You know that businesses that can hire technology consultants to fix problems or create new solutions. However, how can you make sure that you hire the right fit? Read on to see what you should keep in mind when looking at hiring a tech guy.
By the myBusiness techblog team
So it’s finally come down to this. To make your business more efficient, agile and competitive, your business needs to implement additional technology. Your challenge now is to hire a technology professional to support this technology. What should your hiring requirements be? Here are a few guidelines that you can follow:
- Ask yourself why you need to hire
First, you need to identify and clearly define the technology lapses that are present in your organisation, or specifically where improvements need to be made. For example, do you need a website developer or operator who could work off-site and on contract, an office fix-it tech person who could be on-call, or a programmer or network administrator who must be based at your business? In case you’re not really sure what you need, you should consider hiring a consultant to help you pinpoint your critical tech issues first, and recommend a short- or long-term solution. You should also interview consultant candidates just like you would full-time job candidates too.
- Ensure the new hire is specialised in the area you need
This might be backups, developing new software or just taking care of your website. You need to make sure that your new hire’s skills will apply to your business. Make a part of your hiring process an examination of what applicants have done in the past. From there, have them explain in detail how that was beneficial to their employer. You need someone who will build a bridge between their technical skills and your needs.
- Make sure the hire has worked with small and medium sized businesses
Tech professionals who have a background of only large companies may recommend or build technology far too complex for your company. Your technology solutions need to fit your business, and there are numerous ways of using technology from small to large, simple to complex.
Have candidates show you documentation of their work. If you can’t or don’t know how to use it, or even how it’s put together, then you might run into problems later on if your tech guys leaves your employ. Make a point to have tech applicants show documentation from prior projects that explain how the system was built and how to use it.
- Hire and pay for a professional
You really get what you pay for—especially when it comes to technologists. You should consider hiring as an investment in your business. Finding a consultant that’s at a good price will save you headaches later on. When technology doesn’t work, you don’t want to waste precious time teaching or paying them to learn how to use the technology.
- Find someone who can speak your language
The ones that can talk to you as a person, a business person, are the most valuable ones. You need to understand what’s going on with your technology without you getting into the technical details, or technology acronyms and jargon.
- They should come up with a plan of attack
Your hires should also plan out how they are going to fix your problem or improve the situation, specifically. This will show that they understand your problem. And you need to be able to understand the plan, so you can follow what they’re doing at various checkpoints. You should also get a summary of activities on a regular basis. Even when you’ve hired the tech guy, you’d want to be regularly informed on the progress. This allows you to understand what they have done, how much it’s costing, and whether they are following the plan (or what changes to the plan are needed).
Finding a good technology consultant shouldn’t just be trial and error. Finding a great consultant means making smart hiring decisions at the start. With the tips above, we hope that you will be better prepared to get the right fit for your business.
Will your business be hiring a tech guy? Do you have an experience with a particular technology person that you wish to share? Drop us a note in the comment box below.