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Recruiting the IT leaders of tomorrow requires an innovative approach and a clear idea of how the IT department is changing

The economic downturn has had a devastating effect on the UK’s IT professionals. Some figures suggest that as many as 100,000 IT workers lost their jobs in the recession.

The only possible silver lining to this might have been that it eased the skills shortage that has dogged IT employers for decades. But this has not proven to be the case, especially when it comes to senior IT roles.

“Whatever the recession has brought, it doesn’t mean there’s no longer a skills shortage, especially at the more senior levels of IT,” says Myron Hrycyk, CIO at Severn Trent Water. “In some respects, people with hands-on experience at a suitable level have become harder to find.”

One reason for this is that economic certainty has caused IT managers and directors with good jobs to hang on to them for dear life. Another is that the various carrots that organisations have traditionally used to attract the brightest and best, such as high salaries with promises of pay rises and exciting technology projects, are themselves in short supply.

"Whatever the recession has brought, it doesn’t mean there’s no longer a skills shortage"
Myron Hrycyk, CIO, Severn Trent Water

This stalemate could not have come at a worse time. The requirements of the IT leadership role are changing, and enterprise organisations need vision, dynamism and fresh blood. If they are to attract the thought leaders who define the IT department in the post- recessionary era, organisations cannot rely on the recruitment processes of old. Instead, they must employ innovative methods of locating and compensating the best candidates. Meanwhile, they must make sure that the talent they already possess is motivated and loyal, as rivals will be trying to do the same.

The war for IT management talent has intensified, just as the resources with which to fight it have become scarcer.

Fight for the best

Economic uncertainty means that fewer IT professionals are looking for new jobs, with many preferring to keep their heads down and wait for the market to recover, says Ashley Rice, a director at recruitment firm Hays IT. “Mobility is definitely reduced, and although the trend is less apparent at CIO level, we’ve certainly seen changes,” Rice explains. “The average tenure of a CIO used to be very short, but it’s becoming longer as people stay in roles after those first projects and goals are completed.”

This illiquid jobs market means that some skills are in high demand. “In the past two years, there has been a shortage of candidates with strong project management and supplier management skills in particular,” he says. “It’s common for someone with good experience to be fielding five job offers, while someone with fairly generic technical skills is more likely to struggle.”

Rice says that many organisations are openly trying to poach staff from rivals, and the loyalty of high performers is being bought with escalating salaries and increased share offers – by those companies that can afford them – or through the stipulation of extended notice periods. “We are increasingly finding that we approach people about global and senior roles and they’re in three- or six- month notice contracts,” says Rice.

Barry Hoffman, HR director at IT services company Computacenter, says that the key to achieving market-beating IT leadership is to aggressively pursue and retain top performers, but he acknowledges that this is a tall order in lean times. “Few companies are in a position to offer large pay rises or bonuses, and pay freezes and cuts are still very common,” Hoffman says. “It’s tough.”

It’s not all bad news. Hoffman says that Computacenter is beginning to offer modest (below 1%) pay increases in some circumstances. But he nevertheless emphasises, “There are some small signs of a thaw, but overall we have still had to work with staff to ensure that they understand that long-term job security is at the heart of our pay strategy.”

Searching for the IT equivalent of a needle in a haystack can itself be a challenge, adds Hoffman. “Managers are busier than ever in 2010 – we’re all leaner and doing more with less, and taking the time to attract and select seekers is becoming tougher,” he says. One option for companies wanting to avoid the scrum is to make more use of informal recruitment processes, advises Hoffman. “We do a lot of networking. We use LinkedIn fairly widely, and just make contact with people, well before the vacancies arise,” he says. “It’s about plugging into that network of senior, qualified professionals and, through them, their contacts.”

Talent pipeline

LinkedIn is becoming increasingly important to recruiters, agrees Martin Warner, head of talent acquisition with hosting company Rackspace. “We use LinkedIn to speak to people directly, and I believe the best time to approach people is before you even have a vacancy,” says Warner. “Having that pipeline is more and more important.”

Given this intense competition for the best IT executives, employers must focus on retaining staff, particularly because rivals are almost certainly considering head-hunting star performers.

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