Separate Myth from Reality and Build Your 2020 Talent Pipeline

Yes, the IT job market is hot and it’s tough to find skilled IT professionals. Channel partners of every ilk – MSPs, VARs, consultants and agents – find the current IT talent pool to be shallow. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that by 2020 there will be more than 1 million unfilled tech jobs.

This industry has a problem.

What if your approach to filling the talent pipeline for your company exacerbates the problem? What if by taking off the blinders and thinking outside the box, your organization could be on its way to filling it?

There are experts who have been working in human resources and tech recruiting for years who have learned how businesses can move beyond the status quo when it comes to recruiting, hiring and retaining IT talent.

CompTIA’s Yvette Steele

Channel Partners caught up with three industry pros who share some of their experience and best practices. If you want to get the full scoop, join Yvette Steele, senior manager, member communities with CompTIA; Patrice Jimerson, global director, diversity and North American talent acquisition at Appirio; and Franklin Reed, director of inclusion and diversity with TekSystems, at the upcoming education session – Six Ways to Build Your 2020 Talent Pipeline – part of the business strategy conference track sponsored by Cyxtera, at Channel Partners Evolution, Wednesday, Oct. 10, in Philadelphia.

Channel Partners: Finding IT talent is a hot topic now and has been for a while, and there’s no slowing down. The pace of emerging technologies getting readied for prime time continues to pick up speed. What’s the status quo and why doesn’t it work?

Yvette Steele: The status quo is … this is the way we’ve always done it, here’s our recruiting process, here’s our interview process, selection process, etc.  With the changing demographics, what worked five to 10 years ago may not apply today. That’s a process problem.

TekSystems’ Franklin Reed

Companies also have blinders; however, I would have to say, that given the limited pool of candidates, acquiring blinders is a good thing.  Let me clarify.  Blind resume screening for example, or blind skills-based screening software tools added to the recruiting process can eliminate bias and yield more candidates. When my communities get together to discuss this issue, we’ve talked most often about unconscious bias — are you giving Roberto Gonzales the same consideration as John Smith, sourcing candidates from the same places that everyone else is using or the same places you’ve always used? And probably the most subtle blinder [is] the lack of organizational commitment — where managers are simply checking a box  and there’s no alignment to the business strategy.

Franklin Reed: The No. 1 blinder is not really understanding the state of market — meaning how tight the labor pool is. Everything about the way we hire IT talent has changed from just five to seven years ago, including to injection of artificial intelligence. Everything from where we’re sourcing from, the employee value proposition, the interview process, compensation, work flexibility, career paths, technology exposure, etc., has changed. HR teams have been slow to adapt, and the best companies have become more agile in their approach; they’re the ones securing the best talent.

CP: What does the organization need to understand about diversity, changing the process, the status quo?

Patrice Jimerson: I believe that everybody in an organization understands what the overarching role is around recruiting and staffing diverse talent. In general, people get that they want more diversity, but they don’t understand …