The Applicant Who Got AwayThe Applicant Who Got Away

With all the I.T. talent on the street today, it's a great time to hire. But like any opportunity, this one can slip away. Some managers demand such extensive requirements and take so long to make decisions, sometimes out of fear of making a hiring mistake, that they may not end up with the best people.

In some instances, managers won't consider even qualified candidates because they worked in an industry that's done poorly. "In the financial-services area and health care, they say they don't want telecom people," says Paul Villella, CEO and president of recruiting firm Hire Strategy. "One day, they just threw their hands up and said, 'No more telecom.'"

It remains anyone's guess whether the worst of the joblessness has passed. Many economists thought it had late last year, until November's national unemployment rate jumped to 6%, matching the April rate, which was the worst since 1994. December matched that rate.

Atefeh Riazi, CIO and senior partner of ad agency Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, says this a good time to hire, but agrees that managers have to guard against putting too many requirements on candidates. "The biggest mistake is to look for people only within your own industry," Riazi says. "If you keep hiring people from inside your industry, you never grow."

Riazi is very demanding about the breadth of skills the one or two people she'll hire need to have. "I'm under pressure, because I can't hire three people," Riazi says. "I need to hire one person who can do three things." So if she hires a Unix administrator, the person will have to bring other expertise as well, such as information security and system monitoring.

The pressure to hire just the right candidate is one reason managers are so picky, says Alan Oaks, an IT recruiter at Jotorok Group. Managers often need to justify an applicant as perfect in order to add to the payroll. That leads to detailed job requirements and slows the hiring process. "Nobody wants to make a mistake," Oaks says.

Garrison Hoffman, an unemployed system administrator, says job seekers have figured out they can't be one-trick ponies. "Job seekers are inspired to be creative in trying to increase their hireability," Hoffman says. "There's a lot more embellishment going on on resumés."

So what's a hiring manager to do?

James Brown, CIO of United Cerebral Palsy of New York City Inc., is getting key vendors to help vet candidates. "Someone who is savvy ... will be able to tell in minutes whether a person knows what they're doing," he says. Brown is paying three vendors to do evaluations, which he says will pay off in several ways. "Six months later, the vendors can't complain they don't have someone internally on my staff that's savvy enough."

Outsourcing at many large companies means managers often are hiring fewer people. Coors Brewing Co. has cut its staff by about a third from 2001 because it's shifting work to EDS. It mostly hires technical people with SAP-related skills. "We're more highly specialized to find what improves our business operation," says Jim Fonte, Coors' resource manager. A couple of years ago, those with special skills worked as pricey consultants or contractors. With that work drying up, they're taking full-time work.

Yet even the jump from contractor to staffer doesn't always work in this market. Recruiter Oaks says one company wanted a programmer with the rare mix of strong Cobol skills plus up-to-date Java skills. But it wouldn't consider candidates with contracting backgrounds, out of fear that once the market improves they'd return to more lucrative and flexible freelancing careers.