How I Spent My Summer Vacation - Work Related?

I just returned from vacationing for 8 days or so in Lincoln, NE. Lincoln is not exactly a hotspot resort destination for the general public, but it is a mecca for a group of auto racing drivers.

To get a flavor for what motivates 1,200 or so drivers from all over the country to spend a week or more in Nebraska, check out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzWGwBd0DBg

My experience is at

http://forum.ovr-scca.org/index.php?topic=533.0

Why bring this up?

There are passions that drive all of us and provide balance in a world full of activity. This is one of the passions in my world.

In my mind, the true definition of recreation is the activity that takes you away from your regular life, where you spend "me time", and do things that bring inner satisfaction. For some, recreation involves high energy and intense activities. For others, recreation is more introspective, thoughtful, calm. I am sure there are some deep psychological reasonings behind why some choose yoga and others choose mountain climbing.

For me, it is pretty easy. As a 6 year old, the guy next door had a '57 Bel Air that he was all the time working on, and I was the kid hanging around. Since then, I've always had an interest in things mechanical and racing.

The thing to remember is to remember is to make time for the passions you have. If you don't, your world will be consumed with everyone else's priorities instead of your own.

10 Questions To Ask An IT Staffing Company Before Working With Them

Given so many technology folks are entering the contingent labor market for the first time in their careers, I am often asked "How should I decide on which firm or firms to work with?".

Here is a list of 10 questions and answers I provided to a friend recently.

1. Ask the recruiter / sales person / everyone you talk to how long they have been with the company. It should generally be two years or more.

a. If the tenure is short, then the consulting company likely has high turnover in its internal staff. Given staffing is a relationship driven business, high turnover translates to weak sales and consultant relationships.

2. Tell me about your client base. How many client companies do you have? How many are new this past year? Who are your largest three clients?

a. Ideally, the consulting company will have five or more client companies and will have opened at least one new client during the past year. A broad and growing client base is important as it is an indicator of the strength of the sales team and number of opportunities that may be available to you.

3. What is your policy on converting over to full time with the client?

a. Some firms discourage and even prohibit this. If your plan is to eventually go to full time employment with the end client, then it is important.

4. How do I get paid? W2 Salary? W2 Hourly? As an Independent Contractor?

a. See other posts in my blog for a discussion of this. Regardless of your preference, you need to understand pay and benefits!

5. Tell me about your employment agreement. Is there a non-compete clause? Can you give me a copy for review?

a. Some staffing company employment agreements have restrictive non-compete clauses that prohibit the consultant from working for other consulting companies should they leave. A reasonable non-compete is one that allows you to work for other consulting companies, but prohibits you from going back in to the same client for up to a year.


6. Tell me about your benefits.

a. Seems simple, but you would be surprised at the number of companies that don’t offer benefits. Don’t “assume”. This can be a "gotcha" if you don't find out until the end of the negotiation.

7. What can I expect if I allow you to represent me to your clients?

a. You should expect simple things, like:

i. Being asked for your permission to be submitted to a client (some firms send your resume’ all over town without your knowledge or consent!)
ii. Coming to agreement on a salary BEFORE being submitted to a position. Some companies are vague about a salary, have you interview, and then when the client wants you, they offer a salary lower than what you discussed initially.
iii. Getting regular (weekly) feedback on sales and interview activity.


8. How long has your company been in this market?

a. Firms come and go in this space all the time. Related to the tenure question, it takes some time to develop relationships and a steady stream of business. Also reflects the firm’s commitment to the market.


9. Tell me about training opportunities.

a. Given that IT consulting has shifted towards temporary staffing, there is less and less company supported training, and even then most of it is on your own time. However, if it’s important, ask. This is only important if you actually devote time to self development.

10. What happens when my assignment is winding down and coming to an end? What happens after my assignment ends?

a. This is where your questions about “the bench” are answered. Most firms today do not carry folks off assignment, or if they do it is for a very limited time. Generally, when your assignment ends, your employment ends. The firm should be able to articulate a remarketing program to you so that as you come to the end of your engagement, sales activities are ramped up to help you stay on assignment.

I am sure there are many more good questions, and I welcome your thoughts!

