A forum for non-profit Information TechnologyThe role of IT in the hiring process
Look lets be honest, we all know it happens in the non-profit world. A department needs to replace an Administrative Assistant so they hire someone they have worked with in some volunteer capacity in the church. And don’t get me wrong I’m sure they are fantastic people, but when we start hiring based off of criteria other then job skills, something is going to suffer. So now IT is stuck supporting this “fantastic” person who doesn’t know how to run the equipment or software that their job requires.
So where does an operations or support department fall in when looking at the hiring process? It would be nice to think that people will only hire the best and brightest for a given position but as we all know, that doesn’t happen in the profit world let alone in the non-profit world where it’s all about relationships. So where does your facilities department fall in? Facilities? you say, well seriously think about it. If you interviewed a man that was in a wheel chair to replace light bulbs in your auditorium, wouldn’t you need to consider if he was able to complete the job you are hiring him for? Now that one is easy, but why do we ignore it when it comes to more non-physical limitations?
Churches have a tendency to hire people without properly testing them prior to their start date. So it’s somewhat unclear how functional they are at their job. Now look, if your wanting to get every Admin in your church to be A+ certified, your going to loose your mind, but if I can seek out individuals who can competently run Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, and type properly; my IT staff isn’t going to have to support them nearly as much; therefore making your IT staff far more effective at solving the real problems of your office. Not to mention ensuring that we are being servants to God’s money.
I recently sat down for lunch with Clif Guy the IT Director over at Christ Church of the Resurrection in Overland Park. We met to discuss their impending role over to Arena and since we had been through the same situation just last year, he thought they might be able to glean the small amount of knowledge we posses to help his team transition through to the other side. I began explaining to him how IT has taken a larger role in the hiring process of our staff since the beginning of January. Cliff thought this topic might be of interest to our readership, and the more I thought about it the more I realized he was right.
In January of this year our Operations Pastor, my direct report asked two things of me. One was to take a greater role in the hiring of new staff at KCBT (of which I was completely confused.) and two was to find a way to test our prospected new employees to ensure that they can perform at a level that we need them too. The truth is over the past 5 years our church has turned more and more to the IT department to solve it’s data needs. Now this is a great thing, because IT can greatly increase the churches productivity. However, we have a staff that many of which aren’t as comfortable as you need them to be. Now I can’t do anything about the existing staff that is already in place, but we could assist in the decision process going forward with new employees.
So we implemented a new testing program through Kenexa Prove It! at www.proveit.com. Kenexa allows us to setup specific tests covering topics from Windows Office to Dreamweaver and pretty much everything I could think of in between. After setting this up we are able to create custom testing plans for specific people who can then login from home and take the tests we require prior to their interview.
So after our first “contestant” finished their tests, I met with the hiring Director and we talked about the results. I’m under no illusions that the IT department has a right to say “we won’t hire” someone. But it does give us the opportunity to have the “discussion” of the candidates abilities and what limitation they may experience with a particular candidate.
It also became clear rather quickly that we weren’t exactly sure what we would call good scores. So we had a few of our current staff that do a good job take the tests to determine a base line. Now it has become very easy to examine a candidate based off of the performance of an existing employee.
As the church begins to finally come to terms with living in the information age it is becoming more and more necessary that our staff also be engaged in the technology that we are using. As I said before I don’t think it should be the right of the IT department to declare a candidate fit / unfit, but tests like proveit.com give us the opportunity to have the discussion that needs to be had prior to hiring a new employee. After all, the IT department exists because the rest of the staff doesn’t have the time or ability to run the network, so increasingly our job needs to be about ensuring that our clients can properly utilize the technology that we have in place.
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Jim Edwards is the IT Director for KCBT. Jim also began a print / web design company with his wife in December of 2006 called Edwards Design.
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As an admin assistant I see the need to test the candidate’s abililty to use the software they will be required to use and a good time to do that is certainly part of the application process. I think an admin assistant would not expect any less.
