Skip to main content

Currently Skimming:

Making More Effective Use of the Existing IT Workforce
Pages 188-219

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 188...
... While many, if not most, employers may be aware of these strategies, the committee hopes that a brief discussion of them here may help increase awareness of their potential for reducing hiring difficulties. Furthermore, for these strategies to pay off, execution and follow-through are as essential as initial awareness of the strategies.
From page 189...
... About 80 percent of computer systems analysts, computer scientists, and computer programmers worked between 36 and 50 hours per week in 1999 according to the CPS. A November 1999 survey by Software Development magazine, which yielded 3,928 responses to a question about hours worked per week, yielded similar results: among this self-selected group, 61 percent reported clocking 41 to 50 hours per week.2 Moreover, the percentage of employees who worked 40 or more hours per week was higher for each of lawyers and judges, health diagnostic occupations, and engineers than for IT jobs as tabulated by CPS.
From page 190...
... SOURCE: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, 1999, special tabulations.
From page 191...
... SOURCE: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, March 1999, special tabulation.
From page 192...
... SOURCE: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, March 1999, special tabulation.
From page 193...
... This study noted that in law firms, long hours were regarded by senior decision makers as a symbol of commitment and ambition. (The study also found that long hours became a symbol because these decision makers had few objective measures of an individual's work quality, a difficulty that is probably less operative but not entirely absent in the context of a software development firm.)
From page 194...
... As noted earlier, increasing financial compensation is the time-honored way of making a job more attractive. Financial compensation can take many forms: base salary; bonuses for recruitment, retention, and performance; and stock options and/or equity stakes.8 And IT workers have seen wages rise in real terms in recent years, though not uniformly through all categories of IT employment (as discussed in Chapter 3~.
From page 195...
... Mobility is further reduced by large firms hiring employees who prefer stability and permanence and paying mobilityinhibiting wage premiums and fringe benefits in order to protect their training investments. An example of an employer program to increase retention is the Intel 9In the case of foreign workers brought to the United States, it is not unreasonable to consider the opportunity to live and work in the United States as an additional nonmonetary compensation, which is one reason that the United States is attractive to foreign workers.
From page 196...
... For example, to deal with the current labor force tightness of middle and senior managers in the IT sector, certain farsighted employers are reaching out to previously unutilized former employees to fill those gaps.~3 Finally, taking steps that combat negative stereotypes of IT work may have positive effects. For example, stereotypes of the entire IT field as being a field for young and generally single workers with Friday night beer parties, very long hours and/or extensive business travel in a fastpaced and highly unstructured environment, and risky compensation practices (e.g., stock options and equity stakes in lieu of higher wages)
From page 197...
... Employees doing referrals are likely to be hesitant to recommend individuals who are unqualified, and the candidates they recommend are likely to know more about the work and working conditions than other job candidates. Many IT employers report that open advertisements are far less useful than personal referrals in attracting appropriate candidates, and an increasing number of employers pay recruiting bonuses to employees who bring in new workers.
From page 198...
... Accustomed to a more sedate employment market for other specializations, company policy may forbid "special treatment" for IT workers that may include rapidly growing wages, bonuses for hiring and "hot skills," and team perfor~4In EEOC vs. Consolidated Services Systems, the Seventh circuit court held that a firm using word-of-mouth as its primary mode of recruitment was not in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, even though that practice resulted in disproportionate representation of certain protected groups (EEOC vs.
From page 199...
... On the basis of their work with other departments in the company, someone unfamiliar with technology trends in IT may well translate this need into an advertisement running in 1998 specifying "5 years of experience with lava" an impossibility since lava was formally announced in 1995. Increasing the coupling between HR and IT would improve the matching process, and indeed, some IT-sector companies have begun to develop internal structures that address recruitment, training, and retention of the company's skilled workforce.
From page 200...
... On the other 16Salzman, Hal, "Information Technology Labor Markets," commissioned paper prepared for the Committee on Workforce Needs in Information Technology, 2000.
From page 201...
... 6.2.1 The Role of Assessment To find ways of utilizing a broader pool of talent, it is necessary to use assessment techniques that can identify qualified individuals in that broader pool. (For purposes of this report, assessment is the process by which employers evaluate applicants for the purpose of making hiring decisions.)
From page 202...
... or function as two-way communication (e.g., unstructured interviews) rather than more formal "structured" assessment methods.l8 For example, many IT employers obtain a significant number of their new employees from the pool of relatively recent college graduates.
From page 203...
