By Naked CIO, 11 February 2008 15:56
COMMENT
Lying on CVs, exaggerated skills and inflated egos are the petty recruitment problems facing our embattled CIO, newly arrived at a largish company. The bigger problems run deep and are crippling the IT industry.
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It's time to wage war on home 'workers'
Is it just me or are applicants for IT jobs at an all-time low? Their experience is never applicable - and what happened to key non-technical skills? If that weren't bad enough, measured against some fairly basic requirements their track-records generally rank as dismal.
Some of the roles at my new company have now been available for more than four months because I am not prepared to fill a vacancy with individuals who do not meet the basics.
I have begun to ask myself why this is. It could just conceivably be the way we recruit staff at all levels - but we have tried many different methods.
You have to take your hat off to those companies with graduate training programmes. That seems the perfect way to get certain skill-sets into an organisation. Unfortunately, we don't have a graduate scheme although I am seriously considering introducing one.
There is no consistent basis for evaluating individuals. That is a huge concern for me and should be a major worry for the entire industry.
Technical training is valid but it does not identify if someone can perform key job-related functions. The two winners in our industry are Prince and Itil standards which inspire a great deal of confidence in me. But others I treat with distrust because I find their standards of industry certification extremely inconsistent.
Yet that is just one of the problems. Another issue is the general arrogance of potential applicants who think they are God's gift to IT. Why does the IT industry develop this character type at a far faster rate than other fields?
Not that I am averse to hiring someone with great levels of confidence - but I do find a sense of humility endearing.
Other unattractive traits are falsification - or sometimes blatant lying - on CVs, overstating job-related responsibilities and exaggerating proficiency in technologies where quite clearly there has been only marginal exposure. All those failings are symptomatic of today's IT recruits.
But the profound malaise is an attitude that just about everyone sees themselves as a freelancer, whether a permanent employee or not. There is no longer any sense of loyalty for the job - the focus is on money and salary.
This means organisations are having difficulty managing payroll-related costs to try and meet the demands of these over-inflated applicants.
This in turn puts pressure on IT management to control costs in the face of poor performance by untalented and marginal recruits. If this appears harsh - it's because it is meant to be.
I honestly believe over the next three years one of the greatest challenges for the IT community will be the appropriate recruitment of staff to fill necessary roles in IT departments.
The importance of this cannot be overstated as these people are the foundation by which successful IT delivery in the organisation will be measured.
We need to establish better guidance to achieve a sense of consistency in skills and roles. We also need to establish a better best practice for the recruitment of effective and skilled staff. If our people are the future of our industry, then the time to act is now.
Comments
There are 32 comments. Join the discussion
1. Stuart Fawcett
Indeed balancing claims against capability is an increasingly difficult task and this goes across staff, companies and legislation. Blatant lying is only addressable if your prepared to got to court over ensuing issues, however this is just society changing. A skilled tech guy I recently met who was well capable of doing a well paying senior role chose instead to remain as a recruitment consultant as it was far more lucrative with little personal responsibility.
There is little independent validation of capability and CV’s and recruitment consultants vary widely, so bringing recruitment in-house is a good start as your recruiter needs to deliver to get their own bonus or promotion etc. Also the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) is a strong objective contenders for sorting the wheat from the chaff. I also salute you for considering graduate training schemes as they can foster reliable deep knowledge.
2. Bagpuss
Recruitment consultants seem to be the new Estate Agents. there have been a couple of positions that I have been interested in, one for exactly the same role as I do with a major competitor and I didn't actually get an interview and I was treated like a commodity. I am put off even bothering to look for new roles because of this treatment and firnds and collegues have said the same.
Also many more of us are becoming specialised in so many ways and that makes it much harder to find the perfect someone for a particular role.
3. anonymous
"No longer any loyalty to the job"
That statement needs to be understood alongside "We are no longer a cradle to grave employer"
Loyalty is something to be earned; if your employees feel that they are treated as short-term contractors, then expect their loyalty to be to their pay packet.
