Young IT professionals' preferred recruiting modes in the contemporary economy.

AuthorFurtmueller, Elfi
  1. INTRODUCTION

    The business world witnessed an immense technological revolution in the 1990s, placing increasing emphasis on the work of information technology (IT) professionals. The introduction of the worldwide web in the early 1990s followed by the internet revolution brought increased visibility to the work of IT firms, departments and professionals. The culmination of the Y2 crisis in 2000 motivated global technical communities to solve the millennium problem collaboratively (Friedman, 2006; Ployhart, 2006). Other business trends such as service-based economies, increased globalization, professionalization and the need for enhanced customer service has augmented the role of IT employees in the work place (Jepsen, 2009; Luftman & Kempaiah, 2008; Laumer et al., 2008).

    IT professionals have helped to enhance organizational productivity, redefine work boundaries, and support critical intra- and inter-firm functions (Gallivan et al., 2004). Employers of IT professionals tend to place a high premium on problem-solving, team-management, decision-management, and relationship-management skills (Gallivan et al., 2004; Agarwal & Ferratt, 2002). Further, IT staff is known to exhibit quintessential work characteristics such as being high achievers; seeking challenging environments; working non-traditional hours; and identifying strongly with professional development (Luftman & Kempaiah, 2008; Laumer, 2009). The question arises how to hire and retain such superior talent? IT employers indicate that recruitment and hiring of talent is the primary concern in this industry. In a 2007 survey of 112 companies, staffing of IT professionals comprised about 31% of employers' budgets (Luftman & Kempaiah, 2008). As the demand and budgets for hiring these professionals increase, there are barriers in getting the required talent for all levels (Luftman & Kempaiah, 2008; Overby, 2006). First, some countries have experienced a reduction in the number of students enrolling for IT-related studies over the last decade (Overby, 2006; Baker, 2006). For instance, between 2001-2005, US universities have observed as much as a 50% decrease in enrolment for IT-related subjects (Baker, 2006). On the other hand, emerging economies such as India and China have an abundant supply of computer engineers making outsourcing options to these countries financially attractive for multinationals (Meredith, 2007; Takeuchi & Nomura, 2008).

    A second barrier to satisfactorily recruiting IT personnel pertains to the IT-industry's reputation for chronic job hopping; IT professionals tend to seek constantly better career opportunities. Poaching or creaming off the best talent is occurring much in this sector (Gallivan et al., 2004; Laumer, 2009). Given that recruiting practices have undergone a profound shift in the past decade, largely due to the emergence and diversity of internet recruiting, little empirical research has looked at how young IT professionals prefer to be recruited. The input of young IT professionals might be of significant value to those designing IT-recruiting experiences, thereby (sometimes unintentionally) flagging to young recruits what kind of firm they represent.

    While most of the recruiting literature informs on how organizations can internally implement and manage Human Resource Management (HRM) and recently also e-HRM systems to optimize recruiting processes, this study enhances our understanding of young IT professionals' desirable and undesirable recruiting and communication modes during staffing processes. The findings of this research provide insights into how organizations can best design effective recruitment experiences for young IT professionals as part of their broader human resource strategy. Accordingly, we address the following research question: What recruiting practices do young IT professionals perceive as attractive and unattractive?

    The paper is structured as follows. First, a theoretical overview is given of the staffing function in light of the resource-based view; we then chronologically review recruitment trends in attracting talented IT professionals to organizations. Next, we describe the qualitative methods employed in this study and present the findings and discuss the relative attractiveness of the various literature-based recruiting modes. Finally, we derive implications for organizations interested in attracting and recruiting academic and ambitious IT graduates and reflect upon the study for the purpose of drawing new-research options to bring forward this strategic HRM/IT domain.

