Fishing in an ever-decreasing talent pool

Telecomunications is a specialist area, and one that is often outside the general CIO or IT manager’s field of expertise. So how do you ensure you ask the right questions when employing these specialists, where do you find them, and importantly, are people with these skills widely available?Although the recession has eased the skills shortage, finding the right people for the job is likely to still be a major issue for ICT decision makers in 2010, as demand for IT and telecommunications professionals is expected to steadily increase this year.According to the latest quarterly Hudson Recruitment Report, released at the end of March, 26.6% of employers in the IT industry intend to increase their permanent staff levels over the coming three months. This follows a surge of hiring activity in the previous quarter aimed at getting roles signed off before the New Year.“Hiring intentions in the industry remain amongst the strongest nationally, with many employers remaining continually on the lookout for difficult to find skill sets,” says Hudson’s director of IT recruitment Brendon Carian.The Hudson Report also found the telecommunications industry is showing one of the strongest levels of confidence nationally, with 39.1% of employers saying they plan to boost permanent staff levels this quarter.Meanwhile, the focus for companies across all industries remains on outsourcing their ICT resources, while headcount is static across the public sector, says Carian. “Employers have been forced to reassess the deliverables of their ICT services and prioritise services according to budget constraints and available resources.”But with the industry hiring at the levels indicated above, end-users who are recruiting ICT can expect to face stiffer competition for a smaller pool of candidates this year.Searching high and lowHowever the telcos themselves are struggling to find the skills they need, as mobile newcomer 2degrees has discovered.Chief technical officer Mike Goss says when the company started hiring engineers to build its mobile network in mid-2008, the skills shortage was in full swing, and he had to seek far and wide for staff because there were not enough qualified technical people in New Zealand. “When we went to market we found the pool of resources in New Zealand was very shallow.”2degrees had to go to great lengths to find the right people. It has hired radio frequency, transmission and core engineers from diverse locations such as India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Malaysia, the US and Europe, and has recruited many civil and structural engineers from South Africa.The situation is not much better today as the company prepares for the next phase of its network build, which will see it erect 780 cell sites across the country, says Goss.“Even to this day it is difficult to get resources. We still have two years of build ahead of us. As we grow as a company we will need more resources.“It is unfortunate that we need to go overseas because there is a general shortage in engineering staff in New Zealand.”2degees now recruits predominantly from the Middle East, as well as the Indian subcontinent, where staff are becoming available following roll-outs of mobile networks there. This includes many Kiwi expats who are easy to lure back home. “They generally have between five to six years’ experience overseas – they are good and practical engineers.”Goss concedes that finding the required talent is not impossible – it just takes a lot more effort and expense than it should. A key factor is knowing where to look for people, he says. “Engineers are typically contractors who travel around the world chasing work where networks are being built.”Goss expects the pressure on finding technical staff to increase as more players enter the market as part of the government’s fibre deployment. “Power companies are becoming communications companies. They will need qualified engineers to design and build their networks.”Call in the expertsIn terms of finding the right skills, if those doing the hiring, such as finance managers, CFOs or CIOs, do not have a telecommunications background, the best option is to call in the experts, argues Carian. “That is where a good recruiter adds value to the decision making. People don’t always know exactly what they are looking for – a good recruiter can provide support and background information.”Not surprisingly, Carian recommends hiring a recruitment firm with a specialist ICT arm, adding that many companies, especially smaller organisations, discovered this the hard way by doing their own recruitment during the recession last year. “They quite quickly found it is a pretty tough thing to do and some bad decisions were made. We found towards the end of last year, organisations coming back and saying they gave it a crack and it did not work.”Richard Manthel, managing director of Robert Walters New Zealand, agrees. “It is important that if you don’t know what skills you are looking for, you engage with your in-house recruitment team or a recruitment consultancy. Most importantly, whoever is doing the searching must completely understand your needs.”Forward planning is also important in having resources available when they are needed, says Manthel. “There is no point ringing a consultant and saying I’m desperate and need someone tomorrow. These skills are not always on tap and you really need a bit of forward planning.”While in general it is possible to find people for roles, there are pockets of telecommunications skills that are very hard to find, adds Manthel. “There’s always been an ongoing pressure to find staff with telecommunications experience – it is a case of just being aware of where the talent is.”With people willing to move globally and a lot of technical skills being transferable across countries, it is possible to attract recruits, especially returning Kiwis, from overseas, says Manthel, but he cautions that money talks. “If you can’t pay top dollar or you are looking for skill sets that are in demand worldwide, it is quite tough.“What does play in our favour when big projects come on stream is that we are often a phase behind the rest of the world.”Leave it to the professionalsThe best way to avoid the trouble of recruiting qualified technical support staff is to outsource this function completely, states Greg Magness, managing director of Datacom Services. “Some companies are struggling to find qualified people and realise companies like us have repeatable processes they can’t get their hands on. We have scale and highly skilled people that we can apply. That is why organisations that use outsourcing take a quantum leap ahead.”Organisations need to decide what is core to their business and outsource what is not, says MagnessIt is also easier to keep staff motivated in a professional services environment, he says, adding that Datacom is a long way ahead of internal ICT shops in terms of training and skills development processes. “We put a lot of time into developing our people and their skill sets. It takes a big commitment for organisations to do that.”In addition, internal technical staff are prone to becoming easily bored with their work – they may spend two years developing a system, and then the rest of their lives maintaining it, Magness quips. “We can always give our people stimulating work. No one ever gets bored here – there are tonnes of opportunities for people to grow.“Growth is part of our DNA. We expect staff to do their boss’s job in three years’ time. Then we need to find something else for the boss to do, so we have to keep growing.”Fight for the futureAlthough not finding enough technical staff is putting pressure on companies now, the lack of fresh recruits entering the market raises great concerns for the future.2degrees’ Mike Goss believes more engineering graduates should be coming out of universities. “There are never enough to meet market demands.”Recruiting entry-level staff is even an issue, he adds. “We recently advertised for three graduate engineers, but could not find any and ended up with people with three to five years’ experience.”To ensure it gains access to some entry-level talent, 2degrees is this year sponsoring three final-year engineering students, says Goss.However, Hudson’s Carian says the lack of entry-level technical roles in the ICT sector in an issue. Companies have absorbed these responsibilities or moved such positions offshore, resulting in lower numbers of graduates, he explains. “If we are not investing in entry-level roles and developing technical abilities in New Zealand, we will struggle in a few years, as young people are forced offshore for work.”Richard Manthel agrees that the low number of new graduates or apprentices coming through will exert great pressure in the next three to four years. “ICT will become a very important piece of the jigsaw puzzle for New Zealand. With initiatives such as the new Pacific Fibre venture, New Zealand can start to compete on a level playing in the world. If we do not have the staff to deliver to these companies, all that becomes for nothing.”The industry should jointly encourage the Government to create more spaces in engineering courses, argues Goss. “There is a global shortage of professional engineers, but I have never seen such a dearth as in New Zealand.”