Trust, Honesty, Loyalty, Integrity. expected by employers, required by employees.
4. Philip Thomas
Most of the really good guys are what the industry seems to label as geriatric! They are in their bath chairs, wearing carpet slippers and sucking on an old smelly pipe - and that is just the ladies. Just FYI, the agencies who advertise and filter submissions for positions on behalf of companies are probably populated by agents in their early 20s and think anyone older than 35 is beyond it, so the application goes no further. IF, by some miracle your CV does get to a company it usually has to get past the HR team - who, guess what, are in their early 20s and think etc. Just for once will someone acknolwedge that there is some real talent aged up to 70 and possibly beyond who work hard, make few mistakes, have eons of experience, have seen why things go wrong and stop it happening, who do not suffer from hangovers or take sickky days off, don't have romantic problems that detract from thier work and who will deliver. Will they then start to look seriously at these applications? At the very least, can us drooling shuffling people who can outwork younger collleagues, get some sort of proportional representation in the job application industry and then you COEs will see a difference.
5. Paul
Sadly, the I.T. industry has brought this upon itself.
The lack of loyalty shown by I.T. staff can be directly traced to the behaviour of companies towards their staff.
Most companies are happy to work their staff into the ground, then make them redundant the moment profits dip. This is a management failure, showing an unwillingness to confront the real problems a company faces (*why* aren't people buying your products?), and an inability to see beyond the next quarter's profits. My Dad used to call it 'eating your seedcorn'.
When a company shows no loyalty to its employees, it can only expect them to reciprocate.
Secondly, I.T. leaders seem to be unable to look beyond the surface in terms of the skills they seek.
I constantly see job adverts asking for skills in VB6, or SQL Server 2005, for example. This is ludicrously over-specific.
For example, any half-decent programmer will tell you that it takes years to learn to program, but only a week or two to learn a new programming language.
If our I.T. leaders could grasp this simple fact, they would realise that there is a huge pool of highly talented people out there; all that is needed is the tiny investment required to train them in whatever language/platform you happen to use.
A crazy idea; rather than seeking such specifics, why not advertise and interview for problem-solving, lateral thinking, analysis, intuition and creativity? Get people with these qualities, and they can quickly learn whatever skills you need them to have today, AND tomorrow.
Short-termism works... in the short term. Come on I.T. leaders, it's time to grow up and lead with real vision and depth. Are you up to it?
6. anonymous
Loyalty is an interesting point. Over the last 10 years, many IT employers have taken the view that IT staff can be easily replaced with cheaper alternatives.
As with any relationship, trust and loyalty is a two way thing thing between employer and employee.
Maybe there's a tinge of sour grapes in my viewpoint but I know I'm not alone. IT (as a employer) does not have a great reputation for trust and its little surprise that there is a lack of enthusiasm by potentially great candidates and graduates wanting to enter full time employment in the 00's.
As it is, being a freelancer suits me because I fell no less at risk that a permanent employee would and I feel the lifestyle is ultimately more rewarding.
In my opinion, its the industry that has much work to do if it wants to promote trust and loyalty.
7. anonymous
Who would want to be an IT developer?
If you are an experienced developer you should very quickly and easily adapt to a new language, perhaps with a week's course, and a months build up. But of course, when you move to another job they want years of experience in a new language that your previous employer would not send you on because you did not need it.
So you stuck in a job because of lack of training.
Your IT project managers have no one to manage. Your business analysts have no one to hand their work on to! All the techies have managed to wangle themselves on to better jobs!
Perhaps they only way out is base your CV on what you know you could do and not what you are stuck in.
Techie shortage? Nah!! Just a lack of imagination
8. Michelle Flynn
I completely agree with Bagpuss's comment on recruitment consultants. There are a few good ones out there but trying to find them is nearly impossible among those earning large amounts of money for doing very little.
I think the market needs to shift towards the direct recruitment model. We stopped using agencies for all our permanent recruitment and we have been more successful than ever in expanding our team.
If candidates can deal directly with companies recruiting and get the honesty they deserve then hopefully they will repay the favour.
