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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.
| "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 |
| "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 |
| "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 |
| "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 |
| "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 |