3 questions to ask yourself when hiring your first IT person
Hiring your first IT person is a daunting task. There’s nobody in your company that knows what a good IT person looks like, how to vet candidates, or even what to put on the job posting. As someone who has been that first IT person at a company and grown into an executive role, I’ve been asked multiple times for my help on taking the first steps to build out an IT department. Here are the most important things to ask yourself when making your first IT hire.
- What problems do I want to solve?
- What value will solving these problems bring to the organization?
- Are these operational or organizational problems?
Problems
It’s likely you are hiring an IT person to solve a problem. More likely, you want them to solve a bunch of problems. The first step in hiring an IT person is to write out those problems and prioritize them. Ask yourself “if this person only solves one problem in their first year, what problem do I want them to solve?”. Their role will evolve and change over time. There is no way that you know today that this person will be doing in a year. Focus instead on what they’ll be doing immediately. A good IT person thrives in solving problems. Knowing what problems they will be solving will set you up for creating a great job description, job posting, and managing this person effectively.
Salary
Pay should be relative to value. As our work becomes increasingly dependent on technology, the impact and value a good IT person can bring is endless. Good IT people know this. They recognize their value, and expect to be compensated for it. Compensation is comprised of pay, benefits, and work/life balance. It is hard to compete on salary and benefits alone, but you have to try. Determine the value a good IT person will bring to your company and set their salary accordingly. You will likely pay them more than you’ think. If you have 10 staff experiencing an outage for an hour, at an average salary of $60k, that hour will cost the organization roughly $300. If your staff are doing workarounds for a problem and that adds 10 minutes to a daily process, the cost per year is $20,000. Good IT people pay for themselves very quickly. Determine the value of the problems they are selling and set the salary expectations accordingly. A secret to finding great IT people is that most IT shops have poor work life balance. This is likely your differentiator, and you should make a big deal about it. If you aren’t expecting the person to be on call evenings/weekends or logging 70 hour weeks, note the value of that, and communicate it accordingly.
Level
Manager or administrator? Leader or analyst? Architect or operator? Determining the level of the staff member is critical up front. The best way to determine the level within the hierarchy is not who they will report to, but whose problems will they solve. Someone solving the problems of front line users will be at an operational level. Somebody who is implementing new systems, finding new vendors, and helping the leadership team make critical strategic decisions needs to be at a management level. Both are on the table, both are equally viable. You will be limited to how much change you can enact without a digital strategy built by someone who understands technology and strategic thinking. There’s nothing wrong with dipping your toes in the IT waters by hiring an IT administrator, but they will not move the company forward digitally.
The key in developing the role of your first IT hire is to focus on what you know, rather than getting overwhelmed by what you don’t know. You already know what work you want them to do, and why you’ve decided that now’s the time to make this hire. Starting there and teasing that out will make the process much easier. As a follow up I will be writing another post on how to assess candidates. Stay tuned.