9. George
Yes, there seems to be a dirth of talent at the moment even if you're prepared to pay.
Most applicants seem to be Indian graduates - still in India.
Agencies are about as useful as IFAs, they throw everthing at you hoping something will stick. A lot of money for people who don't even bother matching skills keywords any more.
So recruitment often comes down to luck of the draw. We tend to go for older guys these days as they've usually been through the redundancy loop and offer good 'job' experience and loyalty, work hard, and most can still pick up the latest tricks.
10. Karen Challinor
how on earth did you manage to become a CIO ?
you persist in knee jerk solutions to long term problems
you bemoan the lack of available talent but you ask for ridiculously specific skillsets
you look at procedures in terms of how much work they are and how much of a problem they will be to you and not as business cases
wild guess, you've just got this job and you want to make an impression as a go ahead, dynamic, can do type of guy
well you are making an impression alright, this is your second article and you are still whining and bitching about other people not fitting your paradigm instead of doing your job
personally I don't think you understand your position in the company
11. Mikal Dunne
I don't have much sympathy for what is being said about applicants and CVs. Agencies and employers seem to want people to do everything when the reality once in the role is quite different.
The recruiters don't even know anything abot the role they are paid to fill nor do they have any knowledge of IT.
I must be the exception because I tend to understate my skills and experience althoguh I have seen some whoppers on other CVs.
I do primarily support work and have seen salaries drop by over 20% in the last few years. I know what I am worth, I know my skills both IT and non-IT. The best thing that happened to me was redundancy. I now have more varied interesting work and I can ensure a sensible rate of pay.
Employers don't pay, don't train, don't look after their support staff and wonder why people quit or work for them. They should look to the plank in their own eye first before anything else.
12. Richard
Great, a new humorous column on Silicon; perhaps we'll soon get a decent cartoon strip?
13. Simon Crouch
I think you will find that the recruitment agencies must shoulder some of the blame for inflated claims on CVs. When I last dipped a toe into the contract market some years ago I was asked by one bottom feeder why I wanted a claimed skill removed from the CV that they had prepared on my behalf. He seemed to think that "Because it's not true" was a highly questionable reason.
Another issue is that the lack of loyalty may be fostered by the feeling that there is little commitment on the part of the employer should times get hard, and that informed advice form staff in post is often ignored in favour of a more popular opinion from a high priced outside "consultant".
14. anonymous
The Naked CIO seems to have forgotten the basic principle that loyalty is a two way street - it has to be earned by the company as much as the individual.
If the company supports it's staff with decent salaries, hours, equipment, training and a pension then it will get loyal employees prepared to work that bit harder for the company and a low staff turnover - if it doesn't it will get high staff turnover and the problems he seems to be currently experiencing.
15. anonymous
Why don't employers decide what they need their candidates to do before throwing the kitchen sink at the list?
Why ask for a 23 year old graduate with 20 years experience in c++, java, .net, Baan, SAP and Oracle, when what they really need is a bright and enthusiastic 16 year old who can teach the CIO how to cut and paste from Acrobat?
He will be a lot cheaper and he, (Shock! Horror! Sacrilege) will be loyal and just might remain enthusiastic enough to learn?
16. Simon
Some good points and questions on both sides.
The CIO asks why he only sees the over confident applicants ? In my opinion, it's because the honest ones either haven't bothered applying for a job that they don't feel comfortable saying "yes I can do all that" or the application gets filtered by the agency for not ticking all the boxes.
Put simply, I believe we are stuck in a vicious circle, with some candidates getting every more "creative" when expressing their skills, and the agencies/recruiters responding by asking for ever more ludicrous lists of required skills. The result is that the ONLY way to even get an acknowledgement of your application is to lie - and that means those of us (I would guess mostly more experienced) with a thing about professional ethics and honesty simply don't apply.
I've seen LOADS of job adverts where I think - hmm, I could do what I think they are really after there. In general I just don't bother wasting my time because I know in advance that I won't even get an acknowledgement, let alone an interview. And in most cases, the agency can't even be bothered to tell you that you weren't selected - so what does that say about their professional ethics ?
