Prioritize These Soft Skills When Hiring IT Talent

When hiring IT talent, you need to focus on locating candidates with the right tech skills. However, if you want a new hire to thrive and truly add value, you must focus on more than just their resume. Soft skills impact the way a person interacts with their team, leaders, clients and partners. These are the soft skills you should prioritize when making your next IT hire.

Communication

There was a time when IT pros really only interacted with other members of the tech team, but those days are long gone. Today, they regularly engage with other departments, end-users and clients – people who have vastly different skill sets than a technical person has. To be effective, IT professionals must have strong verbal and written communication skills, they must be able to break down difficult concepts for laypersons, and they must be able to listen and process what others have to say.

Flexibility

If there is one constant in IT, it’s that things change. Project priorities shift quickly, and challenges arise every day, which means successful tech professionals must be able to roll with the punches and adjust their approach without getting mired down in drama. To ensure systems and projects run smoothly, you must hire people who are able to press forward through the unexpected and achieve results, no matter the roadblocks.

Creative Problem-Solving

While some aspects of product development require creativity, the truth is, every successful IT professional is a creative problem solver. Teams must find new ways to approach old problems under tight deadlines and budgetary constraints.  Success depends on a team’s ability to look at a problem and say, “what is possible” rather than throwing their hands up and saying, “this is impossible.”

Teamwork

Tech teams are comprised of people from different backgrounds, with different skill sets and unique ways of approaching work. Strong IT candidates possess the ability to work with others and contribute to group dynamics without stealing the spotlight and without ever uttering the words, “that’s not my job.” Strong teams pitch in and pull in the same direction, providing feedback and teaching each other as they go.

Leadership

Because IT is a team function, leadership ability is a critical success factor. On every project, leaders must emerge to help the group determine the right course of action and guide decision making. People with strong leadership skills are able to sway others towards a great idea and to support the group under extreme pressure.

Are You Looking for IT Talent?

If you are looking for top tech talent in Chicago this year, CultureFit can help. Our Chicago IT recruiters can help you identify candidates who have both the hard skills and the soft skills to succeed within your organizational culture. Contact CultureFit today to learn about the ways we can help you achieve your IT staffing goals.