... But other studies indicate no clear relationship between the programmer's level of experience and the quality of the programs he or she writes or the time required to implement those programs.l9 In practice, research shows a rather low level of correlation between years of experience or education and actual measures of job performance.20 Among IT employers seeking to fill senior jobs requiring high levels of experience and sophistication, initial screening is almost always undertaken with a human being reading submitted resumes.21 But for entrylevel jobs and jobs requiring relatively low levels of experience, automated resume screening appears to be quite common. This practice is made possible because many IT employers emphasize their Web presence as their primary employment point of entry.
From page 204...
... . The hiring managers may select a superbly qualified person who looks different in contrast to an adequately qualified person who looks the same, but the bias is most likely to come out in a choice between two nearly equally qualified individuals.
From page 205...
... Goldin and Rouse find that the use of screen increases by 50 percent the probability that a female musician will be advanced from certain preliminary rounds and increases by severalfold the likelihood that a female musician will be selected in the final round.24 Effectiveness of Assessment Techniques and the Role of lob Analysis How effective are current methods for identifying highly productive workers among applicants from underrepresented groups? As noted above, IT employers commonly use unstructured assessment methods and fail to evaluate applicants against the same criteria.
From page 206...
... Because the productivity of individual systems analysts and programmers varies tremendously, companies that can identify the top-performing candidates are likely to have greater revenues and profits than will companies that do not use structured assessments. 27Murphy and Byrne, 2000, "Applications of Structured Assessment in the IT Workforce," .
From page 207...
... 1994. "The Validity and Fairness of Alternatives to Cognitive Ability Tests," pp.
From page 208...
... A recently completed NRC study30 notes that current job analysis techniques are not sufficiently detailed to describe work attributes such as abstract analytical work, skill in the use of information technology, teamwork competencies, and skill in performing effective work. Further, they are not sufficiently flexible to address unpredictable combinations of job requirements.
From page 209...
... For these reasons, any system used for making decisions about hiring, placement, firing, compensation, or conditions of employment is potentially vulnerable to legal challenge. Employers that discriminate or are perceived to discriminate against members of legally protected groups 31Accomplishment records have proven reasonably accurate in predicting success in professional jobs and are also cheap enough to administer on a large scale.
From page 210...
... The assessment problem is further complicated by the fact that there is often a tradeoff between the time and effort needed to conduct an assessment and its validity in predicting job performance. For example, work sample or simulation assessment methods are known to be very good predictors of job performance.
From page 211...
... Future Trends in Assessment of IT Workers Because of the difficulty of assessing future job performance in a fastchanging industry, and because job postings often draw very large responses, some IT employers are turning to outside vendors to assist with recruitment and hiring. As noted above, a large number of online job-matching services are now available to both employers and jobseekers.
From page 212...
... their own assessment of job candidates. For example, a commercial testing group is now offering skills assessment and certification based on the Northwest Center for Emerging Technologies skill standards.
From page 213...
... Furthermore, the survey found that, compared with the white and Asian/Pacific Islander groups, fewer underrepresented minority students completed an S&E degree within 5 years, and a higher percentage of underrepresented minority students switched to non-S&E fields. ' ' 1 1 At the master's level, the numbers are also 35National science Board.
From page 214...
... One reason may be a lack of awareness among those in underrepresented groups about IT careers. For example, a survey taken in Silicon Valley indicated that African American and Hispanic students were less aware of such IT careers as engineer, network manager, and 4-35.
From page 215...
... Furthermore, the field may have a "majority male" model stereotype that places underrepresented members in a position as outsider upon entering the field.48 For example, as female participation in college-level computer science majors has declined overall, one study showed that, of students transferring out of computer science majors, nearly twice as many women as men cited worries about career demands and lifestyle as factors.49 A fourth possible reason is that whether or not justified by their actual educational background, certain groups may feel inadequately prepared 44Joint venture Silicon Valley Network.
From page 216...
... Additional compensation is one element, of course, but many studies have indicated that IT workers are also highly motivated by the opportunity to work on technically interesting problems. Corporate personnel policies that take into account a tight labor market for IT workers to allow, for example, higher salaries for 50Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development.
From page 218...
... In a tight labor market, the expansion of the pool from which employers draw their workers is one of the most rapid ways in which employers can address their hiring difficulties. And, contrary to popular belief, an expansion of the hiring pool need not necessarily lead to a reduction in the quality of the individuals being hired.
From page 219...
... Economically, a tight labor market should imply the development of all sources of talent. Socially, such encouragement strengthens the commitment to fairness and equity in a democratic society.


This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More information on Chapter Skim is available.