Recruitment in IT companies

Labor market in Russia (IT and telecom)

Main article: Labor market in Russia (IT and telecom)

2024: Successful IT career: How to grow to an executive quickly - TA opinions

Each Chief information officer goes through its own career path. However, recruiters and IT market participants interviewed by TAdviser in June 2024 are confident that such a leader must have certain qualities, experience and knowledge in order to lead teams of technology specialists.

According to the Superjob portal, by June 2024 in Russia, the average salary of a Chief information officer with 6-7 years of experience is 650 thousand rubles a month. At the same time, in some companies, the monthly salaries of such managers can reach 1.7 million rubles. According to analysts, CIO usually has additional education in IT, experience in developing and implementing IT policies and procedures, experience in managing product creation and implementation teams, and projects to launch business management and automation systems.

According to Elena Dombrovskaya, HR Director of Satel, the career path from performer to manager in IT is becoming shorter, you have to study and grow faster. She called the basis of professional growth in this area a "personal hybrid" - a combination of technical knowledge, communicative qualities and practical experience.

The Selecty group (specializing in recruiting and outsourcing IT personnel for Russian and international companies) believes that the Chief information officer should have both theoretical and practical ideas about personnel management, an analytical mentality and, of course, knowledge in the subject area. This is due to the fact that at this level it is necessary to build a strategy for the development of the direction, taking into account the strategy of the directorate or the company as a whole.

It is necessary to understand how we will assess how much we have achieved our goals. Of course, it follows from this that it is necessary to be able to delegate tasks, be able to control the progress of their implementation and update them taking into account realities. The very setting of goals should not only satisfy business strategies, but also contain some technical aspects that you, as a leader, must see and understand, "said Svyatoslav Veliyev, technical leader of Selecty testing.

According to Valentina Gubareva, Deputy General Director for Business Development, Director of the CROC Infrastructure Solutions and Services Department, the key factors for growth to Chief information officer are initiative, readiness to solve complex problems, and most importantly, the ability to form a cohesive, motivated team. In addition, he can track new technologies, participate in specialized events and study the experience of successful companies and experts. It is necessary to study the practices of the Russian BigTech, applying the best approaches in their work, Gubarev believes.

He needs to immerse himself in business processes, study commercial information, agrees the Chief information officer of ednaNikolai Belousov. According to him, CIO distinguishes from the timlid of the development group the desire to take responsibility, to figure out how the business works, how and on what the company earns.

CIO in an IT company should have developed negotiating skills and the ability to build an IT architecture, especially if it is responsible for automating and building processes, says Faina Lerner, director of organizational development at Reksoft Group. The chief information officer should understand how to build the process so that new solutions appear and smoothly move from the development stage to the support stage, take their place in the general architecture and are regularly updated, used and safe from the point of view of business and users, Lerner said.

The head of the development department of "Слетать.ру" Nikita Ivanov, in a conversation with TAdviser, listed several qualities that, in his opinion, an IT specialist should have to quickly increase his career:

• find non-standard solutions and offer innovative approaches to solving problems;
• consistency: the ability to structure information and processes, which contributes to efficiency and performance improvement.
• the ability to listen and convey information;
• being a leader: leadership implies the inspiration and motivation of a team, the ability to lead and take responsibility for decisions.
• love for teaching others: sharing knowledge and helping to develop the team contribute not only to personal growth, but also to the success of the entire department.

Growth in the career ladder is impossible without the development of communication and management skills, the ability to manage people, teams and projects, says Kirill Semion, general director of the National Competence Center for Holding Information Management Systems (NCS ISU). In his opinion, it is better when the Chief information officer has a basic engineering or mathematical education. However, the best engineer is not always the leader, says Dmitry Shchegolkov, head of the integration department at Linx Cloud. Those who want, having worked as an engineer, to try themselves in management, should be aware that, basically, they will now be engaged in interaction with other departments, writing regulations, job descriptions, compiling vacancies, duty schedules, vacations, etc., he noted.

Axiom JDK Product Director Sergei Lunegov is confident that technical education is preferable, but not mandatory: logical thinking is more important, the ability to operate with abstract constructs.

In addition to technical knowledge of the product and the nuances of its development, CIO needs to have business intuition, forecasting skills, the ability to see the big picture and develop long-term development plans, says the head of the human resources department of the manufacturer of system-wide and applied. software ALMI Partner Maria Semenova In her opinion, the skill of change management is the main competence necessary for managers of any level, and for the IT market this is more relevant than ever. HR Director BPMSoft Marina Maximova agrees with this thesis and drew attention to the importance for Chief information officers to convey the need for improvements to the top management of the company, focusing on the business result from certain implementations, competently build an implementation cycle and fully work out objections.

