Whitepaper - IT Stang

Too Overwhelmed
to Hire Right?

Mastech Digital nds IT leaders are

moving too fast to follow hiring best
practices. Inside, we oer ve strategies
to help see the light at the end of
the tunnel.
 Executive Summary - At a Glance
FOUR BARRIERS TO IT HIRING (PG. 2)
FIVE STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING TALENT ACQUISITIONS (PG. 5)
SIX WAYS TO IMPROVE RESULTS FROM YOUR STAFF AUGMENTATION VENDORS (PG. 9)

Doing more with less. That seems to be the prevailing dilemma keeping todays IT hiring managers up at night. Less time, less
money, fewer resources, and tighter deadlines. The pressure is relentless, and IT departments are struggling to cope.

On a positive note, budgets are nally unfreezing, making allocations possible for both contract and full-time hires. Yet, that
may not be enough.

There is a pervasive sense among workers in general and IT professionals in particular of being overloaded, of barely
keeping up with the tasks and projects that need to be done. Technology professionals feel they should be able to
complete tasks quickly and instantly, and end up feeling inadequate when they cannot.1

This is not the usual too much to do and too little time to do it archetype of recent years this is the palpable despair of:2
being overwhelmed,
feeling incapable of meeting expectations and,
seeing no clear way out or solution for the problem.

To gain insight into this serious quandary, Mastech Digital interviewed 4 | Use Sta
Augmentation More
technology managers from organizations all over the country and captured
Strategically
their thoughts about this troubling state of business. Heres what we learned: Implement better workforce
planning to eliminate
capacity constraints,
Time is not the only scarce resource. Budget dollars and talent shorten learning curves,
and accelerate
constraints are also impeding many IT departments ability to get productivity.

things done.
Despite all the press about high unemployment, top technical
professionals remain scarce.
5 | Stop Going at
Candidates are demanding more control over their careers It Alone
3 | Start with the
and are less willing to tolerate delays in the Big Rocks
Invest time to train an IT
stang company to
hiring process. Approach task management enable them to be more
more intelligently by better proactive and accurate
IT departments need help, matching people to tasks. in providing the talent
Use contractors to backll
but they have no time to your need to compelete
you need.
lower-level work and
plan and no time 1 | Build a Business
routine maintenance
Case for Hiring
to hire. Show executives how
activities.
hiring full-time and
contract sta will directly
Based on this input from IT correlate to improvements

5 STRATEGIES TO
in eciency, productivity,
leaders, Mastech Digital and protablitiy.
identied four primary barriers
to hiring, along with ve HIRE RIGHT
strategies for overcoming the 2 | Streamline Your
Hiring Processes
constraints, minimizing the stress, Become more proactive
in your approach to
and nding the time to hire right. candidate selection, to
The remainder of this paper confronts these issues and accelerate decision-
making and improve your
explains how some managers are coping with the access to top talent.
current state-of-aairs.3 Highlights of our
recommended strategies are shown here.

Page 1
 FOUR BARRIERS
TO HIRE RIGHT
When it comes to the success of technology projects, the three most critical elements are planning, process, and people.
But if you dont hire right, or sta suciently, no amount of planning or process can compensate for your talent deciencies.

While no organization sets out to hire wrong, the challenges of any fast-paced and budget constrained IT department often
preclude best practices in hiring and stang. Consider the following issues:

BARRIER 1:
Managers have Little Time. No Accommodations Made for Hiring

Tight deadlines abound, expectations for getting things done yesterday are rampant. IT managers must deal with huge
project backlogs (backlogs possibly created because departments dont have enough IT talent to complete them an ironic
feedback loop if ever there was one). But hiring is a time-intensive process. Even with the assistance of the human resources
department, hiring places a signicant burden on IT managers. Consider the steps in the hiring process:

Dene hiring requirements:

Often job descriptions are little more than a list of duties Dene your
hiring
and necessary skills. But a well-dened job requisition delineates
the experience and personality traits of your ideal job candidate. 01 requirements Source
candidates

After all, all the skills in the world wont matter if the person
you hire cant work with your team.
Provide
proper
Source candidates: orientaon

For junior-level positions, this may mean no more

and training
STEPS TO Screen
resumes for
than writing and posting a good job listing. But for highly HIRE RIGHT adequacy

specialized skills andcleadership positions, you need a Consider these steps

in the hiring process
well-conceived recruitment Strategy determining where
you can nd the people you need and, just as importantly, Negoate
how to get them interested in your rm.4 oers
Interview your
candidates
Screen resumes:
No job opening ever returns just the right number of Administer
tests and
responses. Either youre inundated with resumes to review, or youre background
scrambling to nd any with the requirements you need. Either way, its a checks
tedious process that often cannot be done without signicant involvement from
the IT department.

