Hispanic Enterprise - December 2007/January 2008 - (Page 54) MANAGING RECRUITERS TOTHE RESCUE WITH THE TIGHT MARKET FOR TECH WORKERS, STAFFING AND RECRUITING FIRMS CAN EASE THE CRUNCH TO FIND QUALIFIED EMPLOYEES. Jennifer LeClaire usiness growth drives Information Technology, or IT, staffing, and therein lies the conundrum. Finding IT workers in a tech-driven economy is a challenge for small businesses and Fortune 500 companies alike. Indeed, there is a bona fide technical skills shortage that has many companies knocking on the doors of IT staffing firms for a helping hand in hunting heads. Consider the statistics. Executive search and HR firms report that finding and hiring is more difficult than ever before. Executives across the United States agree: 67 percent believe there is a shortage of qualified talent in the market, according to Norwalk, Connecticut-based executive recruiter ExecuNet’s 15th annual “Executive Job Market Intelligence Report.” What’s more, anticipated business growth is sparking expansion plans, according to an October survey by the Computing Technology Industry Association. 54 B Nine out of 10 small- to mid-sized businesses, or SMBs, plan to add new full-time employees in the next 12 months. Some 33 percent plan to add at least one new business location. “It’s especially hard to find good technology workers these days,” says Jesús Hernandez, systems administrator for RM Personnel, Inc., an El Paso, Texas-based recruiting firm. “Some positions are tougher to fill than others, but the demand is growing across the board.” A RECRUITING HAND IT staffing firms can take the pain out of finding qualified technology workers. IT staffing firms come in all shapes and sizes and business models. Some specialize in temporary workers for short-term assignments, others specialize in executive placements. Some work on retainers. Others work for placement fees. But when the head hunting gets tough, companies can count on IT staffing firms to start hunting. “Recruiters help their clients by staying abreast of the latest technologies and the best places to find IT workers who have those specialized skills,” says David Gomez, president and CEO of David Gomez & Associates, Inc., a Chicago-based boutique executive search firm with a focus on diversity. “The challenge for companies is knowing where to mine those people with industry-specific skills.” For example, the banking industry may need tech workers with different software application experience than the retail industry, or the insurance industry, or the food processing industry. Understanding the parameters of the position, then, is the first step to finding the appropriate candidate for a specific client’s corporate culture. “We have a battery of tests we put candidates through to make sure they are skilled in the technologies. We even do some psychological evaluations,” Hernandez says. “So when you call us you can be assured December/January 2008 HISPANIC ENTERPRISE
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