Using Your Resume' To Turn Inquiries Into Interviews

A couple of quick items to help your resume' turn inquiries into interviews.

Catherine Lang-Cline and Kristen Harris at Portfolio Creative shared with me an old saying in the newspaper business: "Above the fold". In newspaper terms, this means that to get the reader to open up the paper and read it, it has to attract attention on the top half of the page.

Think about it. We pick up a newspaper, and thumb through the (ever decreasing!) sections glancing at the top half of the page. If we see something we like, we stop, open up the paper, and read it.

Your resume' has to work in much the same way. When the HR person or hiring manager picks it up, the top half has to grab their attention. The resume' has to convince the reader that you are the kind of person that warrants a closer look. If the skills, knowledge, and experience of interest to the employer are at the bottom of page 1 or buried in page 2, they may never be seen.

For as much as we painstakingly choose our words to describe ourselves, if the hiring manager doesn't see what they are looking for in the first few paragraphs, odds are your work of artistic expression is headed for the reject pile. This is yet another reason for tailoring your resume' for specific positions, particularly those where you have direct access to the hiring manager.

In today's digital world, the corallary to "above the fold" is "on the first screen". Most resume's are distributed electronically. The employer is going to click on the the document and pull it up in MS Word or Adobe. What they see on "on the first screen" is going to conciously or subconciously make an impression and guide whether they continue to consider you as a candidate.

For example, I just posted an ad for an IT Project Manager with strong experience in application development projects, financial services background, and large enterprise experience. One resume' I received read more or less as follows:

SUMMARY

Accomplished professional with strong track record of delivering projects on time and within budget. Over twenty years of experience in a variety of environments and technologies with unparalleled customer satisfaction. Familiar with current project management techniques and certified in Project Management from PMI.

EXPERIENCE

XYZ Consulting Company 2007 - 2009
Project Manager
Data Center Updgrade Project

As Project Manager, established and led the project team from inception to completion. Developed scope for the effort and managed to this scope to ensure project was completed as scheduled and to desired quality.

• Upgraded hardware and software from a variety of Windows and Unix boxes to a VMWare environment.
• etc.

Reading "above the fold" results in this candidate being set aside. Why? Even though the candidate had 17 years of application development experience in large enterprises, there was nothing said about it "above the fold" or "on the first screen". Looking at the rest of her resume', she appeared to be eminently qualified, but the typical reviewer never would have known as the relevant skills and experience began towards the bottom of the page.

("set aside". What a pleasant euphenism for "rejected")

My recommendation: Look at the last several job inquiries you've made, and compare your resume' "above the fold" to the job description. Does it line up with the top three or four skills / experiences for that position?

If it doesn't, you have work to do.

Managing Your Career and Compensation During Tough Economic Times

A friend of mine is senior analyst, skilled in Agile, formal business analysis techniques, and active in the professional community. She sent me the following note:

"I've been having a conversation with my peeps about handling job offers/changes as the market picks back up. I think that in the bleak times, a lot of people like me accepted job offers that were less than ideal, but way better than nothing.

As thinks pick up though, I think some of us are going to be recruited heavily, and for some of us who were in long-term jobs, this is new experience.

- Is there still a concept of a "minimum" length of tenure at a job?

- Do frequent changes make a prospective employer wonder how long you'll stay with them?

- If you are on a project as an employee of a contracting company, is it honorable or naive to think you should stay with that employer through the term of that project and not pursue other offers?

- What other things should prospective employers and candidates be thinking about?"

Great questions, and quite timely given the nature of the market. Let's address these.


Q: Is there still a concept of a "minimum" length of tenure at a job? Do frequent changes make a prospective employer wonder how long you'll stay with them?


A: Yes, for both permanent and contract positions.


Hiring managers today are much more understanding of the fact that the market is volatile and people are impacted by layoffs that have nothing to do with their individual performance. Depending on the geographic location and the industry, it is not unusual to see a person have three full time employment positions within a five year period.


Similarly, most hiring managers know and accept that individuals who have worked as consultants for any length of time will have numerous client engagements and possibly consulting companies on their resume'.