  2. THEORY

    2.1 Theoretical Framework

    In the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm Barney (1986; Barney, 2001) gave new insights to enhancing a firm's sustainable competitive advantage. He suggested that organizations look inward, towards their employees, and adopt HRM practices that provide them with value and distinctiveness. Therefore an increased awareness that employees and HRM practices can provide organizations with sustainable competitive advantage is by now completely entrenched; yet the development of competitive HRM practices including effective recruiting channels to attract new talent is still underexploited by most economic agents (Barney, 2001).

    Lepak and Snell (1999) integrated concepts of the RBV and identified a staffing typology that can enhance value and uniqueness of any organization, namely: 1) Internal Recruitment 2) External Recruitment 3) Outsourcing 4) Partnerships. Employees are considered valuable when they provide significant contributions to both internal and external customers and affiliated organizations. Employees are especially unique when their KSAs (knowledge, skills, and abilities) are inimitable and therefore not easily available to competitors. Thus, each staffing option can be used to further develop an organization's sustainable competitive or professional advantage. Internal recruitment can be used to develop core strategic skills, such as industry-specific talent, so that such talent becomes idiosyncratic and non-transferable. External recruitment can be used to obtain specific KSA's (such as advanced education and/or superior management skills) to enhance immediate organizational or professional value. Outsourcing could be used for peripheral skills so that quality time can be devoted to strategic functions, increasing an organization's advantage. Hybrid staffing practices between external and internal actors could also be adopted when such blending is conducive to the organization's strategy (Lepak & Snell, 1999).

    Advancing these thoughts, Girard and Fallery (2009) suggest that the dynamic nature of today's technology allows organizations to manage and coordinate the various options of the staffing typology of internal, external, outsourcing and partnership. Moreover, the social and interactive natures of the current technology help identify and build organizational capital of unique and valuable members. Further, Strohmeier (2007) suggests e-HRM practices (such as e-Recruitment) can have positive organizational effects on the level of operations (increasing firm efficiency), intra-firm relations (integrating different departments) as well as strategic transformations (major decisions aimed at firm performance). While adopting an e-HRM approach to enhance competitive advantage it is crucial to adopt practices that are not merely off-the-shelf products as they can easily be duplicated. A unique outreach approach to prospective (and current) employees is needed in order to exploit human resources in humane, sustainable and valuable ways.

    Orlikowski (2010, 1992), in her Social Construction theory, argues that technology can be interpreted only in terms of the members that employ and utilize the technology. The members who use technology create unique social frameworks in terms of their roles, values, and interpretations. The theory emphasizes the importance of interpreting technology via its social members. Orlikowski introduced the concept of "technologies of practice" suggesting that organizations and its members can gain any positive effect of technology only if members become experts in using the technology involved, something that can happen only with consistent practice. For instance, bank employees who are reluctant or limit their use of the business software SAP are less likely to derive organizational benefits from the software program (Dery et al., 2006). Orlikowski's theory is relevant to our study as it identifies members who use technology as the key social interpreters. Besides this, she suggests that consistent interaction between humans and technology creates higher efficiency both at the (prospective) employee and organizational levels (Orlikowski & Barley, 2001; Orlikowski, 2010). In this respect, the use of technology in the recruitment and selection process is a key new possibility and challenge in effective personnel selection. Despite evidence that recent technology has enriched the available modes of recruitment, little research has investigated which of the new technologies are preferred from the applicants -in this case IT professionals' perspectives. More understanding of the changing demands of job-entering professionals would aid in optimizing recruiting practices. Hence we suggest that IT-recruiting specialists in particular need to know more about young IT professionals' preferred recruiting modes.

    2.2 Recruiting IT Professionals: A Literature Review

    In order to obtain the pertinent literature on recruiting practices for IT staff, a comprehensive search was undertaken. In addition to searching relevant articles specifically in Human Resource Management, Organizational Behavior and Information Systems journals, the research data bases Web-of-Science, Scopus, ACM Digital Library and AIS Electronic Library have been covered. Several keywords were used to find related recruiting literature: IT recruit*, IS recruit* recruiting, recruiting...

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