It used to be a person with lots of computer know-how and little or no communication skills could get a high-paying job in a heart beat. Times are changing.
A good deskside manner — the ability to translate computer jargon into lay terms and grasp how the business around you works — is becoming increasingly important for information technology professionals in today’s job market, according to a recent survey.
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A random poll of 1,400 U.S. companies with more than 100 employees showed that these professionals would do well to promote their people skills, as well as their technical savvy. The survey, developed by RHI Consulting of Menlo Park, Calif. and conducted by an independent research firm in Pennsylvania, asked chief information officers: When evaluating a job candidate for an information technology position, how important are the individual’s ‘soft’ skills, such as business acumen and interpersonal skills? Sixty-eight percent of respondents said they are “very important,” according to a copy of the survey. That’s a 22-percent increase from a 1996 survey in which CIOs were asked the same question.
Twenty-nine percent of participants said ‘soft’ skills were “somewhat important” compared to 39 percent in 1996. Two percent said they were “somewhat unimportant” compared to 3 percent in the previous survey; and about 1 percent compared to 7 percent said they were “not at all important.” Five percent of respondents said they “don’t know” or are “not sure.”
The same executives were asked: What do you see as the single most important soft skill for a job candidate to possess? Thirty-three percent said “interpersonal skills” were number one and 27 percent put “written or verbal communication skills” at the top of their list. The “ability to work under pressure” was repeated in 21 percent of the responses and overall business acumen in 14 percent. Two percent said “professional image” was the most important and about 3 percent said they “don’t know” or were “not sure.”
Gary Henning, New England area sales manager for RHI, said the survey results reflect the changing role of IT personnel.
“It used to be the computer people were in their department and no one ever saw them,” Henning said. “Today they actually have to come out and interface with the public. They have to have customer service skills and be able to relate to people.”
Those skills are necessary not only in a “desk top support” scenario, but in the “analysis phase” of creating new tools for business, Henning said.
“Say you need software developed. If you were dealing with someone who couldn’t relate to you when he puts it together it’s not going to be what you’re looking for.”
James Devine, vice president of corporate information systems at Amica Insurance wasn’t surprised by the study’s results. The Lincoln company looks for experience in specific technologies when hiring entry level trainees, Devine said.
“But we (the IT department) also deal quite a lot with our users so it’s important that our people can relate to the business part of things not just code in the corner.
“We really expect them to relate to the needs of our users. As far as the business aspect, we do quite a bit of training when we hire them so they know what it means to settle a claim, for example,” Devine said.
In interviewing candidates, Devine said he looks for people with good “general interpersonal skills and good writing skills.”
“We’ve always put a lot of emphasis on that,” he said.
At Bank Rhode Island, Human Resources Director Debra Regan said her company mostly contracts for IT professionals. However, the few on staff “have to interact a lot more with the rest of our staff” than they used to.
“I think communication is very much important,’ she said. “It’s certainly not separate from the other skills.”