At the same time, most hiring managers (and HR specialists that screen resume's) still apply some sort of test of reasonableness to tenure. For an employee, while one or even two short term jobs may be understandable, a consistent pattern of multiple short term professional positions generally signals caution.

Similarly, most contract / consulting positions last at least three months, and more typically six months and longer. Having numerous consecutive short term engagements raises question marks.



While a candidate can often explain away specific situations, there is only so much bad luck one person can have! Given the number of candidates on the market right now, employers can be very selective, and will look for easy reasons NOT to hire a person.



Q: If you are on a project as an employee of a contracting company, is it honorable or naive to think you should stay with that employer through the term of that project and not pursue other offers?



A: Yes it is honorable and the right thing to do from a professional perspective, but there are exceptions.



The keys are communication and timing. An experienced consultant knows there are times that are more appropriate for him or her to transition from an assignment, and this guides their actions.



For example, a Project Manager would not leave in the middle of a project. They would wait until completion a phase or key deliverables, and / or have a successor ready to take over for them. A Business Analyst would not leave in the middle of client interviews or JAD sessions, but rather upon acceptance of business requirements by the stakeholders and sponsors.



Still, opportunities sometimes present themselves at the most inopportune times. Should a career opportunity present itself while you are in the midst of another engagement, my recommendations are to:

• Work with your consulting company to discuss the situation and develop a plan. If you truly have a career opportunity, chances are they will want you to leave on a good terms as a friend (and potential future client!).
• Have at least one contigency plan developed that will help ensure the client's success without your presence.
• Time your departure to minimize impact to the client and engagement.

Similarly, there may be personal reasons you may need to leave an assignment (ex: care for a sick relative), and these are generally understood. Still, the same rules apply.

However, these exceptions occur maybe only 10% of the time. A position that simply yields shorter drive time or is closer to your favorite beverage provider is hardly the same as a "career opportunity"! I recommend in the vast majority of cases they commit to and fulfill the duration of the engagement, particularly if they plan on workng as a professional consultant for their career.

Q: What other things should prospective employers and candidates be thinking about?

A: For the employer: Building the right culture and team. For the candidate: Career management, from a broad perspective and for the long term.

The most successful organizations all share a few things in common:

• They are crystal clear from the top of the organization to the bottom about the business they are in, where it is going, and what is happening in the environment that might impact it.
• They expect and develop high performance from all areas of the organization, and constantly strive for improvement.
• They treat the hiring employees as the most sacred and important duty they have.

Right now we are seeing companies hire strong technical and analytical individuals who have traditionally worked as consultants and who happen to be on the market. These professional consultants are taking Full Time Employee positions as a "safe haven" while the economy recovers. I am betting most of these folks will return to consulting within two years.

Why? Because they are not the right long term fits for the organization, and the culture is at odds with what they are all about. My experience has been that once an individual becomes accustomed to consulting / contracting, the tend to prefer it over full time employment.

From a candidate perspective, we all understand that we need to think about continually adding skills, knowledge, and capability to our portfolio so that we can evolve to the jobs of tomorrow. We need to understand what is happening in the industry / business sector we are in. But there is one more thing we need to think about.

At certain points during our professional careers, we need to take risks. We need to move beyond our traditional area of expertise into roles that require different knowledge and skills. We need to put ourselves in situations where there is risk of failure so that we challenge ourselves and grow. Why? Because we are in a world where organizations, jobs, and even entire industries can shrink significantly or even vanish almost overnight.

Ask yourself: "Do I have 20 years of experience, or 2 years of experience 10 times over?". If it is the latter, I hope you have a contingency plan from a financial perspective.

I tell my college age kids that there are only a few things they have to think about in order to manage their careers:

• Work in a job where you get to do the things you like to do, that you enjoy doing, and are interesting to you.
• Understand how you get paid, where the money that pays your salary comes from.
• Study and understand what is happening in your company and industry, and the forces that are impacting its future. Adjust as necessary.

Pretty simple stuff, yet most of us get so wrapped up in the skills and knowledge required for our respective disciplines that we forget to consider the big picture.

Quick Update and Thoughts

Since my last post, business has picked up significantly. This seems somewhat at odds with the general trend in the economy, as layoffs are ongoing in many firms and financial results continue to suffer. This trend is impacting my company across the country, and seems to be consistent in the vast majority of regions.

