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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

 

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The quotes below are about this issue:
Employers would like to see more technologists who have business knowledge, particularly budgeting skills when consulting with clients. It is also important that technologists understand the organizational ramifications of their technical decisions when working with various businesses.

Employer Quote Region
"The other skill, aside from project management, is basic business analysis skills. It's the ability to look at and understand the business problem before you serve in technical solutions. Not 'I've got to hammer something just to hammer.' It's, 'Okay, here's the problem I'm trying to solve.' And then making sure that they have agreement about what they are trying to solve, and then going about figuring it out." Metro
"Employer 1: So, maybe the way to think about this one skill that the incumbent worker needs is to understand, 'What's the problem?'

Employer 2: And how big is the problem? How does it relate to the business? How does it affect the business?

Employer 3: Yeah, I would say that whole piece as well."		 Metro
"Employer: There are a lot of roles for individuals that understand the IT, understand how the business works, and understand how to 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
"One skill that I'm seeing a lot in the technology organization is in the management and administrative pieces. Employees have to be some of the strongest relationship managers there are. And I don't know how you train someone or educate someone to be that strong. You know, being politically correct and understanding the business and being able to talk the business." Metro
"One of the things we struggle with, from an operational side, is that people don't understand finances. But guess what? In technology, we've got to understand finances. We have to balance the budget. We have to provide value. We need to understand how to put a business case together. We have to understand and do risk analysis. Those type of things." 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 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.

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
"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