I appreciate the role of the IT Department, but I think at times the IT Department and the admin assistant speak a different language. I would be worried having the IT Department play too big a role in the hiring process, except as you mention in your post to run the required tests.
My point would be that an IT person couldn’t decide who would make a good assistant anymore than I could decide who would make a good IT person. You wouldn’t want my input in an interview for an IT person because I would have taken one look at your post and noticed all the spelling errors and if the boss had asked my opinion. Well… But you are probably a great IT person, but as an assistant I would be looking at different things than an IT person would.
I think you make some good points in your article, but be cautious in your judgments as an assistant must be proficient in some software programs, but their strengths are also in spelling, grammar, business letter writing, organization, client relations, travel arrangements, event planning etc. Using the software is only a portion of what we do. And yes, we do have to know how to use it, but not in the same way the IT Department does.
I do understand however what you are saying. Maybe some people are being hired in the Church for their graciousness rather than their abilities, which makes more work for the IT Department. Software programs however can be learned. If someone has strengths in other areas and are weaker on the computer skills you might hire them knowing if they are a quick learner they could easily pick up the computer skills. The person hiring them would have to weigh their strengths and weaknesses.
Take care,
Patricia
http://secretaryhelpline.blogspot.com/
Patricia,
I couldn’t agree with you more…. No IT Department should be the final say in the hiring process, and I completely agree with you that some people are very capable at learning how to run software. But I would leave this discussion with two points. One, who takes the responsibility to train that person on running the software. Historically, an IT department is not in the business of training personnel to use software, and unfortunately department heads tend to throw the issue back at IT. Secondly, any good evaluation software should show more then just proficiency; but also the desire and ability for personnel to be able to learn the software given to them. In our case proveit.com is not a complicated test, but if someone shows the ability to investigate and learn, they will past the test.
I can’t stress my agreement here more. I don’t hire my staff simply on what they know, but what they hold the capacity to digest and learn. That should be true with any position, however, I do expect a basic understanding of the profession I am hiring them for.
For clarification, I don’t think we are disagreeing at all on this topic, it may however be more of an issue of my lack of clarity or speech. Perhaps I need someone to review my own posts before they go out!
Proof that the job of an Admin Assistant is necessary indeed! For the record you forced me to review this comment several times before I posted it, and I’m sure it’s still full of errors….Although I am a product of an English teacher, I fear I just didn’t listen all that much!
Thanks for the informative post, I believe I will be sending to some higher-ups for further review. Patricia raises some interesting points in her comment, although I agree with you that for the most part, you are both agreeing on the same things from different angles, which is good. However, when Patricia mentions that and Administrative Assistant doesn’t need to know Office like the IT department does…I don’t think that’s the intention here at all. No test would (or should) test someone’s ability to install Office vs. their ability to use it. I would actually say that an ability to use Microsoft Office is actually more important for an Administrative Assistant than an IT staffer, as the Admin. is likely to be using the software much more heavily day in and day out, while the IT staffer will likely use it much less beyond installing it, although resolving helpdesk issues and questions may involve knowing how to use the software as well (quick learning and searching can make up for an in-depth knowledge to a large extent in an IT staffer though, and is a more important asset as problems will need to be solved in a much wider variety of software than one person can or needs to spend the time becoming ultra-proficient in).
Patricia also mentioned that she believes it works both ways, where an IT person would not be able to determine an Admin’s capabilities and vice versa. However, most Admins. do not support people in the IT department, while the IT department usually support the Admins., so I think a greater level of involvement is a good thing in this case ([begin dream]now if IT departments just had their own Administrative Assistants more often…[/end dream]). If an Administrative Assistant agrees to never ask the IT dept. for help with anything, then I’ll agree that no input is needed from IT on their hiring
These are just a couple of smaller nit-picky issues I thought of when reading this post and its comments, which are excellent! Overall I think I’m in agreement with almost everything.
I enjoyed your writing style and I’ve added you to my Reader. Keep these posts coming.