IT professionals, even those with identical titles, are not interchangeable. Each candidate brings a unique combination of technical aptitudes, methodologies, and expertise. Finding the right person who can maintain a business’s fine-tuned equilibrium is a hard-earned victory. Since candidates in the current IT market are only available for about the time it takes to say “lost to the competition,” swift decisions make or break the hire.
What can businesses do to speed up the hiring process? Train themselves to have eagle-eyed perception and a built in radar for certain attributes in an IT resume. Though there are innumerable sign posts indicating a candidate’s compatibility, the answers to three major questions can help to isolate the resumes’ of promising talent from their competition.
The magnitude of a project can say just as much as the technology being used. Two System Engineers with experience building IT infrastructures, though both senior level on paper, can have drastically different aptitudes.
One specializes in constructing enterprise-level system, server, and database ecosystems that spans coasts for a massive nationwide organization. Another specializes in constructing compact systems that function at the level necessary for a business with a head count of 25 or less.
Both candidates have their own strengths, but are those skills apt for your business? This criteria isn’t limited to system and network professionals. Application Developers, QAs, and Project Managers all need to be measured on their scope of work.
What types of factors should be on your radar when reviewing a candidate’s resume:
Candidates including scope of work on their resume provide businesses with the means to measure whether or not their current IT perspective is complimentary to their own.
Every open position has a checklist of minimum requirements it needs to fill, but is your business also on the lookout for complimentary technology? Does a candidate have mastery of a specific JavaScript framework? Are you using a specific set of QA tools? Even if a candidate does not have the desired technology listed in his or her technical resume, that person may not automatically be disqualified from the running.
Certain technologies, though oriented towards projects of different scopes, can be used as a spring board into the technology that you need. If a Java Developer is a master with angular.js, would it be difficult to get that person up to speed with backbone.js? If a Database Engineer is using MySQL, how hard would it be for him or her to switch to MS SQL? In both cases, it depends on whether or not the candidate can quickly learn on the job.
Since hiring speeds do not facilitate seeing a candidate’s learning capabilities first-hand, their resumes need to include some of the following criteria to prove they can adapt to your internal technology:
A good IT resume gives an idea of the full spectrum of a candidate’s work.
Strong IT professionals are proactive about their work. Unlike trained falcons, they don’t wait with hoods over their heads until you call them into action. Instead, top IT talent observes the way their work integrates with the larger picture and takes corresponding action. A holistic approach is mirrored in the way superior candidates write their resumes and businesses that can quickly spot those identifying spots can find top talent faster.
What matters most to you? Is it a steady stream of revenue? An increase in subscribers? A greater business volume? A level of performance that was previously unattainable? The candidate will be reflecting that in the resume.
So, a candidate that explains how their mobile application helped increased their employer’s eCommerce sales by 500 percent or how 95 percent of their technical support tickets never needed to escalation is one who will perform tasks with the larger business in mind.
Though these aren’t the only factors to be considering when trying to quickly review an IT resume, these are definitely strong points to consider.
We have over 25 years of experience in technical staffing and can help your company quickly identify IT professionals that can fit with your company. Contact us today to get your next hire started.