Vasily Sautin, head of the sales directorate at IBS, considers the IT manager's "trump card" the ability to clearly and simply explain difficult things. It communicates clearly and effectively with both technical and non-technical staff. Emotional intelligence also plays an important role, he added.

It is important for a manager to be able to control himself and maintain a rational approach when, for example, a person has to be fired, agrees Tatyana Moshchagina, head of employer brand promotion and internal communications of the Работа.ру service. She also highlighted such an important indicator of an IT specialist who successfully rises through the career ladder, this is working with a strategy. Sometimes the forces go to tasks that do not bring sufficient benefits to the business - in this case, a person must change the work strategy in time, she said.

2018

IT giants no longer need employees who agree to everything

In December 2018, it became known that leading technology companies are increasingly looking for people who know how to effectively argue with the intention of moving the organization forward. For example, Netflix encourages employees who are "extraordinarily outspoken" and Amazon those who are "vociferously self-critical" and able to "disagree and take responsibility," that is, promote the project even if no one currently supports it.

Former HR director of Facebook and Amazon, and now (as of December 2018) vice president of Paxos Bharat Jayaraman, spoke about this in an interview with Business Insider. He said that each company has its own characteristics of cooperation, but at least in those firms where he worked, cooperation is defined as "the ability to argue, disagree, negotiate difficult."

Bharat Jayaraman

According to Jayaraman, the key to effectively collaborating and winning the trust of colleagues in these companies is the ability to show your desire to perfect any product or process you are working on. Most importantly, he added, so that the interlocutor can leave and say: "I may agree or disagree with you, but I do not question your intentions."

In 2014, the Academy of Management Review published research that the ideal form of workplace conflict is a dispute about the issue in question, rather than personal attacks or discussions "behind the back." However, such a healthy style of conflict is still not considered acceptable in all companies.

Agreeing with people and working together is actually easy, says Jayaraman. Disagreeing with people and continuing to work together is difficult.

Another important quality in technology companies is leadership. This does not mean the management of people. Leadership is "how you work to support others and realize that your role is a contribution to the company's success," explains former HR executive at Starbucks, Coach and Rag & Bone and now senior vice president of The Learning Experience Traci Wilk.

At meetings, Wilk always draws attention to those "who are willing to stand up and take on the leadership role, stating," OK, I accept this challenge, and I will either leave and review this issue myself, or I will help others. "

Wilk's view echoes that of Hamilton Bradshaw private equity firm CEO James Caan, who said solving problems is a surefire way to impress an executive.

Analyze your department and your entire business. Where are the flaws or problems you think you can solve? Initiative employees impress any manager, and anyone taking the initiative in areas where business lags behind to put themselves at the top of the promotion list, "Kaan wrote on LinkedIn.

On the other hand, the co-founder of the marketing agency for business development Web Profits, Sujan Patel, said that "the only thing that you can never get a promotion is the desire to perform only those tasks that are indicated in the description of your position."

The organization has different types of leaders, from entry-level employees to CEO, adds Wilk.

Most American workers don't really aspire to be managers, research suggests. A survey by professional recruitment firm Addison Group found that only a third of American workers believe a move to a manager job would advance their careers. At the same time, according to Bloomberg, many young workers would prefer to be "experts in a certain area." The problem is that in some companies, an executive's position seems like a natural next step in a career, even if the employee is not particularly inspired by the idea.

Jayaraman offers to give employees an opportunity to try out as a manager and opt out if they realise it doesn't meet their expectations.

You hire grown people, you treat them like grown people. You tell them what it means to be a manager and let them decide whether they want it or not, which is probably the most effective way to minimize some of the mistakes a lot of people make, "Jayaraman said.[1][2]

Many employees of large IT companies say they do not deserve their job

In early September 2018, the results of an anonymous survey of employees of technology companies conducted on the Blind social network were published. More than half (58%) of respondents working for Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft  and Google believe that they do not deserve their work and position, despite the achievements. A total of 10,400 people were interviewed. Read more here.

See also

• Labor market in Russia (IT and telecom)
• Silicon Valley
• Programmer
• Application Development Tools - Product and Project Catalog
• Programmer
• Programmer's Day
• Programmer cemeteries. Why not all IT people want to work for corporations
• Site developers (contacts of programmers)
• HackerRank Programmer Rating
• Cost of hour of programmer's work
• Salaries of programmers in Russia
• Impostor syndrome in IT

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