Interview candidates:
Before you can interview, questions must be developed, scoring systems should be dened, and interviewers must
be trained. To compound matters, interviewing most often is not a one-time event, but a multi-step process involving
multiple managers, multiple departments, and multiple rounds of interviews.

Administer assessment tests and background checks:

According to HireRight.com, 34 percent of job applicants lie on their resume. To hire right, skills must be tested,
backgrounds must be veried, and references must be checked.5

Page 2
 FOUR BARRIERS
TO HIRE RIGHT
Negotiate oers:
Compensation is one of the trickiest and most dangerous parts of the hiring process. Oer too little, and youll
never attract the talent you want. Oer too much, and you run the risk of creating division in your organization because the
salaries you pay your employees have a habit of becoming public knowledge. Long-time workers receiving less than new
stars can become embittered and disengaged over what they perceive as an inequity. The challenge is to do your
homework to put forth the compensation package that best ts the candidates needs and your companys constraints.

Provide proper orientation for new hires:

Onboarding is a critical process. Even the most talented new hires dont show up ready to master your systems.
Fail to provide a proper orientation, and youre going to suer reduced productivity and often, more turnover.

BARRIER 2:
Financial Constraints

Sometimes, theres just no budget to hire. This especially has been the case for the past two years (2009-2010). This seems
to be changing, however, as a third-quarter 2010 CIO.com Economic Impact Survey6 found that [o]ver half of IT leaders
plan to ramp up budgets in the coming year, with only 16 percent planning cuts. Still, of the 250 CIOs surveyed, just 35
percent plan to increase spending on full-time in-house workers. (Many plan to keep their contract hiring steady in 2011,
the report said.)

This budget crunch also creates another problem. Managers nd they only have funding to hire one person, while they need
three people. Therefore, they are tempted to craft a complex role combining pieces of various positions into one new role.
These hybrid positions are not only abnormal to manage; they are unattractive to highly-talented individuals who will
ascertain they are being asked to do the impossible.

In addition, nancial constraints also may force HR and IT to set compensation targets that are not sucient for attracting
the right people, slowing the hiring process, with disappointing results.

BARRIER 3:
Talent Shortages

The good guys are still hard to nd. Many average or low-performing IT
professionals lost their positions during the recent recession while companies
tended to retain their highest performers. As the recession wanes and IT hiring
picks up, companies are nding themselves ooded with applications of those
currently unemployed generally the low-performing and average.7
But hiring underperformers can be worse than not hiring at all. Mediocre
employees require more supervision, more training and they create more
disruption and substandard work than their peers. In fact, a study by
McKinsey & Company found that top performers increase productivity, revenue,
and prot by between 40 percent and 67 percent. So when it comes to hiring,
you simply cannot aord to settle for less than the best.

BARRIER 4:
Candidates Desire of Flexibility

IT professionals want elasticity in their job and career options. Top IT talent knows they are in demand, and they continually
look for their next hot gig. Companies wishing to make oers to these stars need to do so quickly. Weve seen many IT
managers miss out on their opportunity to hire top people (this includes full-time hires and contractors) due to delays in the
assessment process or their hesitancy in making an oer.8

Page 3
 THE IRONY OF TECHNOLOGY
IN IT HIRING
55 percent of employees are stressed
to the point of feeling extremely
fatigued and out of control
42 percent of employees report an
increase in errors in their workplaces
due to stress

STRESS AND STRESS AND

OVERWORK PRODUCTIVITY

STRESS IN
TODAYS
WORKPLACE

66 percent of employees who feel 40 percent of employees report

overworked report feeling nervous or losing an hour or more a day in
stressed4 productivity due to stress
34 percent of employees cite too many job 25 percent of employees say that
demands or overwork as their most common they come to work ve or more days a
cause of stress year too stressed to be eective
26 percent of employees felt overwhlemed 20 percent of employees say they
by the amount of work they had in past three miss more that six work days a year
months either ofer or very often due to stress

The recent Great Recession (December 2007 - June 2009) was dierent than any other and not just because it was the
worst recession on record. Unlike other recessions, in which American productivity rises when workforce numbers are cut,
productivity during the recent recession actually decreased.*

American workers have hit capacity. Companies truly are understaed, and existing employees are utterly overwhelmed.

