IT labor: A tale of two cities

The other day I had the good fortune of having lunch with Tim Stanley, the CIO at Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. I had scheduled a series of meetings in Las Vegas and had hoped to catch up with Tim since he’s such a dynamic IT leader and his 700-person organization is constantly working on extremely cool stuff. Fortunately, he had some time available in his hectic schedule which is further complicated by his additional roles as Harrah’s chief innovation officer and head of gaming.

Over a light fare at Harrah’s headquarters, Tim & I discussed a variety of topics but much of the conversation centered on IT labor strategies. I was specifically interested in getting Tim’s take on the decidedly bifurcated opinions surrounding the true state of the IT labor market.

First, let’s set the stage for my conversation with Tim. For the past two-plus years, CIOs, hiring managers, recruiters and consultants have been beating the drum about how difficult it has become to find qualified IT professionals with vital business and technical skills such as SAP, Oracle, .Net, AJAX, J2EE, etc. Searches for the right candidates often take months. Several factors play into this, they say.

As IT organizations continue to work more closely with the businesses they support, IT leaders say they’re struggling to find results-oriented people who can communicate effectively with business managers and translate their requirements effectively. It doesn’t help that there’s a shrinking stream of computer science graduates coming out of U.S. universities.

Meanwhile, many seasoned IT professionals who say they’ve kept their skills fresh dispute any claims by hiring managers that there's a shortage for talent in the market or that a war for IT talent is raging. Instead, they see a Cold War where they’re being shut out by bean counters who aren’t willing to pay a decent wage when companies can instead turn to low-cost IT labor markets like India or China.

This so-called Tale of Two Cities IT labor rift is echoing in both ears. I was anxious to get Tim’s perspective on all of this since Harrah’s is a perennial honoree in Computerworld’s Best Places to Work in IT study. Plus, I’ve known him a long time and respect his opinion on such matters.

CIOs often complain that many job applicants over-inflate their skills. A job post for a .Net developer might generate 100 resumes. Closer inspection determines that 90% of these people have tangential .Net experience at best.

Tim takes this a step further. “Being a skilled .Net programmer is different than having project-focused .Net skills,” he says. He adds that people who can deliver quick turnaround on IT/business projects which utilize .Net will command higher pay than for those IT pros whose forte is centered around .Net maintenance and support.

Certainly the IT organization that existed at the turn of the century hardly resembles what’s in place within most companies today. CIOs have become much more selective about adding full-time staff. Onshore and offshore contractors are tapped when projects go into full swing and scaled back upon once they go into production.

Nowadays, full-time IT workers are more typically people whose knowledge and skills are vital to the organization’s day-to-day operations. The must-haves. Who are these types of people at Harrah’s? They include a solid set of IT architects and infrastructure specialists as well as team leaders, says Stanley. And given the amount of effort that goes into analyzing customer spending and gaming habits, Harrah’s also relies heavily on BI and Java experts, he adds.

An X factor that you won’t find in most IT employment research involves the personality fit – or disconnect – between job applicants and employers. One of the techniques that Stanley likes to use is a “Try-before-you-buy” approach where he’ll sometimes test out a contract IT worker for a period of time before determining whether that person is a good match for the organization. It also allows the prospective employee to scope out the company in question.

Stanley says this approach is applied most often when he’s dealing with a high-impact role and relocation and compensation costs are at a premium, particularly if it involves someone who is new to the gaming industry.

He's a living example of this. In late 1999, Stanley was hired by Harrah’s as a consultant to help the company build an advanced IT architecture and develop its then-nascent Internet strategy. He joined the company full-time in 2001.