Building a strong tech team from the ground up takes a recruiting effort that tracks down people with a wide variety of talents and backgrounds. You might think to limit your search to candidates with broad technology experience, but by also looking for candidates with highly niche or nontraditional skills, you can improve the diversity of thought and ability on your team—a must for success.
Source: Forbes.com – So what qualities should you be looking for in the search for your first tech hire? We asked a panel of Forbes Technology Council members for their advice.
1. A ‘Team Player’ Attitude
When making the first hire for a tech department, what’s most important might not be which sector the candidate comes from (given that they have the skills necessary for the job) but whether they are a team player or not. Teamwork is essential to the success of any project, so hiring those who are going to be ready to work in a team will ensure that the processes run as smoothly as possible. – Daria Leshchenko, SupportYourApp Inc.
2. A Mix Of Business And Technology Skills
As a CTO, hiring someone with a mix of business and technology skills is important. While technology is key, having an understanding of how to run a division is a whole different ball game. Human skills, managing IT like a company with profit and loss, and understanding the behavior of the team is critical. – Bhavna Juneja, Infinity, a Stamford Technology Company
3. Multidisciplinary Engineering Skills
The first hire must be a multidisciplinary engineer—someone who is a strong architect with a wide skillset to work with a cross-functional team. This person must be able to identify weak spots and offset any missing elements to build a strong, comprehensive team. – Dave Priscak, ON Semiconductor
4. An Enterprise Architecture Background
My first hire as CTO would be an experienced technology business analyst. More than ever before, IT needs to align with business leaders and build a symbiotic relationship with the lines of business. A strong technology business analyst with an enterprise architecture background can build bridges, communicate clearly and bring feedback to the CTO to formulate strategic technology investments. – Sean McDermott, Windward Consulting Group
5. An Understanding Of Cloud Capabilities
Looking at where the world is today, an understanding of how the cloud works and its capabilities is hugely beneficial because it touches so many aspects of the technology sector. It’s also important to hire someone who understands application security and knows how to migrate customers from old technologies to new technologies—and do so gracefully. It’s all more difficult than it seems. – Steve Cochran, ConnectWise
6. User Experience Design Skills
Including experience design skills within any technology team is a great place to start. Team members who advocate for the end-user perspective have never been more important, as end-users have never been more diverse and demanding. – Bob Bruns, Avanade
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