What is happening here? Why are we seeing a rise in IT staffing positions when the media reports a very slow recovery? If a recovery is underway, why aren't companies hiring FTE?

My thoughts on this are that the cost of contingent labor has dropped to the point where the hourly loaded cost of full time employees and IT contractors is very comparable. Most large clients with formal procurement processes and Vendor Management groups have imposed rate reductions on their staffing supplers. Similarly the supply of skilled IT staff on the market has increased due to slowness in the economy. Conversely, few clients have been able to force a similar reduction in cost on their FTE's.

This has resulted in a very comparable hourly cost between contractors and FTE's. The advantage of contractors is that they can be hired and released quickly without worrying about costs for severance and such. This continues a trend that started some time ago where companies maintain a minimum level of staff to preserve core business knowledge and then use contractors for projects and initiatives that arise. Sort of like a general contractor outsourcing the carpentry work to another company on a building project.

The other oberservation is that I have never seen so much senior talent on the market. Clients seem to be focused on the 5 to 10 year technical professional that can be told what to do and left alone to do it. The demand for management talent in particular as waned. It is as if companies are leaving the technical staff alone to do the work in a self managed manner, and even when a "lead" position comes up, it usually entails the person also being a direct contributor.

This may be short sighted as individual contributors are notorious for shortcutting process and practices such as project management, requirements definition, etc. It is somewhat of a cycle: I expect we will see a rise in demand for Project Managers within the next year or so to fix the initiatives that have gone out of control.

What Candidates Should Expect From IT Staffing Firms - Part 1

Originally, my plan for this post was to do a short piece on what to look for in an IT staffing / consulting company. However, when I asked people for their thoughts and experiences, I received way more questions and and anecdotes than I ever anticipated!

In today's market, many folks are finding themselves working for IT staffing / consulting companies for the first time in their careers. Unfortunately, many are also getting surprised by what they find.

For example:

• The compensation discussed during the interview is not the compensation presented at time of offer.
• The consultant is not paid in a timely manner or at all.
• The consultant is not eligible for health insurance and other benefits that were previously discussed.
• The position is actually a subcontracted position.
• Travel and other expenses are not reimbursed.
• When the consultant comes off assignment, their employment with the consulting company ends.
• They are offered an independent contractor (1099) position rather than a W2 employee position.

And so on. It is understandable that miscommunication happens from time to time, but there is no excuse for a lack of clarity on the key aspects of an engagement and working with a company. It reflects poorly on the Recruiter and Account Manager as well as the industry as a whole.

I had coffee this morning with an individual who worked in the IT consulting industry in the 1990's, and recently relo'd back to central Ohio after working as a staff employee for a leading firm in the IT sector. She was quite surprised - actually, shocked - with practices today compared to ten years ago. For those of us who have been in the industry for awhile, perhaps we have been desensitized to the amount of change that has occurred. For candidates who are just getting acquainted with the industry, it can be an unpleasant experience should they fall prey to an disreputable firm.

If you have questions or observations on working with IT staffing and consulting firms, I would like to hear from you as I am preparing a series of blog posts on this topic. My goal is to coach and advise folks on how to mitigate their risk and align with the higher caliber firms like mine. Please respond via comments on this post or email at Rich.Grunenwald@gmail.com.

I appreciate your thoughts.

Simple Job Hunting Tip

If your are using job boards as a source for opportunities, there is a site that can help save you significant time and energy.

A nifty tool I use is a web site http://www.indeed.com/. "Indeed" does a scan of job boards and provides a singular portal to view jobs that meet your search criteria.

Essentially, you can search multiple job boards, both external (Monster, DICE, etc.) and internal (corporate, staffing companies, etc.) to find jobs that meet your search criteria (location, salary, type, etc.). You can also save your search and have it run automatically as a search agent.

A weak point of Indeed is that the search criteria is fairly basic. It does not do a particularly good job of categorizing jobs as to search for a specific job by title. Searching is done via a simple keyword search. Indeed is really a "broad net" when it comes to sweeping up jobs posted elsewhere. But, it saves time from going to multiple company web sites, and leads to positions you might not have thought about.

