By the Computerworld Philippines Staff
October 1, 2007

It takes the right people with the right skills to help IT fulfill its mission, thus the market for tech talent is increasingly becoming more competitive. But how do they do search?
At Computerworld Philippines’ 8th monthly CIO Roundtable, five IT chiefs share their interesting experiences on recruiting, aligning, and retaining the best IT people.

The Roundtable participants were: Arsenio ‘Sen’ A. Gaetos, chief information and technology officer of Airlift Asia Inc.; ReArthur A. Gimena, sr. manager of Infrastructure Control & Resource Management of PROV International; Victor L. Magdaraog, vice president of SGV-Development Dimensions International; Bernard Sanchez, vice president of Comptrollership Division of Tollways Management Corp.; and Ivan John Uy, director and former president of the Chief Information Officers Forum Inc.

The roundtable was held at the Regus and was sponsored by HP Philippines.

Excerpts of the roundtable discussion follow:

CWP: How would you describe your IT recruitment activities? What major problems are you facing as far as recruiting IT personnel is concerned and how do you address these issues?

Sanchez: For Tollways, our major direction is to look at people who have the potential to go up the ladder. We get people who have the attitude, the skills, and knowledge. We look at the attitude first. Previously, we looked at knowledge and skills first. The attitude was the last one we looked at. Now we’ve changed it. We look at attitude first. Because we can see that if a person has a good attitude then, more or less, the skill and knowledge will follow.

So in our recruitment process, our HR takes a look at the person first. If the attitude is ok then he takes an exam. If the applicant passes the exam, he’ll be interviewed by the manager. If he passes the interview with the manager then he is referred to the division head who will conduct an interview to determine the applicant’s attitude, personality, and character. If the applicant reaches the division head, that means he already has the skills. The mere fact he passed the previous interview with the manager means he has the skills. The question is: Will he stay long? Does he have the attitude? The EQ? If he passes the interview with the division head, the next interview is with the HR director. The HR director takes a look at whether the personality and the attitude will fit the culture of the company because, if not, the company will be put in a disadvantage by hiring that person.
So better get somebody who will join the culture easily; who will be able to fit it. That’s our process.

Our HR practitioner has also established the competency level for every position and we adhere to that. For example, an applicant for an IT position should meet the competency level we’ve set for that position.

[Recruiting] is quite challenging for us because, unlike most companies, we are located in Balintawak. For new hires, traveling to the office and across the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) and the Subic-Tipo Expressway—which we also operate—can be stressful. I travel across these expressways at least once every two weeks to take a look at the operations. So, sometimes, when potential IT applicants find out that they have to travel, they automatically decline the offer. Actually, just getting IT applicants to come to Balintawak for the exam and interview is a major challenge already. So out of 10 potential applicants, only three will show up for the exam and interview. However, when they find that they have to do a lot of traveling, they’ll refuse the offer immediately even if we promise them a shuttle, because we do provide a shuttle from the MRT and LRT stations.

CWP: How long does it take you to fill an IT position?

Sanchez: Maybe three to four months, mainly because of the location.

CWP: And that’s after looking through dozens of resumes?

Sanchez: Yes. We even hired several headhunters because we were having a hard time finding IT personnel. Also, today’s generation of IT professionals are different from my generation when I started in IT. My generation had a passion for work; today’s IT person wants a life. They want money to spend and splurge—and the time to spend it. They even dress better.

Uy: They’ve become metrosexual geeks.

Gimena: Our IT recruitment activity is very aggressive. We have well-oiled machinery in place already—we have a database [of potential IT personnel] and we have a team of technical recruiters. Actually, the Philippine branch only started this year and we are now almost 150. We plan to go up to 500 by the end of the year.

We are actually aggressive in putting staff onshore and offshore. So IT recruitment is really our forte, but right now, for example, I am losing one of my senior technical people and I have to replace him in less than a week. The only problem we have as far as IT recruitment is concerned is getting the working visas since most—about 95%–of the people we recruit is sent abroad to the US or European countries. Some of our clients, for example, need an IT person within a week or a month but we cannot send them abroad immediately because we can’t get always get a visa that quick. We have this huge database of qualified candidates but we cannot fly them out because of visa problems.

We also send people to the Middle East and Asia Pacific but the compensation rate in these [regions] are only 20% to 30% higher so most of the [qualified candidates] opt to stay here or would rather to go to US or Europe where the compensation is much higher. So for the Middle East and Asia Pacific market, we have to do a lot of convincing when we recruit people.

Uy: I’ll talk mostly about IT recruitment in government. The problem in government is probably multiplied in many facets. As you all know, the pay in government sucks. So it is really a very significant challenge getting the right IT personnel. In fact, just look at CICT. How many commissioners have we had? Government really can not keep its talent and the fact is it’s not only the issue of pay. It’s an issue of political will. It’s an issue of sincerity. In private corporations the people you hire are required to help meet the business objectives; however in government policies often change in an instant so IT planners are having a very difficult time orienting themselves. For instance, you’re half-way through a project and suddenly there is a shift in policy, so you abandon the project and redo your entire IT plan.

