Tips for Screening Top IT Talent

Will you be hiring for IT positions in 2016? When screening for top IT talent, keep these guidelines in mind as the hiring process unfolds.

Use Hypothetical Scenarios

IT is a very dynamic field, with the supply and demand changing as technology advances. The candidates that you are screening today may be the perfect match for a current position, but will they adapt to industry changes? To find out the answer, engage candidates with “what if” scenarios. For example, if you were screening storage and backup engineers, you would use questions such as the following:

• What if we invest in a storage technology that becomes cost prohibitive as we grow?
• What if we request that you help us lower backup costs?
• What if our CEO is opposed to cloud storage, but your experience has proven that it’s the best option? How would you overcome this obstacle?

For each IT position that opens, create a what-if list. Engage the candidate with these questions, and evaluate their answers before inviting them to an interview.

Get Clues From the Job History

Many IT professionals work on a contract basis, and that’s a good thing. Working on a variety of assignments enables them to keep up with trends and shifts in technology. In order to get a true picture of your IT candidate, take the job history verification one step further than employee references and employer verification, and ask about project completion. Did they stay for the entire duration of the project? If your top IT candidates get bored easily or search for higher-paying offers mid-project, this will be reflected in their commitments to previous projects. If a candidate has abandoned one or more projects before completion, that’s a red flag.

Test the Candidate’s Skills

In the digital world, it’s easy to create an online persona that gives a favorable impression. Ask team members who will be working with the new candidate if he or she is hired to create a pre-employment test to rate the candidate’s skill level. For example, if HTML5 knowledge is important for the role, use the test to assess the candidate’s HTML5 skills.

Sound like a lot of work? That’s where we come in.  We’ve been placing IT contract and permanent hires since 1994. We maintain an active database of more than four million professionals, and we have extensive experience in bringing together IT professionals and businesses.