Driving Cost Out Of The Contingent Labor Supply Chain

Another winning post title.

When I speak with a procurement professional, the discussion always comes around to bill rates for contingent labor and how our rates compare to others. The importance of low bill rates is constantly impressed upon me, and the offering of most favorable pricing and terms is a requirement to win the contract. Then, the next items discussed are service levels and the added value that I as a supplier of contingent labor can provide to my clients.

I wonder whether this has been given real thought. It seems to me that to drive costs down in the contingent labor supply chain, there needs to be efficiencies in both the supplier AND client organizations. For example, that coverage SLA that the supplier needs to meet? It INCREASES costs to the client because the supplier has to staff recruiting to cover requirements they have no hope in ever filling.

To date most of the discussion in the IT space has been aimed towards the supplier, and solely in the form of rate management. Rates are only one aspect of managing cost. What about sales costs? Administrative costs? Recruiting costs? The cost of a reactive supplier model vs. a more proactive model?

For example, there are many clients that require the assistance of a skilled sales person to help them define their IT staffing need. The sales person has to spend time with the hiring manager, be knowledgeable about the technology and role, and step the hiring manager through definition of their need. Then, the sales person has to accurately communicate this need to internal recruiters who screen and match up candidates with the position, rewrite the candidate's resume', and present the candidate.

Think of the costs incurred by the supplier:

- Sales person salary
- Recruiter
- Time spent: determining need; communicating to recruiter; finding, recruiting, screening and presenting candidate.

This doesn't even get into the interview phase. When the hiring manager decides who they want to interview, the sales person is contacted, then a series of back and forth communications to get the candidate confirmed occurs, candidate prep is done, and then we go from there.

Now, what if it worked like this:

Client company regularly communicates contigent labor forecast for the next 30, 60, 90 days so supplier is able to proactively recruit talent. Hiring manager goes to a portal where he can search through a pool of available candidates from approved vendors. Hiring manager selects candidates they want to interview and sends an interview request along with available times. Candidate and vendor respond back through the portal. Interview happens.

A lot of cost is eliminated in this type of model. There is really no "selling" going on at the transactional level. The supplier's role becomes more of a "resource pool management" and "fulfillment" type of role, and the sales person really becomes more of a true Account Manager, ensuring the process moves smoothly, and that the supplier focuses on value adds rather than managing the individual transactions.

There are other variations of the supplier model, and there are parts of the current processed that can be greatly improved with minimal cost. Still, the point is that a mature client organization and a mature supplier organization can work together, collaboratively instead of adversarially, to effectively to minimize costs in the supply chain, benefiting both organizations directly through cost saving efficiencies and indirectly through increased competitiveness in their respective markets.

So far, the vast majority of the dialog I have read or been exposed to has happened solely within the supplier community or solely within the client community.

I wonder what would happen if a group of supplier organizations with relatively mature processes and a group of client organizations with relatively mature processes got together and discussed how to make the contingent labor supply chain more effective and drive cost out of the process. Think of the discoveries that could be made and the "light bulb moments" that could occur when both client and supplier organizations look at the process as a whole, and work together to optimize it.

Nah, it'll never happen.

You 2.0

OK, so the title is a bit cliche', but so were the others I came up with.

I talk to people all the time, and in particular I come into contact with a lot of folks who are looking for a new opportunity in a field where employment is soft or in decline. Too many of the conversations go like this:

