code over a six-month development project are over. Everything is in small one-week or two-week increments, where everyone's involved. If you can't communicate, if you can't understand what the end goal is, how can you really contribute to that small team?" | Metro |
| "They have to be strong communicators. So, they're being asked to bring a lot more skills to the table." | Metro |
| "People generally fail at the job and it's the lack of strategic relationships and communication skills. It's not that they don't know the technical piece." | Metro |
| "Employer: I think it just goes back to knowing who your audience is, and being able to communicate in the way that the other person appreciates. Question: And it's something that could be taught? Employer: Yeah. With our team, I mean, we text back and forth all the time, and I'm perfectly fine with it. We use Instant Messaging, we Skype, we do whatever. But if we're sending an email out to a client, that's a totally different situation. They need to be aware of those boundaries depending on what the situation is. Question: So, the worker needs to think specifically about who they're about to communicate with and then pick the appropriate means? Employer: Right." |
Northeast |
| "I think communication styles are more generational than IT-related. The newer hires want to text everybody for everything, and the ones who have been there for a while actually want to talk to people. That is what I'm seeing." | Northeast |
| "Communication is key. They have to interact. They have to speak to project managers and clients who don't necessarily speak the technical language. So, they need to be able to translate. And they may need to translate between three different parties. So, communication is very important." | Northeast |
| "For the analysts that work for me, the percentage of the time that they are able to be isolationists and focus on just building something is 10 percent. The other 90 percent of their time requires collaboration, discussion, meetings, and presentations." | Northeast |
| "Employer: I think pushing those individuals out of their comfort zone during the education process is a good thing—especially for the real introverted ones. It's important to get them into situations where they are forced to communicate in group settings or team settings. I think that can make a difference. Because as soon as they come into our business they're going to be out of their comfort zone regularly in terms of the technologies they have to learn, communication situations, and business situations. They're going to constantly be put into situations that are going to stretch them. And the sooner they get used to the idea, I think the better it is. Question: And that's something you would put into a curriculum? Employer: Yes." |
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 |
| "Written communications are very important in our business, and I'm sure you've experienced that there are some people that can be just incredibly blunt. They can communicate, but it's going to hit you full force. And then there are people that can express themselves a little more eloquently." | Northeast |
| "I just asked another employer if her employees' communication issues are generational or not. I'm curious because I've got a couple of kids that are just out of college, and watching them grow up, and how they interact with other people—I like to think that their communication skills are good—but one son got around 3,000 texts in a month. And I have 200 on my phone and it's like, 'Well, do you communicate in any other way?' If you could check these kids, I think it's in the hiring process: How will they interview? Can they communicate beyond their resume? That's where you feel the stuff out. I don't know if you can teach that. And I don't know if that's the responsibility of the college. If you go back into the high school setting...the communication thing is basically how the people are growing up nowadays. I do it different than my kids. I come at it from a different side, and working with some of the other managers, they're still kind of old-school in the way that they need the interaction. They need the face-to-face. The phone calls are great, the emails are great, but getting out there and getting to these people, and understanding their needs, is really where it's at. Some of these kids say, 'If I have to figure something out, I'll just Google it. I don't need to talk to anybody. I don't need to interact with a classmate sitting next to me. I can do it on my own.' Somewhere interaction has to get re-introduced—that it's more than just you and your computer. In our work environment, we share work spaces and the communication happens whether we want it to or not. Sometimes it kind of forces the communication without them realizing it, so there are a lot of good opportunities even within your environment to let these things happen." |
Northeast |
| "I think it goes back to the re-occurring theme here. Whether you're focusing on a single item or you're focusing on a change in landscape, you need critical thinking skills, and again, communication. 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 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 |
| "You're the go-to person. For example, we have a...go-to person for everybody in that building. If that person can't function and communicate well, or if they're difficult to work with, you've got an issue. You can't run that way. If nobody's going to that person for help, somebody else is dealing with those issues, and that's definitely not good. You do everything you can during the interview process to try and pin that down because it's critical." | Northwest |
| "Going back to communication skills, they actually host training sessions for our staff on all of those basic Microsoft Suite programs—Word, Excel, Publisher, etc.—but from a communication standpoint, not only do they help people troubleshoot, but they actually teach our staff." | Northwest |
| "We're looking for degreed people who can manage budgets, communicate, and work with teams." | Southwest |
| "We're looking for foundational skills. I mean, that passion and that drive for IT, good communication skills, and some good business knowledge." | Southwest |
| "I think some of the two-year technical programs could put a little added emphasis on some of the soft skills. Some of the students out of two-year technology programs, their writing skills are sometimes weak. Some of their verbal communication skills are weak. If those individuals, at some point, want to move from a technician to a supervisor or an engineer, that's when that gap is very visible. And it's hard to fix it because sometimes it's pretty big." | Southwest |