With businesses across the globe trying to adapt to the ‘new normal’ of remote work, having a qualified tech team is more important than ever. Your tech team needs to ensure that your company can stay connected, secure, and continue to deliver quality to customers amidst a rapidly changing environment.

Finding the right people with the right skills and attitude to do that will play a huge part in the success of your tech team. Here are nine skills to look for in your tech hires.

 

Soft Skills

Your tech team needs to be good at tech, obviously. But less obvious are the skills they need to fit in with your company’s culture, build a productive team, and ultimately provide a positive experience for customers. Soft skills, like communication, problem-solving, and curiosity, are important for every member of your tech team.

Team Player

Find someone who has an attitude about the team first, rather than themselves first. A team player sees the team’s success as their own success and they actively contribute to the team’s goals. Signs of a good team player include someone who understands their role within the team, is open to collaboration, is flexible, and ultimately committed to the group. A team player will be willing to speak up and share their ideas while also respecting others’ opinions.

Curiosity

An employee with a natural curiosity will continue learning long after you have hired them. They will be an asset to your tech team as they stay current with new technologies and products available. Look for an individual who will keep learning and pushing through change. A natural curiosity will help them think on their feet and develop new ideas.

Business and Tech Skills

Often, we forget how crucial a business understanding is for every level of the organization. Your tech team needs to understand the demands of running a business, especially a tech manager. Your IT employees will not be as effective if they just focus on their tech projects without the ability to communicate across the team and across organizational functions. They’ll need interpersonal skills, budgeting, road mapping, and strategic planning, goal setting, and more to run a successful IT team.

Problem Solving

IT teams face dozens of challenges every day. From the site going down to customer and employee support to a security breach, they are bound to face problems. Build an IT team that can handle challenges as they come and have the problem-solving skills to strategically manage everything from a full-blown crisis to simple customer support.

 

Hard Skills

In interviewing people for your IT team, you may have a tech background, or you may not. However, knowing these five hard skills will help you determine how to build an effective tech team. We choose these skills because no matter what industry you’re in, how big your company is, or what your tech team is responsible for, having these fundamental tech skills across the team will help make them successful.

Cybersecurity Know-how

The average data breach in 2020 cost companies $3.86 million, according to a recent study by IBM and Ponemon Institute. Your company literally cannot afford to hire a tech team without cybersecurity skills. Before you can build more systems and develop anything, you must protect your internal systems. While many IT teams know how to perform daily tasks, handling security is a whole separate issue requiring foresight to prevent attacks and understanding of how to handle attacks. Look for someone who understands authentication and encryption with experience securing websites, users, and devices.

Experience with DevOps

You will want to have someone on your tech team with a strong background in DevOps (short for development and operations). It is a hybrid role in developing software and IT operations. Someone with a DevOps mindset will be able to contribute new software and improve existing solutions. This will help your organization ensure customers get a relevant, up-to-date experience with your technologies.

Understanding Cloud Migration and Use

According to IDC, cloud computing spending will grow more than six times the rate of IT spending through 2020. Tech teams will be spending more and more time in the cloud and they need to understand the benefits and challenges of using it in the enterprise. Many organizations are currently migrating or planning on migrating to the cloud. The technologies businesses use will become more reliant on the cloud in our future, interconnected world. If your tech hires have experience migrating to and deploying solutions in the cloud, all the better!

UX Design Skills

Any IT employee who understands the end-user experience will be able to approach their role strategically. From a tech perspective, designing your website and technology solutions with the user in mind will help your company meet customer’s needs. Ask potential hires about their history with experience design and include at least one member on your team with a strong background in this area.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Familiarity

Like cloud computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning are critical technologies of the future. AI is the use of computers to problem solve and ‘think’. For example, smart home speakers have voice recognition and can respond to queries. Machine learning uses AI to automatically learn and improve user experience. Like when you make more use of Siri, she will learn how to respond more quickly to your queries. Having a tech person on your team who understands how these technologies work will be critical in the future.  

 

You may not find a tech hire with every single skill listed but rounding out your IT team to cover each will help them be successful and ultimately help your company grow.