• Me: "Tell me what you might be looking at doing in your next position".
• Candidate: "Well, I've got a lot of experience as a (pick your job name) while working at my last job, and before that I was (pretty much the same thing) at my previous company".
• Me: "Really. Tell me about some of your talents and strengths".
• Candidate: "I work well with others, I am really good with (whatever the core skills are for what they've been doing for the past 15 or 20 years), and I am a great, loyal employee".
• Me: "Tell me about some of the skills you've added or responsibilities you've taken on over the past few years. I'm really interested in how you've grown". (this is a big hint)
• Candidate: (long pause)"I took some classes on (something they've never applied) and they sent me to training on (something else they've never used)".
• Me: "Why do you think your job went away, and why would they release somebody like you who has been a good employee?"
• Candidate: "The company had to save money due to tough times, and they let a bunch of us experienced folks go."
• Me: "Really? What happened to the work that needed to be done?"
  Candidate: "The company decided to (cut back on projects, sent work offshore, kept the less expensive people to do the work that needed done, consolidated operations in one location, etc.)".
• Me: "What did you learn from this?" (hoping for a light bulb moment...)
• Candidate: (spews forth something about cheap offshore labor, poor leadership, bad management, or that they don't understand how the company will keep its doors open without them)
• Me: "Companies go through changes through all sorts of reasons, and it can be tough. Tell me what you are looking to do in your next position".
  Candidate: "I'd like to get on with a good company doing (pretty much the same thing they've been doing the past 15 years...)".
• Me (trying to lead to an obvious conclusion): "What have you found out there in the market?"
• Candidate: "Not much. There aren't very many jobs posted, and what there is out there doesn't pay very well".
  

And so on.

As mentioned in my bio and earlier posts, I have been blessed through my life and career. One of these blessings was an early lesson about volatility in employment and managing your career. My father was out of work in the early 1980's during a recession that hit his industry (civil engineering / construction) fairly hard. He still had six kids living at home, a ton of expenses, and not much in terms of a fallback plan from a financial perspective.

What did he do? He reinvented himself and became successful in a loosely related, but quite different, job than what he had been in. He decided to adjust, adapt, and thrive. Similarly, my experience in the IT consulting / staffing / contingent labor field for the past 18 years has sensitized me to the ups and downs of the economy and how one needs to evolve to survive and prosper.

I see too many people that when faced with a job that has gone away, they refuse to change or adapt themselves, and instead become disenchanted when the world changes and doesn't accommodate them. It is a shame because so many of these folks have a lot to offer, just maybe not in the way they are used to.

We all have the tendency to define ourselves in terms of the job titles we have held, not in terms of the jobs we have the potential to do. When we look for a job, the first thing we do is look at jobs just like the one we had. However, we have aptitudes, knowledge, and abilities that can be combined and leveraged in all sorts of jobs that are quite different from each other.

For example, I met a person not too long ago who was a senior IT manager / director at a large financial services company. He's been looking at similar positions, a tough find given the market. As we talked, I asked him about his accomplishments, his hobbies and interests, and what he felt he was really good at and what he got the most satisfaction out of. One of the things he felt he was really good at is bringing people together across a diverse, large enterprise, and getting them to act together to meet objectives and accomplish projects.

I told him working effectively across large organizations is golden and applies to all sorts of organizations and industries. It shows excellent communication skills, ability to work with diverse groups, political sensitivity, etc. These skills can be used at:

• Any geographically distributed company
• Sales / account management / sales support
• Not for profits
• Rapidly growing companies

He had been thinking primarily of senior IT management positions in financial services, but by they end of our discussion started thinking of a much broader field of possibilities.

I encourage people to go through what I call a "personal inventory" to see what they might have to offer. Essentially,

• Create a set of lists with the following headings: "Job Titles", "Roles", "Industry & Company Experience", "Subject Matter Expertise & Business Knowledge", "Technical & Professional Skills", "Personal Characteristics & Aptitudes", "Passions, Interests, and Hobbies"
• Under each heading, list everything you can think of. Go back to your old resumes, your old performance appraisals and project notes. Think about your volunteer, charitable, and church activities. Do this over the period of a couple days as the more you think about things, the more you will recall.

Look at what you've put together. I am betting it is way more impressive than what you thought. If nothing else, you just went through a huge exercise in self affirmation! You've got way more to offer than simply 15 years at Company X.

Now, start to think about different types of jobs and how you can pull skills, experiences, and aptitudes from your inventory to do some of these jobs. Look at a newspaper or an online job board at jobs you never targeted that you can probably do. I am betting that you will be pleasantly surprised at the possibilities open to you.

While I am certainly not a career coach by any stretch of the imagination, there are some basic things we all need to consider to remain viable from an employment perspective.