So I would suggest a first step of ASK FOR WHAT YOU ACTUALLY WANT ! Yes, you'll get a deluge of false applicants, but unfortunately, if you want the right person, you've got to find them. As it is, you won't find them because their sitting somewhere (perhaps typing comments on Silicon.com !) wondering how to find the "right job".
There are people out there that can do the job, that can pick up new skills because they have a grounding in the basic principals, and many of them are (like myself) past 40. I don't have any paper qualifications directly relevant to what I do now - I do have O and A levels, and Degree, but I suppose all they show is that I possessed the ability to learn stuff a couple of decades ago !
17. Simon Allen
As others have correctly said, Recruitment Consultants don't know Schitt. Either have someone in house that you know, or place the ad yourself and read all the CVs yourself. The days when agencies had people who understood IT and could 'read' a CV and match them to a job are long since past. The rot was well under way by 1995. Why? Because a good person costs money and the agencies wanted to save money.
Philip Thomas is spot on about the age problem. I have been saying exactly the same thing for 15 years. The people doing the hiring will not hire people that are old enough to be their parents. They will not interview us. They will not even reply to our letters of application. (Remember, if they don't acknowledge receipt of it - they don't have to give a reason for rejecting you - because it never arrived!)
"The two winners in our industry are Prince and Itil"
Fair enough as a measure, but not much good if the person can 'do' Prince and not 'do' the job.
"general arrogance of potential applicants who think they are God's gift to IT. Why does the IT industry develop this character type at a far faster rate than other fields?"
Actually, I think this is standard 21st century behaviour! I have worked across many industries and fields (permanent and contract) and have found this to be usual. Because you are in your job - that is where you see it. But I see and hear it across many jobs and activities that have nothing to do with IT.
"Other unattractive traits are falsification - or sometimes blatant lying - on CVs"
Yep, that has been standard for years. I think the difference is that people now check a bit more. In the 1990s, I saw many people lying in their CVs to get contracts and decided that I would not do the same. Result? I got less work.
"But the profound malaise is an attitude that just about everyone sees themselves as a freelancer, whether a permanent employee or not. There is no longer any sense of loyalty for the job - the focus is on money and salary."
Oh yes, this is another 21st century standard for the UK - and possibly elsewhere. Those that grew up in the 1980s saw the dog-eat-dog style and adopted it. Those that were bruised on the recession of 1989/91 are doing their darndest to ensure that they don't get bruised again.
Lastly, I have been shafted by big corporates and little companies and I no longer trust anyone in any organisation to be even remotely interested in me - only for what they can get out of me. So, I have had to respond in the same fashion.
Cynical? Yes.
Reason? Living and working in the Greater London area for the past 30 years will do that!
18. Russ Bunnage
The problem stems from the implicit assumption that someone with a given technical skill will perform better in a job that requires that technical skill than someone who currently lacks that skill. Stands to reason doesn’t it? Well, does it? Where’s the evidence?
I don’t know of any such evidence but I do know that there’s plenty of academic evidence that the single individual difference parameter that best predicts job performance (okay, so job performance itself is an elusive construct) is cognitive ability. There are plenty of reliable and valid cognitive ability tests (that measure potential rather than existing skills/knowledge) available but how often are they used when recruiting in IT?
My advice would be to look beyond an existing skill and, instead, focus on potential. There might be a training requirement to get a new recruit up to speed in a given technical skill but, in the longer run, you will have a better performing employee.
But when does anyone recruiting for an IT position look to the long run rather than a short-term quick fix?
19. Radical Meldrew
Karen, as much as I usually agree with your viewpoint, I feel that your CIO criticism overlooks a few relevant points. I assume from your comments that you have been very successful in creating a smoothly run IT enterprise from the ground up and salute you for that commendable achievement.
The newly appointed CIO however has no other choice than to work within the framework of existing systems and practices, has little say in what liabilities are acquired and has to justify every move to a board who (more likely than not) don’t see any requirement on their part to understand the role of IT integration within the company.
