IT hiring strategies: Finding the right person for the job

When it comes hiring the right person, you have to look at skills and personality, though not necessarily in that order. Knowing the skills your ideal candidate should possess is the first step to hiring success. Here's my recipe for finding the right person.

Define what you want
Your first step in the hiring process is to create a list of skills that your idea candidate would posses, along with a rating for each skill. This list will come in handy when you get to the technical portion of the interview process.

Review resumes carefully
When you know what you want, you know what to look for in a resume. Many IT placement firms will take liberties will the resume of their applicants to make them more appealing to the hiring company. Be sure to place a premium value on education and experience.

Be wary of the over-certified
If someone is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, Systems Developer, and Database Administrator, then you either have found a diamond in the rough and you should hire them immediately, or you have found someone that has no problem with studying test answers. Unless this person has considerable real-world experience, you can rest assured that they are the latter.

You get what you pay for
There will always be isolated cases when you can find a very talented person who will accept a position, and associated pay scale, for which he or she is overqualified. Don't rely on finding this person. For example, suppose you're staffing up for the migration of an enterprise application from a legacy application to an entirely new platform. Expecting to hire a high-level developer at the pay scale of a mid-level developer will just waste your time, and the time of your applicants.

Personality Counts
The team chemistry of your IT group ultimately determines how successful you will be. A team that has fun together and communicates well with each other will be more successful than a team that does not. It's your job as a manager to hire not only individuals that are technically proficient but also people who have personalities that fit in with the rest of the group. When you interview these individuals, you want to walk away with a sense that that applicant has a desire to contribute to your team, not just some person seeking employment. These people are not always going to be the candidates with the most experience or the best technical skills. Always put a premium on those candidates who you feel will work the hardest, not only for the team, but to improve themselves. These are the people you want on your team.

Personality red flags
Be wary of candidates that you feel may impede on your team chemistry. In the past I have interviewed overbearing, overly confident developers. These are the individuals who want to come into an organisation and take over how things are handled, and are always difficult to deal with. If you hire people bent on change from the moment they step through the door, more often than not you ultimately will sever the organisation's relationship with them, and only after considerable time and money has been wasted.

Put them to the test
When it comes to finding the right candidate for an IT position, take the interview process very seriously. I suggest breaking the interview process up into two different phases. The first phase should...