How to Hire and Retain Top IT Professionals and Engineers – Part I

Hiring good IT engineers is not easy, but it’s even more difficult to retain them by keeping them happy and making them feel valued. Even if you are able to receive several promising resumes at the time of hiring, screening the candidates takes time and strong acumen. The hired engineer should reflect the company’s values and have a personality that helps them going along with the workplace culture of your company.

Here are a few tips on how you can hire the top IT engineers:

Creating a Good Screening Process

When you want the best of the best, you just can’t leave the hiring power with only one person. By making the candidates go through several interviews that focus on different areas of work, personality, and skills, you can filter them out in a highly efficient way. If a candidate passes all these interviews, you can be sure they will become a valuable asset for your company.

Hiring Someone with a Diverse Skill Set

You don’t want someone who is an expert at developing Linux software, or someone who is a master at networking if you already have employees in these areas. Instead, you must look for qualities and talents that can complement your existing staff. You have to look for skills that your organization is currently lacking. Apart from technical skills, you must also look for leadership and creative qualities.
If an IT engineer demonstrates good technical knowledge during the interview, it doesn’t mean that he or she is the best person for the job. They must be able to handle pressure and constructive criticism. Candidates should be interviewed by many stakeholders, including: the manager they report to, human resources, team members, and a couple of other engineers. Remember, not doing a rigorous interview may result in hiring the wrong candidate and may cause a lot of monetary and productivity loss.

Research the Candidate

Everyone these days has some kind of online presence. Google the candidates name, check their professional profiles (like LinkedIn). See what kind of connections they have on LinkedIn within the industry. Check how many people have endorsed them? How many recommendations they have? What are they passionate about? Is there any non-profit organization they are involved in and care about? Have they posted or shared any kind of controversial topics in social media? Have they authored any industry articles? The answers to these, and other similar questions, will give you a good idea on the suitability of the candidate.
While hiring can be challenging, retaining good employees isn’t a piece of cake either. In Part II, we will discuss how you can retain your top-performing IT engineers.