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Employer Quotes

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

They are talking about this topic: Occupation-Specific Skills

 

The quotes below are about this issue:
With rapid and ongoing changes in the field of technology, many employers are most interested in candidates that have broad technical knowledge. When candidates possess this knowledge, employers are able to provide on-the-job training in more specialized knowledge.

Employer Quote Region
"So, we expect them to have the basics down, and the knowledge base down, but as for implementing them in our environment, they have to learn from the ground up. And we have a lot invested in our employees. It takes one to two years to become proficient at doing what they do." Central
"We can't start someone out in those more menial labor positions anymore. We need to have an IT two-year qualified person that can come in and then adjust to our specific needs, but bring their own knowledge." Central
"Our technical requirements are quite high, so we don't expect someone to come in up-and-running, but we do require the basic skill sets and then we can teach and train and mold." Central
"If you are looking for somebody to come in and do programming, if you are looking for a network person, great. Leave them there. Let them be good at their job. They don't have to be the communicator." Metro
"If you're only allowed a certain number of credits in your two-year certificate, you have to make choices. Give us the technology platform so that we can grow that employee internally." Metro
"Our entire business really requires technology skills these days in one form or another. The idea that IT is only in IT is really not true anymore. There are technologists everywhere within our company—they just have different levels of expertise." Metro
"Technical skills are so important because we have to do the translation to the enabling technologies." Metro
"The technical skills are certainly important." Metro
"We look for very highly-technical individuals, but we have competencies that we look for like strategic agility, intellectual horsepower, and leadership." Metro
"We're a very small company. So, people have to do everything. They have to have skills across the board. One new hire that we brought in not too long ago, an engineer, was very strong in engineering. But the IT skills—the ability to help with the internal tasks such as simply setting up networks of computers and even implementing and running scientific software—were less than what we had expected. I'd ask for more cross-training in the engineering disciplines so people can do a bit of IT." Metro
"All of the comments that I'm hearing lead me to believe that you have to be a specialist, but you have to have general knowledge across the spectrum. You still need a general knowledge across all those areas. If you don't have that, you're probably not fitting into today's technology world." Metro
"The way technology is going, everything is getting to be virtualized now, so it's hard to just say, 'Okay, you're an Exchange specialist.' You need to have a really good handle on how Exchange runs in a virtualized environment across a very distributed network. So, the things that you need to understand are so much broader than what you do to understand them fast on the infrastructure side." Metro
"We want technically-oriented two-year degrees. And, yes, they have to be able to present themselves well 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
"We want people who have the technical aptitude. We want people who are interested in knowing more about multiple things and who are willing to jump in and learn more, whether it's on the technical side or maybe migrate to the project management side and the analysis side. We see more students migrating away from technical aptitude." 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. 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—we don't see the technical aptitude. Generally, if they migrated in that direction, they are not as interested and haven't learned much on the technical side. We want to take people that we can move into some of these other areas." Metro
"Raw technical talent is one of the three main things we look for when hiring." Northeast
"When I look at my top performing analysts, they are the ones that 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
"I think we're the same as everyone else. We're looking for that raw technical talent, because as soon as they walk in our door we'll probably teach them something else." Northeast
"People come in from a lot of different angles, but the common trade is technical aptitude and business acumen." Northeast
"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
"Question: So, you need somebody with a broad range of abilities and experience with some manufacturing...?

Employer: Yeah. Because they go out and tie it all together from a manufacturer's perspective, rather than from a non-manufacturer's perspective."
Northwest
"If they come in and they know basic PC hardware skills—for instance, if we ask, 'Can you change out a card in a computer?'—it's not hard to do, but it scares some people. But they should be able to do that—change a power supply—not that they'd have to do that in their jobs. Most people don't. We have people that do that. But it's a skill that if you understand the reasoning—why things are there and how the components work together—it helps you dramatically when you're in a tech support position." Northwest
"Technical skills are key. But we've had people—I think one in particular—who scored a total zero on our technical test. Total failure, 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, but technical skills are going to bring you the top. Again, technical schools should be helping students practice being able to answer questions on the fly in the interview." Northwest
"We can't get expertise in all the different things you need to know, and we couldn't even hire it out. I mean, they're just not there. Especially in our niche. Because how many people in any given community are going to have really specialized expertise? It doesn't make sense for you guys to train for another employer's platform versus our platform versus the next company's platform. There's just too much out there." Northwest
"My needs are small, but it's not going to be too much longer until we could have one full-time IT person rather than contracting. And what our concerns are is finding the person that's willing to work as a well-rounded IT person. They've got to be that person with a good attitude about supporting a PC problem. Because if a PC is down because of some silly thing that employee can't do, we're done. So, they've got to be willing and happy to do that. But, on the other side, we've got a web page that's crucial to our sales that needs to be maintained and managed. And, even bigger than that, is that all of our customers are going to their own separate EDI platforms that we need to get implemented and managed and maintained. And then there's the integration of our manufacturing software to ERPs, and then we've got the network itself. So, where do you get that person that's not only willing to do all those things, but who is also happy to be doing all of those things? Otherwise, I'm contracting the website to this person, the network to that person...and so it's a tough one." Northwest
"Employer 1: Do we feel like we have over-specialized IT? We've kind of put everybody in these convenient little categories and we're losing that broad-based...

Employer 2: You have to be a little bit of everything. You have to be...

Employer 1: Because IT is a very broad field. I mean, we put it into four very broad categories and then under that there are multiple job types."
Northwest
"New hires need to have a general understanding of IT and the basics. They understand how the various players and the network work, but they may not understand how to go out and provision an Ethernet interface in an Alcatel-Lucent device. Those are the hands-on experiences that they have to learn and understand." Southwest
"Two-year technicians don't need quite that level of understanding, but they need to know how to apply it, how to implement it, how to install the equipment, and how to provision it so it works. And they need to understand the testing process. So, there is a need for all the different levels that work together in that." Southwest
"Our people have to be able to install and maintain and—when there are issues—take care of those issues." Southwest
"When we interview, we also look for folks that just have a good, broad understanding of a lot of IT concepts. Because the technology has changed so fast, it's impossible for someone to keep up with everything new all the time. But if they have a good understanding of the basics, a lot of times it's just knowing how to use Google and typing in, 'How do you do this in this system?' or 'How do I do it in that system?' You get your results, and then just follow the instructions." Southwest
"New hires need a BA or BS. For us, we focus a lot on object-oriented type principles. It's important that they understand that and all the other topics from class fairly well, and they can apply it in different ways." Southwest
"We probably use 10 or 15 different languages. Next year, half of those could be different. So, I think that's why having that diverse background is important. Because if you understand the core concepts, it's easy to figure out how to apply it to whatever the flavor of the month is." Southwest