When you need to hire for your IT department, it can be challenging to define what the most important things are to look for. Do you know what attributes make for a successful IT professional in your company? What makes an employee in your business successful? Before starting the hiring process, define a list of characteristics that you are looking for.
To help you get started, find here our list of 6 attributes that you should look for when hiring for IT:
- Great IT professionals are passionate about technology and a technological challenge
A great IT professional is just passionate about technology and anything that has to do with technology. Someone who loves what they do, usually do a better job. So you should hire someone that really loves what they will be doing to ensure the best outcome. In fact, they should be so passionate about it that they get motivated by a technological challenge and eager to find the best way to solve the problems they come across.
- Great IT professionals understand data but also understand the business
Data is at the heart of every IT organization, so you need someone that truly understands data. However, the key lies in hiring someone that not only understands data but also understands the business side of things. And these profiles are more scarce. A great IT professional will also understand the impact of that data on the business and the products and services it is providing.
- Great IT professionals are able to translate tech language to non-tech people
This one is related to understanding the business, there are a lot of good IT professionals out there that are completely fluent in technology language. However, there are much fewer IT professionals that can actually translate that tech language to non-tech people. By just using technical acronyms or describing technical features instead of business´ benefits, you will surely be met with a blank stare from a non-tech colleague because they simply won´t have an idea what you are talking about. Great IT professionals can translate technology language to non-tech people.
- Great IT professionals have deep functional expertise with a great attitude
Look for deep functional expertise in any IT professional you think about hiring. This is related to what we mentioned above on being truly passionate about one´s job. If someone´s primary expertise is business analysis, they will want to make sure they are the best possible business analyst they can possibly be. It´s the hunger to show that they have this deep functional expertise and want to achieve the best possible results that make for a great hire for you.
- Great IT professionals love to learn
One of the characteristics of being in the IT industry is that it is constantly changing. Technology keeps changing, hardware and software get upgraded, and new technology trends appear all the time. Hence, an IT professional needs to love to learn in order to stay up to date with this constantly changing environment and to being able to work with the tools of the professions that are frequently changing.
- Great IT professionals think outside of the box
In an ever-changing environment, innovation is of crucial importance. A great IT professional can think creatively and out of the box to solve problems they come across, combine old and new technologies, create new practices and define new methods. So when you are looking for your next IT professional, make sure to check for this creative and out of the box thinking.
What other qualities do you look for when hiring an IT professional? Leave a comment and let´s keep this discussion going!