The observations I have made include:

• We need to constantly be adding skills, experiences, and talents to our portfolios so that we can proactively move to new jobs, roles, and / or companies as needed.
• Furthermore, we need to be cognizant of these skills, experiences, and talents that we are adding to our portfolios.
• The paradigm of what work and career means has changed. "Go to school, get a job with a good company, work hard and be loyal, and things will work out" is just about gone in many if not most fields of endeavor. The paradigm now is, "Add value in every way you can, and if you aren't adding value, move on to where you can".
• If your job responsibilities and skills are essentially the same as they were five years ago, you are at significant risk. Chances are that you are probably compensated at higher level than a replacement person. The added value of your company knowledge only goes so far when the company is looking at dollars and cents.
• I tell my college aged kids that there are only a couple things you need to think about when you pursue a career and a job. First, understand what pays your salary and how what you do contributes to this. Here's a clue: it isn't the department budget. Secondly, think about some of the trends that are impacting the industry sector you are in or pursuing, and how these trends will shape the future of your company and job.

Economic times are challenging. The companies and people that prosper are those that understand what is happening and innovate. Pay attention to what's happening in your company and your industry, and plan, learn, and adapt to ensure your continued viability in the market.

IT Staffing Supply Chain Thoughts...

I just finished working with a team of folks on an RFP response to do business as an approved vendor in the IT staffing space, and this got me to thinking about the process. I've been directly responsible, led, and / or contributed to about a dozen of these types of responses during the past ten years. The client companies generally have most of these characteristics:

• Annual spend on IT staff augmentation services in excess of $100m.
• A formal procurement group and process for securing services.
• A few major centers where most of the IT staffing services are used, as well as ten or more additional locations in various areas of the country.
• One or more of the following business goals: lower cost, improved quality of services delivered (however that's supposed to be measured), favorable contractual T's and C's, etc.

Typically, the evaluation of the RFP response ends up with the client company comparing strict objective factors like price, ability to support the enterprise across the geography, etc. If all goes well, the vendor gets added to "the list" and starts to receive staffing requirements, and goes from there.

What I don't see a lot of is dialog on how a provider can help make the client organization stronger or more competitive. I would be ecstatic to see a question on an RFP such as:

"How would working with your firm help us be more competitive, realize higher profits, and / or be a better member of the community?"

My observation has been that the most effective business relationships take into consideration a variety of factors over and above things like price, contractual T's and C's, and quality of services. In a customer-supplier relationship with a product or service that is relatively mature, there is an implicit assumption that the goods and services delivered will be high quality and cost effective, that working together on the delivery will be seamless, and that issues that come up will be handled in a responsive and appropriate manner.

Doing a good job may get you in the door, but providing added value and making the client better is what defines a true partner. What really helps a client at this level are things like:

• Working jointly with them to streamline their procurement and on boarding process for IT staff. For example, how much time and energy would be saved in hiring managers really understood how to define their needs and write a position requirement?
• Bringing technology insight and business approaches to a client that will help the client achieve a competitive edge.
• Connecting executives and leaders with others who can provide thought leadership.
• Aligning community involvement / charitable efforts with those of the client.
• Sponsoring joint efforts to pilot innovative processes for services procurement.

It is understanding the client's business and environment so well that you can anticipate their needs and wants, and be positioned to respond to them. We are near or at the point in the IT staffing business that being a strong company with geographic coverage, efficient processes, and competitive pricing is not enough.

Our job in the IT services sector is not just to provide good people. It is really to make our client organizations more effective. The IT services companies who will prosper long term will be the ones who figure this out.

More Trends...

I make it a habit to regularly meet with folks in the IT staffing industry on a regular basis. It is always good to keep up with what is happening around town, and to discuss ideas on dealing with the challenges we all face. In fact, I estimate that on average, I talk to anywhere from two to ten sales people, recruiters, branch managers, or senior consultants every week. These are one on one conversations, not networking events.


It's no secret that the economy is tough and that there are changes happening in the business. We saw this back in 2001 - 2003 when the economy was soft. Formal procurement practices really took hold in most companies with large IT services spend. Off shore competition from the likes of TCS and Infosys have found a nice niche and will only continue to grow their market share. We are seeing a similar (although I feel more systemic) change today as companies evolve their "procurement" to more of a "human capital supply chain" type of model.

(As an aside, I despise terms like "human capital". We are talking about PEOPLE, not widgets!)