Whats exceptionally ironic, of course, is how much technology which was supposed to help us work less and relax more
has exacerbated our stress. Smartphones, e-mail, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., have become so ingrained into our daily lives
that we cant imagine living without these tools. But we cant live with them either!

Technology has made us so connected that employers have developed untenable expectations regarding our
responsiveness. We are expected to be always on, always available, and always ready to respond. After all, if I can send you
an e-mail in less than a minute, why can you not send me the report I need in two?

This has resulted in a pervasive sense among workers of being utterly inundated. And its more than just feeling theres too
little time to do too much. Theres a real sense of futility and a feeling of being incompetent:**

These tools exist to make me more productive. The tool can allow me to send a message in less than a minute. It can allow
me to create a document in less than ve minutes. Yet, I am not able to get it to you now. I have 25 things on my to-do list
to complete in the next hour. If the tools exist, I should be able to complete them. But I cannot. Therefore, I am inadequate.
And not just at my job I lack as a human.

Page 4
 FIVE STRATEGIES TO HELP
EASE THE LOAD
STREAMLINE YOUR USE STAFF AUGMENTATION
HIRING PROCESS MORE STRATEGICALLY
Develop a clear-cut procedure Understand the needs of the
for nding, evaluating, and hiring organization and bring in the most
the right IT talent relevant IT talent to facilitate those needs

STRATEGY STRATEGY

STRATEGY STRATEGY STRATEGY

BUILD A BETTER START WITH STOP GOING

BUSINESS CASE THE BIG ROCKS AT IT ALONE
Illustrate to senior executives the Place signicant focus on the Team up with a professional IT stang
benets of investing in more of most critical tasks, and let only rm to help put the right IT talent in
the right IT talent the best people handle them the right place at the right time

STRATEGY 1:
Build a Better Business Case

If you need to hire but management says, No. No budget, show the following:

How hiring additional IT talent will eliminate capacity constraints

How hiring the right talent will improve productivity
How deadlines will be metand the economic benet to the rm of getting projects implemented faster
How bringing in expertiseeven on a contract basiswill shorten the learning curve for new technology.

In building your business case, look for the hard costs of IT shortages, and then demonstrate the ROI of eliminating these
shortages. For example, you might evaluate:

The average response time to problems in your network or application

System downtime and the impact on sales, service or operations
The number of help desk calls youre receiving
The backlog of work accumulating because sta is overwhelmed
The average output of your current employees and the subsequent gains that could be achieved by bringing in the right
supporting skills and experience

Executives understand how technical ineciency increases costs and can result in the loss of clients, revenue, and even
internal sta. Be proactive and present a cost-benet analysis to your rms leadership showing how hiring sta (either
full-time or contract) will improve your rms ROI through cost reduction or an increase in productivity and revenue.

Page 5
 FIVE STRATEGIES TO HELP
EASE THE LOAD
STRATEGY 2:
Streamline Your Hiring Process

As mentioned in one of the previously outlined hiring challenges, too many companies are taking too long to nalize hiring
decisions and extend employment oers. The best IT professionals do not stay on the market for long. If your hiring process
is inecient, you will lose top talent.

Instead, work with your human resources department to nd ways to make the hiring process faster. These could include:

Having great job descriptions prepared for all critical positions

Creating a clearly dened candidate evaluation process, including systems for resume scoring, interview evaluation,
and assessment testing
Providing better training to department managers on the hiring process (how to spot the best resumes, how to interview
better, how to negotiate salary, etc.)
Preparing interview questions specic to IT professionals and having them ready before you ever need them.
Improving communication between your department and human resources to avoid bottlenecks

STRATEGY 3:
Start with the Big Rocks

Stephen Covey discussed this in his

book, First Things First, describing an
individuals big rocks as those tasks
or projects that are the most critical to
do regarding results desired and goals
to meet. Placing your big rocks into a
container rst allows you to t the
less-important-but-still-vital things
(what Covey described as the sand,
gravel, and water that ts between the
spaces) around the rocks. Doing so,
Covey says, ensures that the critical
things get done rst.

How do you do this yourself?

