Certification Magazine - March 2008 - (Page 30)

INTERFACE At XNET, It’s All About Attitude LINDSAY EDMONDS WICKMAN Wanted: Passionate, independent, right-brained geeks. From the mass of resumes on his desk, Arthur Zards, president and co-founder of Internet solutions provider XNET, searches for these traits in potential hires. “I almost don’t want to tell you because then the secret’s out,” he said. “[But] I want the tinkerer, the person who’s passionate about what they’re doing. I’m looking for that guy who wasn’t stuck in a company for 20 years just doing Oracle administration. “One of my favorite questions is ‘How many computers do you have at your house?’ If they say: ‘Oh, just one computer,’ they’re not technically savvy enough for me. I want the guy who says: ‘Oh, I’ve got four computers. One’s a Pentium 4, I’ve got a network in my house [and] I’ve got a VPN.’ I want true geeks here because we’re a small company, and we have to move quickly.” To find his “true geeks,” Zards uses the age-old adage: Hire for attitude, train for skill. “With the Internet, and especially the IT realm, what you’re hiring for now, five years from now is going to be different,” he said. “It’s not like you can hire somebody [who] for the last 10 years [has] done this technology and they’re going to be doing this technology the next 10 years. Whatever technology I’m hiring for now is going to change fairly quickly, so I’m looking for people who can really adapt and learn quickly.” Zards’ company was started in 1992 with three employees working out of a basement. Having survived the Internet bust, the Illinois-based business is now the largest independently owned ISP in Chicagoland and works with small to large clients. XNET is still a relatively small company, but it is looking to double its staff within the next year. As Zards begins reviewing resumes, one aspect that catches his eye is certifications. Why? Because they show candidates are interested in learning and broadening their knowledge. “I find [that] people who have the attitude that I want have certifications,” he said. “I’ve come across a lot of people who are out of work and looking for a job, but they are still furthering their knowledge by going through a certification process versus just looking for a job. And that’s the type of person who I’m looking for.” The best certifications for XNET are Cisco certifications, especially those dealing with networking and engineering. Zards said one advantage of certifications is they prove a candidate has core knowledge and skills because they’ve been tested. “When people have training certifications it is a bonus to find how they got those certifications and why they got the certifications,” Zards said. “Again I’m really big on attitude, and our process is a lot of initiative and self-learning from our employees. If I find a person who had a job and they say: ‘Yeah I [was] working at this company XYZ for three years, and I wasn’t happy with my career path, so I decided to take CCNE certification on the side,’ that’s a big plus. It shows that they’ve got initiative [and] that they want to learn.” 30 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE March 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Certification Magazine - March 2008

Certification Magazine - March 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Data Stream Tech Careers Academic Connection Dear Techie Virtual Village Mastering IT: Choosing Between an Immediate Job and Higher Education Inside Certification Virtual World Administrators: Service Requests in Cyberspace Interface Boomers in IT: Will the Talent Shortage Affect Techies? Ad Index Endtag

Certification Magazine - March 2008

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