We have a term in law, it’s a Latin term called “res ipsa loquitur” which means “the thing speaks for itself.” If you look at what’s happening at the CICT, the government has, I would say, failed in trying to keep its talents. They stay for a few months and then they leave. So it would really take a lot of personal sacrifice to be part of the government. And what aggravates the situation is that government does not want to spend on the skills upgrading or knowledge enhancement of its people, knowing very well that if they spend on training their people will leave for the private sector. So it’s a chicken and egg situation. Some are saying that it might be better for the government to outsource its IT projects to the private sector. That’s the whole issue now with this ZTE controversy. Is it the job of government to build another broadband when you have so many private sector companies who are so into it?

I left the Supreme Court in December 2005. It took the SC about 8 months to get somebody to replace me and the guy stayed for only six months and left. For me, 16 years [with SC] was a big sacrifice; I really saw how my ‘baby’ [IT] projects grew up.

CWP: What are your strategies in terms of IT staffing today?

Magdaraog: I don’t think the issue of recruitment or selection is unique to the IT industry compared to other types of industries or professions. I think this is an issue of, in most cases, the organization looking for talent rather than the talent looking for the organizations. In the past, it was talent looking around, today it’s the organization looking for the talent; but it’s not limited to IT, you see that in the same cases with engineering jobs, even in accounting jobs, banking jobs—talent is usually on-demand.

So I think when you’re looking for the highly-trained talent in the Philippines, the problem of recruitment is the same for most professions. It’s just there’s huge demand and there’s no supply of qualified people and this brings to the fore the issue that Ivan brought back—the organization’s willingness to invest in developing their people. So there’s this fear of losing people to other organizations but what would you rather have— a pool of talented people and risk that you would lose them or do you want people who are mediocre staying with you. What would you rather have? Besides, if you really invest in the development of people, chances are people will leave, there’s no doubt about it but you would have highly-trained individuals thinking for the business and therefore create more opportunities for your company.

You can follow the model of, say SGV, and SGV has no qualms about developing people; and they know they will turnover but at least the entire organization are well-developed professionals. So if you turnover and the people know that they will be developed and will have a chance to grow in that organization, the better talent will go to you and apply. I think the issue is not so much on recruitment but how you develop your talent. I think if people know that they will be developed and they will learn when they join you, they will go to you. Even government, if government clearly shows that they are going to invest in people, the better ones will seek you out rather than you going out seeking for the second-rate talent.

I think investment in people is very important; but that’s easier said than done because it requires some amount of money, it requires some amount of development, mentoring, and coaching your people. So I think we can’t simply see it from the perspective of just recruiting talent in the organization because part of that really is what happens to the talent within the organization. So people know that there’s a lot in it for them, people might even see that as a stepping ground for moving to an overseas job or somewhere else, that’s fine—it’s like cash flow where you don’t mind cash going out of the business as long as there’s cash going in, including talent. You have to be able to perceive talent that way. You don’t mind talent moving out as long as there’s talent walking in the door as well and at the end of the day you have a positive balance of things.

What’s happening is people are just wanting to hire those who are already developed and do not want to invest in their development. A lot of those are also project work. You have a big project now, a three-year project but you have to have very good people so you attract them with very high salaries but no development because I know after three years this project is done. I think we have to view it more holistically; look at it from a selection, from development, and managing the whole talent flow within the organization because people will turnover.

Gimena: I agree with Ivan because I have worked with government and the academe—the issue is really the budget allocated for training and maintenance; but that’s where the outsourcing model comes in.

With outsourcing, you don’t have to train the people they’ll have to ramp their skills up. And from interviews with true-blooded IT people, what they want from the job is challenge—the challenge of doing new things, being at the forefront of technology, and of course compensation. More compensation attracts more people and the last is growth—how fast is the potential for growth in the company because, for most of them, the reason they took up IT is because they see IT as a very fast career in terms of growth. So if you can’t supply these three things it’s not your core competency. That’s where the outsourcing model comes from and it really worked for the US.

Big-time US companies are now going into this kind of model, a bit more on the experimental stage then as they prove to the upper management that it’s really working, they can significantly broaden the horizon of each project.

Gaetos: What they say is true. Fifteen years ago or more, it was very difficult to get IT people because there were just a few. Nowadays, it is easy to get talent. What Bernard said is true—it also depends on your location. If you’re in the innermost part of Paranaque, like us, then it is difficult to get the talent you want. If you’re in the outskirts of Metro Manila it is also difficult. We’re in the same predicament. You’re already successful if you get them to come for an interview. The next step is to bombard them with inspiration. Again, like what Bernard said earlier, if an applicant passes the pre-screening and technical interviews and exams then assume he is qualified. And when the applicant reaches the interview with the CIO he is already qualified. So all the CIO needs to do is inspire the applicant. An example would be, “are you ready to face the challenges of the work? Here there is no challenge. Sometimes I would ask you to go to Hong Kong because we are engaged in freight forwarding business. Is that ok with you? Do you have a passport?” Of course, that will get the applicant excited and he’ll start daydreaming already! Those are the lines of inspiration. You can convince them through inspirational talks. But still it all depends on the type of person that you’re getting. If you are getting technical support coordinators, troubleshooters, or network administrators, it is easy because there are plenty of them—don’t be choosy. Just take good care of them with slightly better pay and perks.

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