Search On For It Talent

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday February 2, 1999

SUE ASHTON-DAVIES

The issue is lack of skills, not bodies, writes SUE ASHTON-DAVIES .

IF nothing else, 1999 seems deemed to be the year of the skill shortage. Even though there are more IT contractors on the market than ever, there are still more jobs than there are people to fill them. Or so it would appear.

Out on the hustings recruiters busily drum up trade - business that is almost too easy to get.

There's certainly no shortage of jobs or programmers, but making the match between the two is creating a problem for employers.

The reality is that while there would appear to be hundreds of programmers around eager to work, there is a gap in real talent on the market.

Here is an industry that on the one hand flourishes from the creation of technology and software tools for businesses looking for productivity gains, while on the other hand there are barely enough talented programmers to deliver.

Such is the demand for application development that there just aren't enough decent programmers - decent being the operative word.

There is a skills shortage, not a people shortage.

Certainly, there are dozens of programmers with two years' experience using Microsoft Visual Basic or Inprise Delphi. But that isn't necessarily enough to plug the gaps left by programmers who have aptitude and talent and will go the second mile to develop their skills.

It is a bit like if the building industry produced, as it does, all the tools and materials for construction but there was no one around but apprentices to fill the jobs.

It would be difficult to imagine a world deficient in tradesman, or more accurately, a building industry full of apprentices, many masquerading as experienced master builders.

But that is the situation that the Australian IT industry seems to have got itself into.

It is as if, while no one was looking, all the skilled people were absorbed, leaving novices to fill the gaps.

For employers it has created a difficult situation where there are too many apprentices, and not enough architects and experienced builders with the breadth of experience to ensure the projects will actually stand the test of full-scale operation.

There are far too many stories circulating about programmers with two years' experience fronting up for positions of project managers and demanding the salaries.

This is not to say that apprentices don't have the where-with-all to be project managers, but businesses are increasingly reliant on the robustness of their IT systems. Who would you get to build your next office block? It is unlikely to be an apprentice carpenter. If all you could find was inexperienced apprentices, you'd probably delay building the office block.

This skill shortage is a particular problem for smaller companies that do not have the necessary resources to train or nurture the inexperienced.

So, what to do in an industry awash with inexperience and in desperate need of skills? There is the old adage of hire on experience, fire on attitude. But in 1999 it does not seem to hold true in the world of application development.

Businesses are too busy keeping project budgets to a minimum and maximising productivity with tight deadlines, as IT becomes integral to delivering profits to the bottom line. Hence, there is little time or resources to tie up in inexperienced staff in the hope that they will turn out OK.

To keep the IT division finely tuned, employers are increasingly looking to stem their development costs in 1999 and this is reflected in a strong trend towards taking on contract labour rather than traditional full-time employment.

It works well for large consultancies, where large numbers of contractors are turned over and where the talent get their contracts renewed and the others don't.

It is a matter of getting their hands on the best people without having to pay a premium.

This is potentially a tough year for smaller employers looking for talent. However, a few savvy employers have interview strategies of their own with which they hope to sift the wheat from the chaff.

For instance, one company follows up technical questions by asking questions such as: "How many petrol stations do you think there are in Australia?". The question has nothing to do with general knowledge, but more to do with an interest in problem solving.

Or in finding out if a programmer is allergic to reading the manual, another leading questions is, "What book did you last read?"

It is all about separating out the "duds" from the "studs".