The 'Elite 8' Skills to Look for in your IT-Recruiting

Hiring TipsDeveloper Recruiting

Here are eight essential skills for anyone in the tech industry.

The tech talent shortage is only going to get worse. In a survey of the Americas’ SAP Users’ Group, one in four respondents cited retaining people with the skills to support, develop and upgrade SAP systems as their number one challenge. With the pool of qualified, experienced candidates across legacy and emerging technologies so scarce, making the right hiring decisions is more important than ever.

The “Elite 8” Skills a recruit should have are:

• Listening.
• Collaboration.
• Communication.
• Integrity.
• Problem-solving.
• Accountability.
• Discipline.
• Flexibility.

Elite 8 Skill: Listening

"If you don't listen carefully to what the customer or your colleagues are saying, you won't be effective," says Craig Mackereth, Senior Vice President, Global Support.

Mackereth identifies this quality in candidates by asking questions that require a detailed answer. For example, let them describe a scenario from the real world and go into great detail in the answer you ask for. This way you know if they can listen and follow instructions under interview pressure.

Elite 8 Skill: Collaboration

“We work in a nimble environment where cross-functional teams are at the center, working closely together and using all of their skills and experience to deliver for our customers,” says Paul Henville, Senior Vice President, Global Product Delivery. “Proven experience and a joy for working in a collaborative environment is a key trait for our team members.” Henville asks about a candidate's experience in agile environments during the interview process and listens for examples of team orientation vs. self-orientation. Focus on answers where the candidate uses "we" instead of "I" when naming their examples.

It is important to work together with others and not just work in a silo so that you can be sure to provide examples of real collaboration instead of just relying on hand-offs. In this answer, you want to hear how candidates have worked with others instead of just doing work in a silo and then throwing it over the wall to another part of the team.

Elite 8 Skill: Communication

"We live in an increasingly connected and rapidly changing world where the speed of doing business is faster than ever before. The ability to communicate across multiple channels is a strong indicator of success," says Heather Sepolen, Vice President, Chief of Staff, Global Service Delivery.

Sepolen recommends asking creative questions that give candidates the freedom and space to give clear and balanced answers. This approach allows you to validate their ability to express ideas clearly. Direct questions also help her determine a candidate's philosophy on the value of communication. Examples include:

How would you describe efficient communication?

What are your communication strengths and weaknesses?

By emailing a question that assesses written communication skills, you can not only gauge but also improve these abilities.

Elite 8 Skill: Integrity

"Honesty is the best politic", says Mackereth.

To assess integrity, he asks more probing questions that require thought and have one answer. Big red flags, says Mackereth, are if the candidate deflects the question, can't think of an example, or only speaks in theory. A good example of a question here would be, "It was great to hear about your successes, but can you tell me about a time you were involved in a project failure. Why did it fail and what could you have done differently?"

HR chefs should also be on the lookout for inconsistencies between answers. For example, ask about experiences with a certain software, and then ask a specific question about its use. If they can't answer the specific question or their answer doesn't make sense, it could be an indication that they weren't being honest.

Elite 8 Skill: Problem Solving

Being able to identify a problem, find a solution and implement it effectively is crucial for Sepolen candidates. "Anything that can be disrupted will be disrupted, and candidates need to be able to quickly identify and solve problems while also adapting to constant change," she says. To find this quality, ask questions where a candidate has to describe in detail how they encountered unexpected challenges at work. In the answer, she pays more attention to the process the candidate used to get from the problem to the solution instead of the solution itself. This way, she gets a feel for how they approach problems instead of being influenced by a clever solution.

Elite 8 Skill: Accountability

It is necessary to be responsible in order to build trust within the team. "If someone makes a mistake, they need to take responsibility and work with the team to make improvements," says Henville. "In this way, the team works to self-organize when it recognizes its own improvement opportunities and commits to achieving a higher level of performance."

Henville emphasizes the importance of key factors such as transparency, meeting commitments, and helping others. Ask the candidate to give an example of a time when they made a mistake and how they handled it. Are there signs of humility and growth? For example, a candidate should be willing to take initiative when a mistake is made, take responsibility for it, and provide a solution. You want to hear how they worked towards a larger goal instead of just keeping their head down, focusing on short-term tasks, and waiting for their superiors to tell them what to do.

Elite 8 Skill: Discipline

"We provide services to our customers around the clock, so disciplined engineers have a huge impact on our ability to provide service," says Mackereth.

He's asking how a candidate was measured in previous roles. Pay close attention to how they react when you examine their performance. If there was a Service Level Agreement (SLA), did they deliver? If there was a project, did it come in within budget and on schedule? Look at the successes and find out if they were the result of disciplined effort or luck. Be careful if they suggest ways they could have achieved milestones by cutting corners on performance.

Elite 8 Skill: Flexibility

Teams that are agile should always strive to improve and experiment with new ways of working. "All team members must be open to change and able to adapt quickly," says Henville.

Describe a time when you had to make a change based on an external source, and how you coped with it. He looks for signs of openness, willingness to negotiate, and problem solving. You can also ask the candidate to give examples of how he has contributed to improving the team and increasing work quality. Regularly check for active involvement in small improvement activities, rather than just working on this one big "improvement project" that was finally funded and equipped with resources.