In three days of meetings with our Corporate Advisory Board , a 25-member panel of IT executives, we heard one tale of woe after another about how difficult it is to hire and retain highly skilled people in an economy with a 2 percent to 4 percent unemployment rate. If there was a board consensus, it was that IT is about talent and attitude. Don't be fooled into believing that a successful IT department is based on fancy computers, advanced applications and a cogent Internet strategy. More than one Corporate Partner complained about the poor job our education system is doing to fill the skills gap. Here are a few anecdotes that drive the point home.
Technical credentials count for much less than they once did.
Eagerness, brains and attitude mean everything. One CP has a dynamo of a database administrator who is a registered dietitian. Another said his company had given up trying to find a database administrator. Yet another CP said he was courting a hot prospect for an IT job. Her background is in the animal sciences.