HANOVER, Md. – April 10, 2012 – TEKsystems®, a leading provider of IT staffing solutions, IT talent management expertise and IT services, today announced recent findings from its quarterly IT Professional Perspectives Survey (ITPPS). This quarter’s survey analyzes the importance of screening prospective job candidates to ensure organizations hire qualified IT professionals who remain engaged and productive post placement. The survey reflects the views of 2,054 IT professionals in the first quarter of 2012.
Importance of Screening
Organizations need to have a comprehensive screening process as 81% of IT professionals agree that the more thorough the process, the greater the chance the candidate and employer will be a quality match. Organizations must be wary of resumes because many include irrelevant buzzwords, exaggerations and lies. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of IT professionals say resumes include misrepresentations of the truth. Further, organizations without proper screening processes risk hiring professionals that are unqualified for the position. Four out of 10 IT professionals say it is common for IT professionals to get positions for which they are unqualified.
“If nearly half of your team was unqualified for their positions, you’d feel the pain – and so would your customers. Especially given the number of business demands IT departments must satisfy, it is critical for IT to hire the best people for each job,” says TEKsystems Director, Rachel Russell. “People are the foundation of any great enterprise. Quality screening practices are essential to gaining a truly competitive advantage.”
Most Screening Processes Lack Thoroughness
IT professionals report that only 50% of staffing firms perform face-to-face interviews prior to submitting candidates to employers. Additionally, IT professionals say only 45% of staffing firms perform technical assessments before submitting a candidate to a prospective employer. Nearly 40% also say that technical assessments should be more relevant to the job for which they are being considered. Sixty-five percent of IT professionals agree most staffing companies perform recent reference checks (last 2-5 years), but only 46% indicate those references come from a past supervisor. Moreover, despite the fact that references may be collected, IT professionals report only 14% of employers actually contact the references.
Clarifying the job itself for prospective employees is yet another opportunity for improvement in most screening processes. While 43% of IT professionals say most employers paint an accurate depiction of what the job will be like, slightly more than a quarter (26%) disagree. Organizations are failing to deliver insight on critical job aspects during the screening process. Over 40% of IT professionals report that they receive very little to no insight on the job’s performance criteria (43%), training/development opportunities (45%), personality/work style of the manager (50%), career path details (50%) and work/life balance (51%). Moreover, 70% want more insight into the job role and responsibilities of the position.
“Making a great match between talent and opportunity doesn’t just happen. To make successful placements, organizations must perform two critical tasks: validate the candidates’ qualifications for the job and allow the candidate to confirm the job’s employee value proposition is right for them,” says Russell. “These tasks take time and dedication – but it’s a cost that’s worthwhile considering that a quarter of employers say the average cost of a poor hire is estimated to be more than $50,000.”
Build a Screening Process that Works
Seventy-five percent of IT professionals indicate that an employer’s screening process can have a negative impact on their feelings toward the employer. Completing a thorough screening process fast is an important factor considering nearly two-thirds (63%) of respondents say most employment applications are too long and the vast majority expect the entire hiring process to take less than one month.
Ninety-four percent of IT professionals agree the best way to qualify candidates for a position is the in-person interview. To make the in-person interview truly impactful and efficient, other screening stages should occur first. Capturing important information about job candidates through telephone interviews, technical interviews, technical skill assessments and reference checks is often more valuable than attempting to do so through online applications.
“With a war for talent occurring in the IT industry, many organizations are turning to staffing providers to help them find the right IT professionals. Unfortunately, not all staffing firms perform the necessary tasks to ensure the hires being made are the right ones. Work with recruiters you trust, share your values and ideal candidate attributes and use them to validate candidates before you do the more formal in-person interviews,” states Russell. “The process will be much more effective and both you and your new hires will be much happier and engaged in their new role.”
About TEKsystems:
TEKsystems® is a leading provider of IT staffing solutions, IT talent management expertise and IT services. Combining a proven track record of superior performance, a quality-focused approach to service delivery and the highest-caliber technical professionals in the market, TEKsystems helps our clients successfully plan, build and run their critical technology initiatives. With more than 25 years of experience, we annually deploy 70,000 technical professionals from 100 locations throughout North America, Europe and Asia.