Trust us when we say that some days are harder than others.
Recruitment in IT is hard work. Bottom line and end of sentence. This is probably why we are the only agency that stands the test of time servicing the select clients within a niche market and its staffing needs! Interestingly though, a lot of people aren’t aware of what goes into recruiting.
Our work is not comprised of posting jobs and sifting through resumes. We have to spend a lot of time and effort vetting candidates on multiple levels: screening, interviewing, verifying. Only 5% of applicants are ever a suitable match for our clients. Think about that for a second: 5%. That’s 5 out of every 100 candidates! For a busy business owner or IT manager to do this work themselves, to staff their office without help is almost guaranteed to result in a few bad hires. They just don’t have the time, nor should they! A manager or owner has to be engaged in running operations, not bogged down in hiring.
It’s a little like people who insist on going through an entire SDLC without a trusted architect, business analyst, project manager and quality assurance. Plus we expect to have it work perfectly on a unreasonable budget. They end up, like the folks on the television commercial, buying a lemon of a car; something that could have been avoided had they used a consummate recruiter. Lest this post become an ad for managers, we think the point is made.
Of all positions in IT, the hardest to fill position is not only the hard skills but the soft skills that come with it to manage and mitigate business partners or clients. To assist a IT department, a candidate needs to be smart, professional, articulate, poised, accurate and committed, to say nothing of skilled in various technology platforms and so on. Finding candidates who are able to roll with the punches and keep on smiling, who can do the work without the needing to be micromanaged, who take ownership of the tasks and get them done, is NOT easy. This process can take 72 hours per role or more depending on the complexity of it. Anyone that has attempted to hire for this role on their own can attest to how much work is involved.
Each position is critical and requires a fair bit of commitment: to stay late when needed and be a support on weekends. It’s not the ideal job for many people, simply because of the time required. It is also the kind of role that means owning the workload to ensure that every detail is taken care of, so that the IT manager can get down to the job of overseeing other projects for their clients.
A IT manager doesn’t become a top performer in his department simply based on the protocols he follows. It has more to do with creating a seamless, exceptional experience for the client.
That outstanding job means thinking of every detail and making sure that is done to pristine perfection. These realtors have raised the bar on customer service and not every assistant who wants to do this kind of work will make the cut.
It’s up to us at AGENTC to find those diamonds in the rough. It takes a lot of hunting, interviewing, removing from a short list until the perfect match is found but when we find the right candidate for our client, she will be a successful hire that is likely to remain and grow within a team for years to come. This is why realtors breathe a sigh of relief when they find our service. We’ll never get tired of hearing: “where have you been all my life?” from our clients!
