I have been a little shocked lately. I have been meeting with a potential pool of new clients to start working with this spring and of course the focus has been on recruiting IT talent. In some cases their business is growing, new initiatives, new products, whatever the case they need to add to their IT staff.
We talk about my search methods and skill sets that I have a better network and track record with. I ask about their process, where they are finding candidates, and what their expectations are of me.
In every meeting some form of the following conversation is had. I ask from what companies do they like to see candidates from and if there are companies from which I should not be recruiting from. That’s the easy part, it’s the next one that gets to the point of this post.
What are you doing to retain your own staff? Normally the question gets a curious response including a “Why do you ask?” Well, somewhere in Minneapolis, St. Paul, or elsewhere another company similar to yours is talking to someone similar to me and your company name might have been mentioned as a place to recruit from.
That’s why.
Here is a link to Optimize Magazine, Are IT Retention Efforts Working, with a pro/con exchange on the effectiveness of retention efforts.
As the IT talent pool continues to tighten up and in a few years as the Baby Boomers start to retire and decrease the total size of the talent pool the old saying of “Your either a client or a source” will ring louder and louder. But understand your company will always be someone’s potential source.
I do not have a magic pill for IT retention. I believe that it will be some medium ground between the foosball tables and cappuccino of the late 90’s and the you should just be happy to be working here of the early 2000’s.
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