Hiring IT Talent

This month I want to discuss hiring IT talent.  Whether you are a business owner looking to hire internal IT staff or you are looking to outsource your IT to a local managed service provider, there are multiple factors that you need to consider.

First off, with unemployment at near record lows (Weld County 2.8% and Larimer County 2.6% – March 2019) even finding reasonably priced talent is difficult.  Business owners and IT providers alike are being required to pay more for talent at all levels.  Whether it is Help Desk staff or high-end professional service engineers, starting salaries have increased significantly over the last several years. 

There are other items to consider when bringing in your own IT staff.  A business owner must consider ongoing training for the engineer.  With the pace of change and the higher levels of IT security required for small and medium businesses, enhanced and ongoing training is a must for all IT professionals.  If you are outsourcing your IT to a managed service provider, ask to see the training roadmap for the staff that is responsible for your account.  It is imperative for outsourced IT companies to continually invest in training for their people in a wide array of IT disciplines.

Another challenging area when considering whether to insource or outsource your IT team is the tools that are required to adequately support the engineer.  For all businesses, IT engineers need advanced monitoring tools that will help them see the health of all assets in the environment.  They need a strong list of network security tools to ensure that the entire IT environment is secure, and resilient.  These security tools include, but are not limited to, cloud backup and restore software, patch management tools, email filtering and malware control tools, DNS scanning, intrusion prevention, next generation anti-virus, multi-factor authentication, and others.  Obviously, the cost to rent or purchase management software needs to be included in the cost of hiring an IT professional(s) for your business.  If you are outsourcing your IT, ask your outsourced IT company for a listing of the toolset they utilize.  Their list must match or exceed the list above.

In summation, the IT landscape has gotten more expensive and more complex as companies seek to either insource or outsource their IT.  The professionals at Connecting Point can help you navigate this critical portion of your business.

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