I agree that the whingeing tone of the article is not entirely justifiable but it is understandable and forgivable; especially when you consider the myopic short-term way that most businesses enterprises are run today. All of this does not auger well for the future, it’s no wonder that the natives (modern day workers) are restless; they are given precious little in which to invest their trust and beliefs and have learnt from experience to look at future employment purely from a short-term perspective.
Both in business and as a nation, it’s about time we raised our game above the present day parody of a Dad’s Army script, otherwise…..“We’re all doomed”
20. Charles Smith
Dohh, sorry I've been slow!! I didn't realise that the Naked CIO was a meant to be a comedy column.
Only a joker wouldn't notice that Business Management has been making IT in the UK an unattractive career by shipping the jobs off to India/China. Coupled with the HR / Recruitment paradigm that grey hair = brain dead, it is easy to see why good candidates are hard to find.
21. anonymous
I have been with the same company for the past 16 years working my way up from support to I.S. Manager and recently, due to restructuring, have been looking for alternative employment and I have to agree with comments regarding recruitment consultants.
I have applied for numerous positions and in around 75% of cases I have not even had the decency of being contacted by the consultant at all.
Salary is a consideration, but at the end of the day I want to work in an organisation that appreciates me and allows me to develop my skills accordingly.
If it was up to me I would scrap all the recruitment consultants and get companies' HR departments to do what they are paid for and source staff themselves.
22. Paul Northcott
I agree about recruitment consultants and I am one. The problem is that every tom dick and harry thinks they can be a consultant. We specialise in finding senior people for interim roles and all of us have been IT programme managers or have run IT consultancies.
23. anonymous
Thank you Naked CIO for a stimulating essay.
I am a software developer, redundant and seriously job hunting for five
months now.
I find seven years Visual Studio C++ is insufficient: recruiters want add-ons
and my wizardry with TTS computer speech through MS-SAPI5 has no takers. (Anyone?) Is it any wonder I might think to enhance my slender acquaintance with ATL and COM or MySQL.
When agencies learn that my VC++ is 'self taught' I get a serious put down.
How do my technical peers get their know-how? The last college training I
have is COBOL (Anyone?) from 1986 - did you expect me not to seek personal development. Did you imagine my last boss would send me on £300 a day training extravaganza when he could rely on my university trained intelligence and £60 worth of books from A..you-know-who to solve the current problem?
I feel my interaction with potential employers stalls on one of two prongs.
Firstly, I wonder if employers get so sick of being pestered by recruitment
agents that they fend them off with tight, highly focused and impossible
specifications for their ideal employee, which the agent is challenged to find. This being probably does not exist, though they would get taken on if
they turned up wanting a job, (and why not?).
Secondly, do Human Resources get given specifications for necessary skills
which are rarely concentrated in one person - so no-one gets put forward,
until the ideal appears?
24. anonymous
I ask if there was a time when employers saw all the applications? (Maybe when we had to write them with a pen and then post them in?). The employer then making a choice from those of us who had a good deal of what was needed, some skills that indicated we would soon learn the 'what-else' was needed to
do the job, and perhaps contribute extra talents (ten years technical sales
anyone?) that could be exploited or at least used to spice up the office mix.
(A retired Buddhist monk anyone?)
I challenge you, as my potential employer, to tell me if you are victim to what I call the Barings Bank Syndrome - you don't really know what I am doing nor how I do it but it looks good. Basically as a working programmer, I will know a good deal more about the software and it's language than you do. I have you at my mercy because although you will be my boss, you could not do my job. No wonder I can hold you to ransom for the poor quality skills I have.
