Fear And Loathing On The IT TrailFear And Loathing On The IT Trail

With IT losing appeal as a career choice for the workers of tomorrow, growing businesses face a tougher market for affordable IT talent, but all is not lost -- there are ways to keep a competitive edge in the hiring race.

Due apologies to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson for lifting and distorting a line from his "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972" -- swap "politics" for "IT." But it appears that the apathy about politics that the Gonzo scribe bemoaned in the early 70s now ripples through the IT labor market. For growing businesses, that means it's becoming tougher to find talented IT staff at decent prices.

As assistant editor Naomi Grossman notes in her column today, "The Smaller Business' Edge: Treating IT Right" the bloom is off the rose the computer science rose for the next generation of IT staff:

"Just tell your children to major in something else. IT is not a viable long-term career anymore. If you aren't replaced by someone younger and cheaper, you will be replaced by someone offshore (and cheaper)."

A narrower pipeline of domestic talent translates for stiffer competition for new grads. One alternative, outsourcing/offshoring is fine for large enterprises that can send particular segments of the IT work out of house. But for smaller companies with small IT staffs, do you really want to call India or Malaysia every time the e-mail server goes down? (Some smaller businesses will answer yes to this, admittedly). And, for businesses that have an IT staff of one -- and that one often has other duties such as COO/CTO/CIO/Sys admin/networking admin -- putting them out of house isn't viable for business reasons.

The other talent pool is the midcareer IT pros. On the pro side, these people are experienced and savvy. On the negative side, they tend to earn more, which puts resource strapped smaller organizations in direct competition with enterprises that see whopping salaries as just another line on the P&L. As Grossman points out treating the IT staff well can be a huge differentiator (and she's not talking about going all out for System Administrator Appreciation Day).

But backing up from the question of how to hire and retain, is the question of ROI. And that leads right into metrics. The question of how to measure the value of IT and IT projects is a thorny one -- and one that information's John Soat (who's headshot reminds me of the actor John Houseman) tackles in his CIO Uncensored blog today, pointing out that simply redefining success to fit the outcome is commonplace.

So how does your businesses quantify the value of IT, of IT projects, and of IT staff? -- And how does that measurement affect budgeting for capital projects and salary?