What really surprises me is the reaction of my peers and colleagues to this change. It ranges from subtle resistance to outright denial. Per my previous post, IT is a typical industry on a product life cycle, and IT services are following the product life cycle. Given this, should anyone really be surprised that margins are going down, the supply chain is consolidating, costs are being reduced in the supply chain (or profits depending on perspective!), and labor rates are being impacted? Particularly in a down economy?

I suppose I can understand how a person that has been insulated inside the walls of a large corporation for 20 years or so might be unnerved by these changes. You dedicate your career to a company, put forth a good effort, and drink from the company fountain. Then, one day you see your colleagues laid off and jobs go out the door, only to be replaced by lower cost labor. I can understand how a person might have some resentment.

At the same time, it surprises me that my contemporaries and competitors who are out in the market in front of customers and companies every day resist and deny the changes happening. How can a person be in an industry for 15 or 20 years in a sales capacity and not understand the trends and adapt their business to the direction the customer base is headed? Or, decide to target another market with their services?

Can there be anyone that's unaware of what has happened to the manufacturing base in the US and not see the same thing in the services sector? It boggles my mind. In the technology field, we like to point out how innovative we are and that we serve as change agents for our clients and business at large by providing better solutions and tools to facilitate commerce. But when it comes to change that impacts us, we are among the worst at dealing with it!

One of my sayings is, "I'm not that smart, and even I can figure this out!" For whatever reason, I tend to try and step back and look at the big picture. I can thank my parents and upbringing for the inquisitive and analytical nature, and my education from The Ohio State University and University of Dayton for providing the framework for looking at the macro picture. I've been fortunate to meet get to know people along the way that provide other ways of looking at things, and additional perspectives. There are reasons that companies do what they do, and my job as a services provider is to understand and acknowledge these reasons.

It's pretty simple, really. Be aware of what is happening in your market space, adapt and evolve, or move on.

Staffing Industry Trends

As noted in my description, I lead a branch of a IT services firm in central Ohio. We help clients who are challenged by new technology, who are struggling to get projects done, or need help finding the right people to fit in their environment. It is a great company led by smart people who get the business.

Note that my thoughts and opinions here are mine only and do not reflect those of my employer, its management, or its employees.

Information Technology at large is a maturing field. While there will continue to be technology advances that will change how IT is levereaged to help people and business, it is unlikely that there will be revolutionary changes similar to those of the past 15 or so years (the Internet, Distributed Technology, etc.).

Much of what I am seeing is that the IT services sector is following a traditional product life cycle:

• Market introduction stage: Costs high, sales volume low, no/little competition, demand has to be created, etc.
• Growth stage: Costs reduced due to economies of scale, sales volume increases significantly, profitability, competition begins to increase, etc.
• Mature stage: Costs decline as you are well established in market and there is public awareness, sales volume peaks, increase in competitive offerings,
  prices tend to drop, etc.
• Saturation and decline stage: costs become counter-optimal, sales volume declines or stabilizes, prices and profitability diminish, profit becomes more a challenge of production/distribution efficiency, etc.

Depending on what segment within IT services that you look at, the sector is somewhere in the mid to late Growth stage or early in the Mature stage.

Why is this noteworthy?

Virtually all of the people employed in the IT services sector - Developers, Analysts, Exectives, Project Managers, Engineers, Sales people, etc. - joined the industry when it was in the heart of the growth phase. We have enjoyed great careers, significant compensation growth, and job security. However, our world is changing and we aren't used to it.

This is causing discomfort for many:

• People used to 6 figure incomes are faced with a potential decline or adjustment.
• Companies accustomed to traditional profit margins have to reengineer the way they do business as well as adjust their mix of services to stay vibrant and growing.
• Customers for IT services are changing how they have to buy these services as formal procurement and supply chain practices are applied to what is a significant expenditure for companies.

What we are seeing is more fundamental than a temporary drop in demand like we saw early in this decade. It is a major realignment of the sector.

Now, more than ever, it is critical that IT services providers:

• Have 100% clarity and definition as to what business they are in.
• Understand how their business and target markets are evolving.
• Adjust their operational models and tactics to align with the direction in which the sector is moving.

Some thoughts on the implications of this later.