Transcending The Mundane Technical Recruitment Treadmill

By: Ismael "Numi" Castillo

The Predicament: Balancing Unique Tech Stacks and Tech Professionals 

IT (Information Technology) organizations seek to build a fully developed powerhouse tech team. To do this, IT leadership needs to retain and attract top-notch tech professionals, ideally knowledgeable in the organization's legacy, current, and future state tech stacks. This includes all Development, Engineering, SRE, Performance, Data Science, Security, and other tech professionals within the IT organization to build and expand these new capabilities. 

This is easier said than done since most enterprise corporations' tech stack is as unique as DNA. It is not that those technologies only exist in their organization but rather that they are implemented uniquely to support a business. A business that exists, has changed, and will evolve because of customer demands, regulations, strategic history, operational framework, and the company's roadmap. 

Thus, CIOs and CTOs' strategy to build a professional team will track existing costs, tech stack, growth, and organizational capabilities against the required capacity. In doing this, leadership must capture metrics on productivity and capacity, SLO, SLAs, and efficiency to deliver the book of work while reducing the curb of attrition. This 3–5-year strategy is built, and then the information is reported regularly to the most senior executives to show how the plan will work. 

Most important, this strategy and report will justify your future resource requirements, which undoubtedly includes a combination of HR, local and global system integrators, and offshore integrators for augmented capacity. Why? Because the national demand outpaces the offer of U.S. domestic technologists. 

The Ongoing Carousel Cycle 

Sure — for the most part, this strategy shows some results. Out with the old and in with the “new.” Millions of dollars after the reports will show a nominal but “gradual” degree of improvement, and numbers will present better performance and productivity than before. But is it better? 

Soon enough, the problem arises again because things are not stagnant in the IT world; technology changes, business needs change, and the issues of disparity in resource quality, discontent, and project delays surface again. Only to realize that the money spent and the effort invested were not worth it. 

The cultural disconnect and lack of productivity drive up attrition because the offshore workforce is the highest percentage of the team and presents the same problems most enterprise organizations have realized after switching to a remote workforce meant to collaborate in person. Even worse, this workforce was not hired for the organization; they, by definition, are a rotational, contingent workforce meant for temporary capacity augmentation. 

Yet, instead of addressing the root problem, leadership continues to go thru the same mundane hiring sources, rotating from vendor A to vendor B, C, etc., doing the same thing and expecting different results because the vendors typically reduce hourly rates to obtain businesses.  

This is what dealing with and cycling through the usual vendors leads to. And continually fishing in the same recruitment pond yields: 

• Mismatches and transient technologists 
• Missed project timelines 
• Budget overruns 

• Stagnant growth 
• >10% levels of attrition 
• 8-12 months to achieve desired productivity  

 
Living with mediocre attrition and less than desired productivity levels should be unacceptable.  

So, what is the ideal scenario? Is there a solution? 

SkillStorm's Tech Force by Design – A Paradigm Shift 

The good news is — there is a solution, and many Fortune 100 companies are benefiting from it today. The answer is to purpose-build the workforce. Recruiting and training qualified individuals that are vetted for culture fit and company values, skilled and certified for the unique tech stack of the company. 
 
Tech Force by Design is a strategic approach that intentionally designs and optimizes the IT workforce to meet the evolving needs of your technology-driven organization. It involves proactively aligning the IT workforce's skills, expertise, and composition with your organization's technology goals, culture, business objectives, and future requirements. 
 
By implementing Tech Force by Design in IT workforce planning, organizations can ensure their IT team is strategically aligned, adaptable, and equipped with the necessary skills to drive technology-driven initiatives, support innovation, and contribute to its overall success. 
 
A few benefits of Tech Force by Design: 

• Technologists are always purpose-built for your organization. You don't have to worry about institutional knowledge, IP, or ramp-up to productivity because of resource rotation.  
• Compared to other technology resource channels, our customers have informed us that SkillStorm has the lowest attrition in the market (< 2.5%). 
• Organizations can also gain value with a lowered operating cost of 30%+. 
• Resources will never be removed! 
   

Not only is Tech Force by Design an advantage to CIOs and CTOs, but the technologists also benefit by finding an organization that’s suited to them and gain access to technical training for life. 

What This Means for C-Suite Execs 

Designing a workforce vs. traditional hiring cultivates an IT organization primed for success from the outset. Mitigating the resource drain by designing your workforce upfront, you're not just saving on cost but fostering an innovative, efficient, and thriving ecosystem of production-ready tech resources that are vested and committed to being engaged with precision and urgency. 

We measure our success not just in numbers but in transformative outcomes. Our clients have witnessed lowered operating expenses by 30%+, swift onboarding, and minimal attrition (< 2.5%). These are metrics by which our clients see results by having a cohesive, top-tier IT workforce that seamlessly integrates into the business framework, ensuring impeccable execution and stellar performance.  

It allows your IT organization to not only function but flourish — all with tangible metrics as proof. SkillStorm has paved this trail of transformation for our Fortune 100 clientele. We're not just talking about theory — we're highlighting real-world outcomes. Avoid treading the same recruitment waters, hoping for different results. Engage with us to unleash the full potential of your IT organization. Seize the Tech Force by Design advantage of a custom-designed, built, and deployed tech team.