Skills shortages abound for critical positions in the IT job market, and now there is the threat that many young people might opt for career paths other than IT, given the looming threat of elimination that AI poses for entry-level jobs.
Should CIOs Consider Hiring for Attitude?
There are all kinds of ways to describe “attitude,” but at its most elementary level, the Cambridge dictionary defines it as, “The way you feel about something.”
As a CIO, I looked for “attitude” in my staff. I was seeking out individuals with a positive, “can-do” approach to their work, and an earnest desire to succeed as a team member and as a technical talent.
There were times when I was willing to take chances on attitude—like the time I decided to engage a lessor skilled, but highly enthusiastic and motivated junior person to take over a critical technical role on a project when the senior person who had been assigned was demonstrating lethargy and disinterest.
The experiment was fraught with risk, but it worked.
Will ‘Hiring Attitude’ Solve the IT Skills Shortage?
Hiring individuals with a “can-do” attitude and raw but undeveloped talent won’t solve every critical skills need on an IT staff — but it can help.
Senior database analysts, software engineers, and network and security specialists generally have five to six years of experience in order to gain the technical know-how that makes them experts at what they do. Individuals at intermediate skill levels have three to four years under their belts, and junior staffers average from six months to two years’ experience.
It’s also important to consider the time it takes to find these skilled individuals in the job market, and to weigh that against the idea of training someone internally.
At present, it takes an average of 41 days to hire an IT professional and 62 days to hire an engineer. The timeline starts when a company posts a new position and ends on the day that the newly hired employee begins work. This timeline doesn’t necessarily show the timelines needed for hard-to-fill positions, such as a data scientist, a senior systems programmer, a data base administrator, or a CISO. For these positions, some CIOs I’ve spoken with have shared that it takes months and even years to find someone.
CIOs are facing other workplace realities, too. The turnover rate for technology workers in 2025 is estimated to be between 20-25%, which is the highest turnover rate for any industry sector, and the direct and indirect costs of replacing an employee who leaves in 2025 is projected to be between half to four times the amount of that employee’s salary. These findings, coupled with actual “on the ground” experiences of hiring IT talent, suggest that alternative strategies like “hiring for attitude” could be a valid approach.
How Do You Do Hire Attitude and Convert It into Skills?
We all want enthusiastic employees who will make positive contributions to their work teams and demonstrate “can do” attitudes — but in the end, they must be able to do the jobs that they are assigned to. If you choose to hire for attitude, how do you convert raw talent and enthusiasm into a skillset that benefits IT?
Here are three key strategies:
1. Develop your talent prospecting approach
If you want to find a “diamond in the rough,” you have to know how to look for it.
Many of the “can do” high attitude employees on your staff will initially be “poor ore” from a skills standpoint — but what IT leaders should look for is both the “can do” attitude and the native ability of an employee to learn an IT discipline quickly.
You might have a “can do” employee who is a great team member, but who has already shown that they have only moderate to low raw talent for the skills you need. This is not the best person to invest in for IT technical talent development. On the other hand, a junior maintenance programmer you have on staff is independently coding and developing automated robots at home. He exhibits natural skills, aptitude and enthusiasm for robotics, and might be a great candidate to develop for a factory automation role.
2. Stress training and development in your IT culture — and then see if it can be done!
It’s not enough to find raw and energized talent in your workforce. You have to foster and develop it.
The choice IT often makes is to send individuals off to seminars and certification programs. However, it’s only through real work on projects that employees can apply what they’ve learned and gain confidence in their skills.
To make this happen, project assignments should be aligned with skills development, and the senior members of staff must be committed to serve as on the job mentors for the junior workers. This can be easier said than done, as not all senior staff members will be willing to share their knowledge, and some are just bad teachers.
This is why CIOs and IT leaders should first evaluate their senior technical staff’s ability and willingness to train and mentor, before moving forward with programs to train and break in raw talent.
3. Assign junior staff member real work projects
If you have strong mentoring skills in IT senior staff, there is no better proving ground for junior employees than the world of real work on projects. This is how junior staffers “cut their teeth,” learn from their mistakes, and develop confidence and skills.
Hiring raw talent with attitude is an IT strategy for developing the skills base that IT needs for the future. It can never replace being able to use a highly skilled technical person that you either have on your staff or are able to recruit, but it can be a complementary strategy if you find that there aren’t enough technical specialists available to meet your needs.
This mixed approach of continuing to hire, and working to retain top talent, while also transforming raw talent already in your organization into the skills that you need, opens up multiple avenues for IT skills base development that can better keep pace with the breakneck technology advancements that companies face.
