Extreme Interviewing to Find Team Oriented Programmers

Many software development hires fail to add significantly to the team’s overall productivity. The typical response is to increase the number of interviews and prepare an examination of sophisticated technical questions for the candidates. But what if your most important hiring goal was to find new technical employees with good teaming skills? One organization decided to create an immersion interview experience that provided candidates with the opportunity to demonstrate their teaming skills.

Government Involvement in Skills Issues

Technology products and services make up approximately one-third of the U.S. economy. The statistics are similar around the globe. Governments are concerned because this industry sector significantly impacts employment and productivity rates. The birth of the information age and the criticality of knowledge workers had great potential. To date, however, the benefits are not fully realized. The rate of change in the industry has instead created a significant gap between the needs of employers and the skills of the workforce. While technology professionals cannot find jobs, employers claim they cannot hire workers with necessary skills portfolios. Government agencies are taking action to coordinate state, national, and international projects to bridge this skill gap. One project currently underway in the United States is the development of national skill standards for the information and communications technology (ICT) industry sector. It is funded by the Department of Labor.

Skills and the Worker

Technology professionals have real lives, interests, and desires that are affected by rapid changes in the industry. With the decline of the “Organization Man” model, workers are now expected to maintain their skills and manage their careers without employers’ help. With skills that rapidly become obsolete, technologists must prepare continuously for the future. Yet, to maximize the utility of new skills, they cannot prepare too far ahead. This reality creates a dilemma for skills portfolio development. The TechCareer Compassâ (TCC) website was designed to solve the problem. The sponsors are industry-leading firms, so workers know the skills portfolio and career information is accurate and reliable.

An Exploration of the Value of Information Systems Certification

Realizing that human resource (HR) professionals are often the gatekeepers to employment in organizations, this exploratory study examines the perceptions of HR professionals in relation to education, experience, and information system (IS) certification. Survey results were obtained from approximately 100 HR professionals who are members of local chapters of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in North Carolina. We conclude that education, certification, and experience are imperfect substitutes for each other. In addition, there seems to be a joint or halo effect conferred upon a balanced candidate. HR professionals are also willing to associate substantial positive organizational benefits with certification, specifically: enhanced IT staff credibility, competitive advantage, level of service, consistency of service provided. HR professionals also associate substantial employee benefits with certifications, specifically: enhanced credibility, preparation for new position within the current organization, compensation, mobility, preparing for other certification tests, and meeting a job requirement.

Japanese IT-Skill Dilemma

Japanese companies are facing a dilemma regarding their IT skills. Although many Japanese feel the need to expand the scope of their information systems by implementing newer technologies, they are still obsessed with the “not-made-for-us syndrome.” Japanese IS vendors have been unable to establish a new business model, because the integration of new and old technologies is not easy. When considering the IT skills in Japanese firms, our attention is primarily focused on the characteristics of traditional IT skills before focusing on the newly required skills, because the traditional IT skills have developed strong inertia that prevents change. We will analyze the current situation of the Japanese IT-skill dilemma and discuss methods to resolve it.

An Approach for Managing IT Skills Portfolio

In this chapter, the focus is on best practice for IT skills portfolio management. To begin, we formulate the key principles or mission statement for IT skills portfolio management based on the previous chapter. Under the principles enumerated there, this chapter outlines how to build an IT skills portfolio, and then looks at how to apply the portfolio at the firm and the individual IT professional levels.

Optimizing IT Skills Management Initiatives

This chapter identifies the essential information required in effective IT skills management initiatives. It argues that foremost among this information is in-depth insight into an individual’s specific areas of strength/weakness. In a logical step-by-step discussion, the chapter builds upon a simple assessment to finally arrive at the complexities of an assessment required to deliver this detailed insight for effective skills management programs. It then goes on to discuss reporting and analysis of detailed assessment results to maximize the benefits of skill assessments in hiring, training, and overall skills management programs.

Skills, Management of Skills, and IT Skills Requirements

Information technology (IT) skill shortages appear at the market level occasionally—usually for emerging technologies, unanticipated challenges, and/or unresolved issues such as systems security. Even when a market-level skill shortage does not exist, a firm can still suffer from skill shortages for its critical information system (IS) project and/or IT operations unless the firm plans and manages its needs for IT skills. This chapter first surveys IT skills at the market level and then at the firm level to gain a perspective on the issues. Attention turns to the nature and characteristics of skills in general—not just IT skills—by reviewing past literature. The management of skills is deeply rooted in the management of knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) and human resource practices of the firm. Key issues and lessons are drawn from the literature in those areas. We conclude by considering the nature and characteristics of IT skills in developing an agenda for the effective management of IT skills.

Eliminating the Weakest Link

As organizations shift from tactical to strategic approaches with IT outsourcing, their human capital portfolios of knowledge, skills, competencies, and organizational capabilities need to be reconfigured accordingly. This chapter outlines a model for constructing human capital portfolios that enable firms to strategically leverage IT outsourcing. Two organizational capabilities—rational strategic management process and connective capabilities—provide the integrating mechanisms for competencies from three sub-units that are human resource information systems (HRIS), the IS function, and supply chain management. Knowledge and skills at the individual and sub-unit level enable the development of competencies that are integrated by organizational capabilities. Given the dynamic nature of competitive contexts, managers have to reconfigure their organizations’ human capital portfolio to align their firms with the external environment. In sum, creating human capital portfolios for strategic IT outsourcing supply chains requires a multi-level and multi-disciplinary approach to identify and strengthen the weakest links.

Challenges for Managing IT Skills Portfolio for E-Business

Organizations are under increasing pressure to adopt Internet-based e-business solutions for improving internal efficiency and collaboration with partners, suppliers, and customer firms within the environment of e-business webs. To realize these benefits, companies must transition towards an e-business organization. Such transformation demands IT knowledge and expertise at different levels. Each level requires special IT skills introduced as a result of the complex and dynamic nature of an e-business environment. In this chapter we examine the e-business environment and its implications for firm-level IT skills portfolio management. We then present five levels of challenges related to an e-business firm’s IT skills requirement. We further present: (1) future trends relating to the changing landscape for e-business IT skills; (2) activities that support acquisition, development, and maintenance of these skills; and (3) the gap between academic programs and e-business needs. In conclusion, we propose a research agenda.