IT Manager's Handbook: Getting Your New Job Done (18 page)
Read IT Manager's Handbook: Getting Your New Job Done Online
Authors: Bill Holtsnider,Brian D. Jaffe
Tags: #Business & Economics, #Information Management, #Computers, #Information Technology, #Enterprise Applications, #General, #Databases, #Networking
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The department has brought in new technologies and you need to hire people who are already skilled and experienced in order to use the product effectively. However, be careful with this as it is often said that it is cheaper to train an existing employee than to recruit a new one.
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The company can save time and money if certain processes are automated, but you need staff to implement and support this.
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You will be able to respond to your users/customers X percent faster if you expand your staff.
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The company has decided on an initiative (e.g., a new major application, or expanding into new markets) and expanding technology is a critical factor for success.
Be as specific as you can with your estimates, but also note that they are only estimates. No one expects you to be able to determine to the dollar or to the hour how much savings or productivity improvement a new hire will generate so note that these are your estimates. But use numbers in your request. Numbers represent facts, and presenting facts is better than presenting an opinion—don't just say “it would be good to get another guy.” Plus, you don't want to be perceived as an “empire-building” manager who thinks he can increase his own status (or boosting his own ego) simply by managing a larger staff.
Ideas for Managing in Tough Times
Justifying a new hire was never easy, but it has gotten radically more difficult over the last couple of years due to the global economic downturn. Here are some things to keep in mind before you ever start to seek approval for a new hire.
• Decide if you want to hire a full-time person or a contractor. This issue is discussed more fully in the section
“Should You Hire a Full-Time Employee or a Consultant?”
later in this chapter. Because companies have become more and more resistant to the idea of bringing someone on full time, if a contractor can fill the need you will generally have an easier time justifying the expense.
• Be ready with the answer if you are asked if this job function can be outsourced—either to a company specializing in this function or to a resource/location that can perform the job for less money. Outsourcing has serious benefits and liabilities (discussed in
Chapter 6
, Managing the Money
on
page 161)
, but be ready with both when you are asked, as you most assuredly will be asked.
• Be ready to explain why no one else in the company cannot perform this function already. (See the next section
“Start with Internal and External Referrals.”
) You may have already run through the potential candidates in your head and dismissed each one, but that kind of quick analysis might fail you in the heat of a job-justification conversation. Be ready with specifics.
Start with Internal and External Referrals
Looking inside is the best method to start your search for a candidate. Does anyone in your department/company/personal network know of a candidate who matches your criteria? Coworkers, other managers, and internal job-posting boards all can provide valuable names. You should
always
start here.
The quality of people you contact through these referrals is generally higher and the candidates are generally better suited for the position. Most people are conscious of putting their reputation on the line when recommending another person and will do so only if they have some level of confidence that the person merits the recommendation.
Be sure you don't make any promises though. Ask everyone if they know of someone, but be careful not to make any assurances up front. The most you should promise is that you'll look at their résumé or that you'll make sure the right person looks at the résumé. Some internal referrals can be radically mismatched (“I thought you said you were looking for a C++ programmer, not a Web development person”). Aside from the occasional courtesy interview, you shouldn't waste your time, or theirs, by interviewing candidates who are never going to get the job.
Of course, make sure the candidate is treated with respect. If they're referred to you and aren't right for the position, make sure they're contacted with that information. You want to be able to reuse your internal contacts, and leaving their recommendations in limbo is a good way to make sure they don't help you next time.
You can go further than looking at their résumé if that is called for. Often called “courtesy interviews,” these are interviews with a candidate that you perform as a favor to someone. If the CEO calls and asks you to hire his nephew, you can certainly agree to talk to him. Not necessarily
hire
the person, but you can talk to them.
Internal versus External Hires
An internal hire is when someone from within the company, or perhaps even from within your own department, is selected for an opening. In some cases it might be a promotion, and in other cases it might just be a lateral change. Hiring individuals from within your own department or your own company presents its own challenges. Like many other issues dealt with in this book, there are good and bad reasons for hiring inside (see
Table 3.1
).
Table 3.1.
Pros and Cons of Internal Hires
| PRO | CON |
| The candidate is known. Her strengths and weaknesses have been seen by other people you work with so there shouldn’t be many surprises. | Hiring an internal person may anger other people you work with. If the person has talent and is a contributor to his group, his boss may be reluctant (or downright furious at the idea) at one of their workers transferring within the company. For personal reasons, many managers are angrier at a worker transferring to another department or division than they are at a person leaving the company altogether. It doesn’t make a lot of sense (a lost worker is a lost worker, and going to another department still might benefit the previous manager in some small ways), but it’s a fact. Try to determine what the reaction of the manager of the candidate you are interested in will be before you start talking to people. This can range from a simple and casual request at a meeting you are both attending to a formal, preinterview notification. |
| Many companies aggressively promote the concept of hiring/promoting from within so you can get some kudos from upper management for adding to the company’s internal hire list. | People who have worked for the company for a while know “where all the bodies are buried.” They arrive with many preconceived ideas—maybe even some about your department. New people to the company generally come with their eyes and ears open, ready to absorb and learn. Some internal people arrive like that, whereas others arrive with many hard-to-shak e prejudices. |
| Other employees will appreciate seeing that there is an opportunity to move up. Too often, staff members leave a company simply because they don’t believe they see much opportunity for their own growth. There will be a radically shorter introduction term; the candidate knows how the company works, is familiar with the organization, terms, and processes and can start being productive much sooner. | |
The Four C's of Internal versus External Hires
When considering whether to hire an external vs. internal hire, your assessment regimen is as critical as any other step in the new hire process. Following the four C's can provide a guide to making a more informed decision:
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Circumstance:
What are your needs? Do you require a short-term win or can you afford to wait a little longer for someone to get up to speed? Consider specific vs. general, strategic vs. tactical, etc.
