Certification - August 2008 - (Page 31)

tions. The candidates’ answers are recorded and reviewed by the technical team. “They need to have experience with the technologies that we utilize, and we want people who have good, solid skills,” Nelson said. “If they don’t pass the technical interview, they don’t move on to the rest of the interviews. But that’s probably one of the easier things. People either know the stuff or they don’t.” After passing the technical section, applicants will move on to the soft-skills interview, where they are probed about their collaboration, communication and virtual working skills. “We use situational interviewing, where we’ll say: ‘You are in this situation; this is what’s happened. What would you do first? How would you respond? How would you handle it?’” Nelson said. “We check the culture fit with our own organization.” Because MWH is not an IT company, soft skills are especially important, as IT employees need to be able to communicate in non-techie language with customers, who are engineers and scientists. In an effort to improve this dynamic, the department is working to develop employees’ communication skills with customers. “When we’re trying to meet some sort of a need, whether it’s an internal customer [need] or a client need, if you can’t communicate, if you can’t put yourself in their shoes, if you can’t respond and modify your own behavior based on your customer, you are not going to be very successful,” Nelson said. “We exist to make our engineers’ lives better.” When a candidate passes the soft-skills interview, he or she moves on to an interview with the potential manager. This last layer in the hiring process ensures the candidate is the best fit for the organization. MWH’s IT department encompasses a wide range of job roles from help-desk support and field operations to project management and engagement managers. “We’re a fairly mature IT model,” Nelson said. “We have a strong and well-defined project management office, so we hire technical project managers. We [also] have a group of engagement managers or business analysts who work as the interface point between our customers and IT, so we can make sure that customers’ needs are being translated and met appropriately.” Because of the array of IT roles at MWH, the organization embraces both young and seasoned talent. “When we look at our mid- to senior-level technical people, we want folks who have some battle scars,” Nelson said. “But if [we’re] looking at our field ops or our help desk, fresh out of college is fine.” The turnover rate in the IT department is about 8-10 percent each year, and Nelson likes it that way, as it means she can bring in new talent with burgeoning fresh ideas. The IT department has found that the most difficult jobs to recruit for are senior-level positions, especially if they can’t be filled in-house first. Based on where the department recruits, the United Kingdom is the most challenging, followed by the United States. However, in the South Asia Pacific area, it’s still fairly easy to find qualified candidates. “There’s more of a demand out there, and it’s making it more difficult to find good people,” Nelson said. “We’re not an IT company; we’re an engineering company with a nice IT department.” Once an individual makes it through the rigorous interview process and is hired on, there is no traditional growth path, Nelson said. Employees are encouraged to seek their own development, and the company embraces this philosophy by listing available roles within the organization and the skill sets needed to be successful in those roles. “We have a lot of movement through the organization,” Nelson said. “We like to bring people into either our field-ops team or our help desk in a more generic role and then allow them to develop their skills in whatever direction they want and move to the higher ranks of the organization.” “Everybody brings something unique to the table,” she said. “In the world that we live in now, this global environment, if you don’t have the whole package, you’re not going to be successful. You have to be able to communicate, you have to reach out, you have to be appreciative of the diversity that other regions provide and you have to enjoy that virtual environment. Technical skills are only one piece of it.” 8 – Lindsay Edmonds Wickman, lwickman@certmag.com August 2008 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE 1

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Certification - August 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Data Stream jVirtual Village Tech Careers Dear Techie Troubleshooting Academic Connection What We Like Look Ahead The China Boom United in IT: Tech Culture Breaks Down Barriers Abroad Interface Digital Home Technology Integrator: Specialized Skills for the Smart Home Inside Certification Ad Index Endtag

Certification - August 2008

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