25. anonymous
"Graduate training programmes"? Has any one guessed my age yet? Let's just have in-house software training programmes that admit any one with a software background into them. Let's be ready to train up the talent we need from the pot of people available. Maybe it would reduce some programmer superiority and introduce the humility that the profession is said to need. Lastly: is the term "Over Qualified for the Position" a euphamism for "we think you are too old"? At sixty, with no pension, and eleven years in my last job before redundancy to reflect loyalty, I am hardly the person to go hunting another job in six months time. Variety is fun, people who have been around lend colour and bring that savory ingredient - experience. Why assume I should be getting £35K after seven years heavy duty VC++ (then tell me I don't have the necessary technical know-how) rather than accept I am happy at £22/25 because
£22/25 because my VC++ was focused in specific software needs (but tell me I
am over qualified)?
My VC++ may be out of date (six years ago I was the hottest thing in town) but that doesn't mean I cannot learn the language you use whatever it is - C#, .Net, SQL, testing methodology, Visual Basic, Java, J2EE, .........
+
I just checked through the comments that came in since this morning - Mr
Philip Thomas you said it right, thank you!
+
SILICON - has no one ever tested this section for a long comment !!!!!
26. Chas
No surprise that "There is no longer any sense of loyalty for the job - the focus is on money and salary" as employers have moved the goal posts in terms of loyalty to the employee being happy to downsize/outsource depending on what way the wind is blowing.
27. Jacquie Perryman
A combination of many factors, and no one area can improve this challenge facing the industry today.
The relationship model between employer and employee has changed over the last few decades, yet the business model hasn’t. Employees want to progress quickly, and often the ‘false’ truth is the easy option – the bigger picture is to look at how we can keep the ones we have, and develop their talent through variety of work, accreditations and life-long learning.
But first, look to create a robust recruitment process which allows no room for error, one example is cultural assessment at interview stage, make sure you have clearly defined your culture, and match the values of any new recruit to this
My ultimate suggestion; work with a solutions provider (and not an agency) who truly understand these challenges and will take away your recruitment and management headache.
Co-sourcing with a specialist provider is the way forward to give you the flexibility and agility you need to succeed in our volatile market but still retain control – let them do the hard work!
28. anonymous
There's no longer any sense of loyalty to the job as we well know that employers have long lost any sense of loyalty to employees. Employers promise great opportunities but fail to deliver on well run projects, carrer progression and training. The business strategists/sponsors of most projects involving technology are simply not up to the job. The IT minions are the one's who are scapegoated - so who wants to stick around.
29. dinesh
Are there only Prince and ITIL certifications. Is IT is all about project management and service delivery. What about the tech certifications by INdustry standard like microsoft, sun , IBM, SAP, Cisco certifications... all these worthless. The problem with CIO's is they manage Project Mangers but have no visibility about hard core techies who do the actual jobs. There is a trend now that any Tom,Dick and Harry who does Prince Certification can become a Project Managers over night and these bunch have not grown from a techie to Project Manager. These mangers cannot expect loyalty from their techie colleagues since working under them is the worst nightmare.
30. Talented developer
The situation is hardly going to get any better with the ever increasing rush towards outsourcing and offshoring.
Where are the junior and mid-level IT jobs that allow people to develop their skills ? Where is the job certainty, training and career development that promotes loyalty ? Where is the CIO that refuses a bonus in order to plough the money into developing his departments capabilities ?
Is it any wonder that most applicants are ineptly over confident and mount a smash and grab raid on their new employers - they are following the example of the CIO's.
A bit harsh, maybe, but the CIO that values or even understands technical skills is a rare thing these days - most assume that a new recruit based in India can replace 10 years of experience in the UK.
The UK IT industry is dying fast. Start that graduate programme !
31. Michael Saunby
Forget Prince and ITIL, go recruit some freaks (see Tom Peters for why).
You'll have some pain at first, but then you'll get a real buzz from all that innovation, change and PASSION!
32. anonymous
Viscous Circle.
This is born out of the inability to recognise and drive IT Staff forward, provide the correct training and financial incentives to retain those staff once trained. Companies are getting in to the situation where they will not train their staff for fear that they will leave taking their expertise with them and will not reward staffs who do train enough to retain them.
So I say, you’ve bought this on yourselves, invest in your staff and train them correctly!!!! If you pay peanuts expect……………..