By doing what the stang industry
labels backlling:

Identify the big rocks the critical

tasks that you want to assign to your best people
Identify the sand and gravel the smaller grunt work or routine maintenance and other low-level tasks that distract
and detract your top people from focusing on the big rocks
Determine which of the sand and gravel tasks can be ooaded to contractors or lower-cost administrative support
Bring in short- or long-term contractors to do the sand and gravel work
Challenge your star players to put more eort into the critical projects

Page 6
 FIVE STRATEGIES TO HELP
EASE THE LOAD
STRATEGY 4:
Use Sta Augmentation More Strategically

This means bringing in outside personnel to augment your current sta, more proactively. For example, by analyzing your
project load, in-house resources, upcoming projects, and capacity constraints, you can:

Eliminate capacity constraints on your current sta by providing just-in-time access to additional technical resources
Shorten learning curves. Bringing in contractors
with specialized skills allows projects needing
those skills to be completed - without
having to keep someone on payroll for
JUST ONE MORE HOUR SPENT WITH YOUR IT
the times those specialty skills are STAFF AUGMENTATION FIRM PROVIDING THEM
not needed WITH SPECIFIC INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT
Sta up to meet deadlines
Accelerate launches for DOES AND DOESNT WORK FOR YOUR
new projects COMPANY CAN PAY FOR ITSELF EASILY WITH
Reduce the negative
impact of system
FASTER FILLS, BETTER HIRES, LESS TURNOVER,
upgrades AND MORE PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYEES
AND CONTRACTORS

STRATEGY 5:
Stop Going at It Alone

Partnerreally partnerwith the IT stang company of your choice. Take just one extra hour up front to confer with the
stang manager to educate him or her about your company and its needs. This is a simple step that you can take to save
signicant time down the road. In fact, it is critical you dedicate this time to achieve the eciencies you seek in using a
stang partner. Your two-way conversation with the stang manager should cover topics such as:

Your rms culture. What kind of personality best ts at your rm? Do those who enjoy set parameters thrive, or are your
companys stars more the types who act rst and apologize (if necessary) later? Are you willing to hire for attitude rather
than skill?
What have other IT stang rms done right? What have they done wrong? For example, are you a nancial institution that
needs IT professionals with industry expertise, but your IT stang rms keep sending you IT professionals with little if any,
nancial industry knowledge?
Competitive intelligence on salaries. What is the norm for IT salary expectations in your industry? How do the specic
duties and responsibilities of this role add or detract from the salary norm? A good IT stang rm will be able to share
salary benchmark for peer rms in your industry, as well as explain how your specic position may vary from the norm and
the resulting implications.
Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your current team. What skill sets do you already have on your team? At what
level? Where does this leave a gap in overall organizational knowledge and performance? Your stang partner can help
you assess the best mix of capabilities and work styles to increase the productivity of your entire team by the addition of
a new member(s).

Page 7
 CONCLUSION:
IT PAYS TO HIRE RIGHT
Sourcing, vetting, and hiring IT talent has never been a
greater challenge. IT managers must overcome nancial
constraints, talent shortages, demanding candidates
and, most signicantly of all, a lack of time to hire well.

But hiring right is not just a good idea, its essential to

the long-term success of any IT department or, for
that matter, any company. Information technology is
the core of innovation, eciency, business intelligence,
and long-term competitive advantage.

Considering that top IT professionals can be 1,000

percent more productive than their peers, hiring right
should be the single most important goal of any
technology manager.

RECOMMENDED TIPS FOR

IT MANAGERS

Hire contractors for

lower-level work and
put your stars on
your critical projects
Re-engineer Think strategically
your hiring about your sta
process to augmentation
Clearly dene and improve sourcing eorts Educate your IT
demonstrate to senior and minimize stang partner(s) as
management the link delays to what you need in
between hiring and IT talent. Give them
productivity, eciency, the information they
and your companys need, and the
bottom line mandate, to be more
proactive

Page 8
 SIX WAYS TO IMPROVE RESULTS
FROM YOUR STAFFING VENDORS
For those who deal with IT stang challenges every day, a strong relationship with IT stang services that specialize in
information technology talent can be a great asset. This whitepaper touched a bit on partnering with an IT stang company.
Wed like to oer the following more detailed suggestions here.

1. Set expectations from the outset

Dene your expectations for vendor performance. What are your typical employee requisition lead times? What do you
expect for response times? How do you want the IT stang company to communicate with you?
Dene quality standards. Provide a clear (and detailed) list of requirements for every job order, and ask the IT stang
company not to under-ll or over-ll positions.

