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editor’s question
MOHAMMAD
JAMAL TABBARA,
SENIOR SOLUTIONS
ARCHITECT,
INFOBLOX
I
T departments
are suffering from
a chronic lack of
cyberskills. The
IT industry is the
fastest evolving
industry out
there with a myriad of various different
technologies and solutions. A subject
matter expert today could be completely
out of the loop the next. It’s not enough
to be a technically well-rounded IT
professional, but must also understand
the business needs and objectives. It is
very difficult to find talent that can have
all of those qualities. If you do find any,
make sure you do everything you can to
keep them.
There are currently limited skills in
the market which can be attributed to
the actual lack of manpower. A lot of
companies have one or two technical
resources that are certified on three or
four different technologies. This puts a
strain on resources and compromises
the level of service.
Engineers are mostly motivated by
knowledge and technical development.
Hire a lesser number of people but
make sure you continuously develop
and do everything you can to retain
them. You will notice an immediate and
positive impact to your business. I think
it is important for companies to keep
abreast of which emerging technologies
are likely to necessitate a future skillset
need among their employees and
then facilitate training programmes
to get their employees the skills they
will need down the road. The biggest
barrier to training is time constraints
as training programmes tend to be
quite time-consuming. A lot of these
training programmes also seem to be
extremely heavy on content which can
lead to information overload. Training
programmes need to be simplistic and to
the point.
Hire a lesser
number of people
but make sure you
continuously develop
and do everything
you can to
retain them.
It’s true, there isn’t a lot of talent if one
looks on the surface. Don’t just judge
a book by its cover – whether it’s a
negative or positive judgement for that
matter. I often get asked to provide
feedback on whether a candidate is ‘good
enough’ to hire. If that’s the approach,
you should stop hiring and change your
approach all together. Would you want a
‘good enough’ boss or a ‘good enough’
engineer implementing the solution you’ve
just spent several hundred thousand
dollars on? Chances are every one
of you will say no to all of the above.
Qualities such as teamwork, integrity and
emotional intelligence are absolutely key
when making a hire and they shouldn’t
be binary. But the one area I believe
employers should pay very close attention
to is the appetite of that individual to learn
and to be coached. Finally, when you get
someone good, hire them, take time to
understand them and invest in them.
Some organisations are mitigating talent
shortage by casting the net wider and
recruiting talent from markets outside
the region. However, there are a number
of highly experienced agencies that
specialise in IT recruitment that we
would advise CIOs to contact.
While offering an attractive
compensation package is important, it is
equally important to have a really strong
culture – one where employees are more
than just a number and there’s a strong
emphasis on having fun.
28 Issue 28 | www.intelligentciso.com