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Cost factors:
We know the expense tied to hiring new employees, but what about calculating your opportunity costs—the cost of choosing one candidate over another?
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Chemistry:
Will your team like him or her? How will morale be affected? It is difficult to predict how a person will mesh with others, yet it can significantly alter the effectiveness of a team. To that end, I would always have the managers on my team (with strong personnel evaluation skills) interview all candidates.
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Continuity:
How long will you need this person? If you get a superstar, don't expect to hang on to them too long and if you get a dud you might end up having to manage them out sooner than later.
I hired five new managers over a two-year span (due to rapid department growth), which gave me a unique perspective on internal vs. external hires. Two were hired from the outside, while three were promoted from within. These were managers who would need to possess a range of experience in managing people and in understanding the financial sector, as well as the ability to grasp both branded and proprietary systems and technology.
There were significant learnings from this (real life) exercise, which I apply to each and every hiring situation I encounter. In the end, the two external hires were successful and stayed well after I moved on while two of the three internals became protégés, one eventually succeeding me in the position (the third was a dud, proving you can't nail it every time, despite a rigorous hiring gauntlet!).
There is no magical formula that will tell you whether to promote the familiar (internal) candidate vs. bringing in a veteran (external); however, it's a safe bet that with strong due diligence you can rest easier knowing you did your homework.
—Tim Holtsnider
Project Manager, Global Customer Service Business Integration
Monster, Inc.
Should You Hire a Full-Time Employee or a Consultant?
The answer, of course, is “it depends.” It depends on what your needs are. Both types of staff have their strengths and weaknesses.
Full-time employees
are individuals who work for your organization. Some are paid by the hour and some are salaried, but in either case, they are hired by, paid by, and report to someone in the organization. In addition to salaries, full-time employees receive additional benefits that can take the form of health insurance coverage, vacation time, retirement plans, etc. To your Finance and HR people, these individuals are sometimes referred to as W-2s because they get a W-2 tax form at the end of the year.
Most full-time employees are hired on an “at-will” basis, which means that either the employee or the company can terminate the arrangement at any point for any nondiscriminatory reason. However, this can vary from state to state, and certainly country to country. Regardless, your Legal and HR departments will probably insist on sufficient reasons and due process, though, if you're the one looking to end someone's employment. The alternative to at-will employment is when an employment agreement/contract is signed by both employee and employer.
Consultants
(also referred to as contractors), however, are brought in on a temporary basis by companies. They're generally paid by the hour or day, receive no benefits, and aren't on the company's payroll. They aren't employees of your organization and are often responsible for handling not only their own benefits and insurance, but also their own taxes. You may find an independent contractor through an agency or consulting firm or you may find them directly through Web searches or personal referrals. Online job sites are popular methods of finding qualified contractors. These individuals are often referred to as 1099s because instead of receiving a W-2 tax form, they get a 1099 tax form (either from your company or their agency).
Which type of employee should you hire? See
Tables 3.2
and
3.3
for the pros and cons of full-time employees and consultants.
Table 3.2.
Pros and Cons to Using Consultants
| PRO | CON |
| In general, contractors may have more diverse experience. You can find independent contractors with backgrounds in most, if not all, of the obscure corners of technology. Because they aren’t locked to one desk and to one organization, they’re free to roam and learn what new projects and new companies can teach them. | Consultants often cost more than full-time employees. Even counting benefits, etc., that a full-time person is paid, contractors can easily cost you more. This is particularly the case if the contractor is hired through an agency, as the pay rate will include the agency’s markup. (Contractors have to pay their own Social Security taxes, among other things, so their rates will generally be higher than a full-time person’s wages.) |
| Because contractors often have such varied expertise, they usually require little or no training to become productive. You can see results from contractors in a relatively short amount of time. | If you hire a consultant, for budgeting purposes you will need to estimate how long the contract will be. This is sometimes very hard to do; if you are finishing off a companywide operating system upgrade, you know (roughly) how many machines are involved, how long it will take to do each one, etc. But if you are helping the Development team implement a new Accounts Receivable system, there are many variables that affect the outcome. That process could take anywhere from a few months to much longer, and sometimes factors nowhere near your control can influence that figure. |
| Consultants don’t add to head count. When companies are trying to save money, it looks poorly if they are adding to staff. Although the actual costs may be more expensive, upper management and the Finance department frequently would rather pay a contractor as opposed to increasing the employee head count. | It is easy (and potentially disastrous) to forget that contractors aren’t employees of your company: Their loyalty, in the end, is to themselves. This isn’t to say contractors do a poor job; some do spectacular jobs (while others don’t, of course). But they care about getting paid and recording hours; their interest in the long-term growth of your department or your company isn’t all that high. If a contractor feels that he may not have much of a future with your company, he may start looking for a more reliable revenue stream, and possibly leave you at his convenience, not yours. |
| Consultants can usually be dedicated to a particular project, whereas full-time employees have many other responsibilities. | |
| You can terminate a contractor quickly and easily when you need to. Sometimes this is the most significant benefit of a consultant. This might be because the need for the contractor is for a specific time period, or because you want to be able to end the relationship easily (without interference from HR) if the person doesn’t work out. Various states have various laws about what you must do in those situations. (And the laws for these kinds of actions vary radically overseas.) While professional courtesy says you should give at least two weeks' notice when terminating a full-time person, in general, you can fire a contractor the same day. | |