2. Be proactive about planning

Develop as accurate a forecast as you can for your IT project stang needs. Consider your current project load, expected
new initiatives, and your current talent to determine the types of technical skills you will need, the number of people you
will need, and the likely timing of your needs.
Meet with your preferred IT stang company so they can be proactive about recruiting.
Provide as much lead time as you can for each job requisition.

3. Train your supplier of IT talent

Teach your IT stang company about your projects and objectives. Make sure they understand what you want to
accomplish and your time and budget constraints.
Educate the IT stang company about your work environment. What types of people are most likely to succeed? What
are the personality styles of your managers and supervisors? What are they looking for?

4. Dene your expectations for candidate

orientation and training. What could
your IT stang company do to help
maximize productivity?
How much and what type of quality control
checks and follow-ups do you need or prefer?

5. Communicate your needs clearly to

IT stang services sta
Develop a relationship with a recruiter you
trust. Youll save time in ordering and increase
the quality of service and candidates.
Learn the names of other managers and
recruiters in the IT stang company who will
be able to help you should your main contact
be unavailable.
How do you prefer to place orders? Do you wish to call, e-mail, or use an online order form to submit your needs? How do
you want the IT stang service to contact you? When is the best time to do so?

6. Develop IT stang strategies

Analyze your workow to look for opportunities to improve IT stang eciency (get your key people working on the
big rocks).
Evaluate current and potential IT stang issues, such as turnover, morale, and other sta problems.
Create strategies for the recruitment and training of IT talent under best and worst case growth plans.

Page 9
 CITATIONS
* Productivity Decline Adds to Worries About Job Market, CNBC.com, August 10, 2010:
http://wwcnbc.com/id/3863 9614/Productivity_Decline_Adds_To_Worries_About_Job_Marketw

Productivity Decline Suggests Hiring Needed, AP.com, August 11, 2010:

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2010/08/productivity_falls_09_percent.html

Productivity and Costs, Third Quarter 2010, Preliminary, Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 4, 2010:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.htm

** A 2010 Farleigh Dickinson University report states that workers are on the brink of a meltdown. Fairleigh Dickinson University
reports that 75 percent of workers in the United States describe their jobs as stressful, and estimates that workplace stress and the
related physical problems cost American employers approximately $200 billion annually.

*** Work Stress What is It? Catalyst.org, March 2009: http://www.catalyst.org/publication/231/work-stress

1.
Dwindling resources, hiring freezes, administrative policies, and new state mandates often dictate much of the agenda for the
information technology professional. A feeling of loss of control is voiced both by managers and their subordinates. Sometimes,
information management specialists joke that the most important skill of their trade is organizational politics., Emotional Climate
in the Informational Technology Organization: Crisis or Crossroads? By Margaret G. Massey and Deborah W. Stedman,
http://net.educause .edu/ir/library/pdf/CEM9543.pdf

2.
Challenges of Information Technology Management in the 21st Century, Page 732:
http://books.google.com/books?id=J1u7Mb5kmWgC&dq=information+technology+worker+stress&source=gbs_navlinks_s

3.
How to Stop Making Stang Mistakes, CIO.com, November 29, 2007:
http://www.cio.com/article/160050/Stang_How_to_Stop _Making_Hiring_Mistakes

4.
There really is a criticaland worseningshortage of IT professionals today. Because of the Baby Boomer drop o eect.
Its becoming increasingly hard to nd a combination of good technical skills and communication skills., Haley IT Stang
Interviews with Information Technology Executives, October/November, 2010

5.
The Truth About Resume Lies. By Charles Purdy, Yahoo!HotJobs, April 2010:
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-the_truth_about_resume_lies-1194

6.
http://www.cio.com/article/618267/IT_Spending_Continues_to_Rise

7.
With many unemployed IT people today, one would think that nding a suitable candidate has become easier, but it has not
There are very few [IT candidates] who have everything we look for or need. I would say there is a shortage of good IT professionals
today. By good, I mean highly-skilled, consistent performers who are willing to tackle new applicationsor new to them., Haley IT
Stang Interviews with Information Technology Executives, October/November, 2010

8.
Hudson IT Leadership Series White Paper: 5 Emerging Trends Aecting IT Sta in the Recovery

Page 10
 Mastech Digital provides IT associates in digital and mainstream
technologies, and Digital Transformation Services around
Salesforce.com, SAP HANA, and Digital Learning Services.
Mastech Digital is listed on the NYSE under the symbol MHH.

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