The New IT Staffing Imperative: Focus on Culture Over Skills

When it comes to attracting and retaining the best technology talent, our new normal requires a new mindset.

It’s not much of a stretch to say that the IT staffing industry has been undergoing a dramatic reinvention over the last few years. This shift is shining a bright light on some of the challenges of employers and recruiters, especially when it comes to the ongoing technology skills shortage.

After the pandemic struck in early 2020, many professions had to scramble—including the IT staffing world. Not only did recruiters now have to find new ways to vet IT job candidates, they also faced pressure from clients eager to accelerate existing and new digital transformation projects.

That wasn’t easy. The competition for vital skills in technology segments such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, automation, and robotics grew ever fiercer as companies put more emphasis on deploying new technologies to gain operating efficiencies and drive new growth. Recruiters worked tirelessly to find candidates who had the IT skills that enterprise clients needed to keep up with new technologies and market dynamics.

This led to a dynamic whereby recruiters would use everything at their disposal, including automation tools, to find the most qualified candidate. While this practice isn’t necessarily problematic in and of itself, the problem starts when recruiters become overly reliant on these tools, replacing the human component with a machine that lacks a nuanced take on the most qualified applicant.

Unfortunately, we are now experiencing the fallout from this hasty acceleration: recruiting firms that focus too heavily on building the highest volume of candidates are compromising on cultivating the strongest pool of individuals skilled in complex digital projects who can adapt from one project to the next.

If businesses are to sustain their digital strategies for the long-term, they will gain a significant advantage by relying on IT professionals who grasp their strategy, operations, and culture—and can therefore transition from one digital project to the next, even if they are temporary, part-time, or even remote or hybrid staff.

At CTG, we are getting ahead of this trend with the relaunch of our IT staffing services as CTG Talent Solutions (read about this news here).

So, what can business leaders do to ensure they are supporting their digital strategies with the best IT talent that fits their specific needs?

What I tell CTG clients is that it comes down to putting in the hard work—spending MORE time getting to know candidates, their skills, AND personalities; engaging candidates over longer periods of their careers to better understand their shifting job needs and aspirations. And working with talent and staffing firms that are truly partners—putting in the time to understand THEIR corporate and IT cultures.

Hiring for Cultural Fit

Hiring for cultural fit is easier said than done, especially when new work modes have put more power into the hands of candidates. I would argue, however, that it is more critical than ever for businesses to be more balanced when hiring for skills versus culture.

Demand that your IT staffing partner recruit for cultural fit as much as skills to retain top hires long-term, even as they move between projects within the same enterprise. Ask them how they assess cultural fit and what questions they ask. Dig into their track record helping clients retain IT staff for the long-term or converting temporary staff to permanent hires.

These are all good indications the staffing partner is not just a resume mill, but a strategic collaborator invested in your long-term success.

An IT staffing partner should ask and understand why some people succeed and others don’t at the client company, what characteristics the firm values most, what the unique demands will be on each candidate, and what other potential roles might each candidate evolve into.

Even during the pre-COVID-19 era, when nearly every aspect of business was conducted on the premises, hiring a candidate involved a myriad of considerations. However, it was never possible to predict with 100% certainty whether someone would be a good fit. The task becomes that much harder when hiring for a remote or hybrid position.

Being Less Rigid

While certain skills will always be valued in the world of digital transformation, it is also important to remain flexible when assessing candidates who may bring more to the table, including the ability to learn, adapt, and grow.

I believe that recruiting for a breadth of skills and characteristics like adaptability is vitally more important today. Doing so will also help enterprises retain top IT talent, allowing professionals with specialized skills, such as in AI, to transition seamlessly into emerging areas as new innovations arise.

In general, flexibility is critical to IT. While companies need very specialized skill sets, we also look for candidates who can adapt to the environment and reapply their skills in new areas. So even if the candidate is only an 80% match—on paper—that aptitude or crossover skill would make up the 20% difference as they grow within the organization.

With decision-making power shifted from employers to candidates, clients also need to pull the trigger faster or risk losing the candidate and falling into a perpetual recruiting cycle trying to keep up.

Relying on People

In the rush to acquire IT skills for accelerating digital transformation, many recruiting firms adopted intelligent technologies to drive greater efficiency in identifying and sourcing candidates. I’ve even seen practices where the initial screening of candidates is conducted through an AI interview—NOT an actual human being!

While AI does offer tremendous potential, the truth is there are still many tasks better suited to human beings. Like every industry, IT staffing is examining AI to learn how it can streamline their processes more effectively. Though we are still in the very early stages, AI can certainly help to identify, rank, and locate candidate resumes.  

Ask your IT staffing firm how they are using AI—whether it’s for sourcing, screening, or interviewing. If they seem to be overly reliant on AI, then inquire about how they validate candidates, how long each candidate is interviewed by a human recruiter, and how often candidates are recycled back into the recruiter’s pipeline, which could be a good indication that the staffing firm provides superior personal attention.

Finding the Right Balance

Ultimately, this boils down to finding a balance that works. I tell clients that they just need to be open-minded because otherwise they’re not going to get the talent they need. 

For instance, hybrid work has become a contentious subject. But when it comes to hiring skilled technical talent, the market is competitive. Leaders need to find innovative ways to identify and manage new talent with the goal of maximizing their success and retaining them for the long term. Don’t expect to attract the top candidates with an inflexible, “my way or the highway approach” to remote work.

Bottom line: Listen to what the applicant is telling you. Trying to meet them halfway is less problematic than it might seem. Unlike healthcare or manufacturing, you can remain enormously collaborative and productive without requiring a physical presence.

It’s clear that the last few years have done nothing less than disrupt the traditional recruitment paradigm. An influx of new technologies and a radically different organizational landscape has shifted the old standards and flipped them on their head. But the principles remain the same: leverage the resources, respect the human, and nurture the talent. Everything hinges on our ability to get it right.