THE TRUE VALUE OF A UNICORN

Staffing IT projects with talented people is not an easy task. Large companies have complex IT envi-ronments that depend on state-of-the-art IT professionals to supervise and com-plete their assignments. The fact is, they are hard to find.

It’s the simple truth that some individuals perform significantly better than others. In our world, we call them 10’er special-ists (on a scale of 1 to 10), others name them unicorns. These specialists are within the top 3% of their IT field.

In this e-paper, we will illustrate the risk when hiring poor performers, how buying senior specialists contributes positively to the outcome of an IT project, and finally, how 7N find and recruit them.

3Why spending money will save you money

Why spending money will save you money

In other words, we’re talking about the output gap being 10-300 times better, yet the cost gap between mediocre and good is not even close to a factor 10. This poses a few interesting questions: What are we actually paying for? How much does our output cost? To shed some light on this, let’s look at an example of the hourly price range for a

developer in Western Europe. The cheapest developer might work for just 80 EUR an hour, while the most gifted and experienced one would demand 110 EUR an hour. The average rate is around 95 EUR an hour. The difference, then, between average and top-of-the-class performers is about 15 EUR an hour.

Of all professions worldwide, IT specialists have the greatest span between mediocre and good in regards to efficiency and bottom line.

• 10 times higher value than average — GE, Yahoo, and the University of Indiana

• 25 times higher value than average — Apple

• 28 times higher value than average — Bradford Smart at Top Grading

• 300 times higher value than average — Google1

The most conservative assumption is that top 3% IT professionals are more than double as productive as the mediocre ones, while other companies report vastly greater numbers;

1 10Skills

Pro

du

ctiv

ity

1

100

1 Calculating The Tremendous Dollar Value Of A Top-Performing Or Innovative Employee, Dr. John Sullivan, ERE 2014

4Why spending money will save you money

Let’s continue with the most conservative assumption. The top developer is twice as productive as the average one. Whereas the average developer delivers 5 units for 95 EUR, the top developer delivers 10 units for 110 EUR. The client will then receive twice as many units for only 15% extra and increase the productivity by 42%.

Please note, that the above is indeed a conservative assumption and yet it’s the kind of math that has a clear impact on the bottom line.

Price per hour (EUR)

Price per delivery point (EUR)

Skills 1 5 10

80

80

95

19

110

11

. . . . . .

x7,2

73%

DIFFERENCE

DIFFERENCE

IT SPECIALISTS ARE NOT JUST IT SPECIALISTS

SOME INDIVIDUALS ARE JUST SO MUCH MORE EFFICIENT

6More than bottom line

More than bottom line

Not only is it a matter of a direct increase of the productivity per cost; engagement of top performers will significantly reduce the risk for bad hires. Specifically, in terms of quantifiable impact such as lost time as well as extra expenses due to recruiting and training along with lost worker productivity.

Yet, bad hire’s2 morale- and productivity impact often exceeds monetary losses. We’re talking about lack of proper quality in delivery, inability to co-work with others, to meet deadlines - and moreover; a negative attitude, low attendance which ultimately results in poor client solutions.

With a true unicorn on board, the client will experience proficiency, efficiency and excellent communications skills. They will get a highly qualified individual with a long track record of successful proj-ects, who will deliver from day 1 and reach

full performance within weeks – sometimes even within days.

Project Manager, Infrastructure Architect or Business Analyst, a unicorn understands the clients’ organisation from basic mainte-nance to business strategies and he will lift the team members around him and help them grow to reach their true potential.

Make no mistake; unicorns are hard to track down. They know their worth and are selec-tive when it comes to job offerings. To find, identify and recruit them has become our expertise and core business, and we have developed a process to ensure the quality of every 7N specialist.

So, exactly how will hiring a senior IT professional, be that development, proj-ect management or another IT profile, impact the clients’ numbers positively?

2 The True Cost of A Bad Hire, Falon Fatemi, Forbes, 2016

WE ARE LOOKING FOR SHARP TALENTED PEOPLE

8What we look for when recruiting

What we look for when recruiting

ExcellenceWe never compromise on quality. Recruit-ment at 7N is primarily done by referral or is based on 7N’s proactive selective search. Less than 10% of the interested candidates make it through our tough qualification process. To become a true 7N unicorn, the candidate must be recognized as among the best within his or her area of expertise.

ExperienceWith only a few exceptions, all 7N specialists have at least 10 years of relevant experi-ence.

As a supplier of best-of-the-best, we need to make sure that our specialists have proved them self worthy more than once, and that they have faced different types of business sectors, projects and challenges.

Exceptions to the 10+ year requirement include individuals who have specialised in demanded, and often brand new, tech-nologies, tools and methods. We consider our clients’ needs and requests to be more important than to be in accordance with our guideline, as long as the persons’ pro-fessional background is relevant and he is among the best in his field.

More than 25 years in the high-end IT market has taught us that there are a few tell-tale signs of a unicorn.

• They are known as the best among his or her peers

• They have at least 10 years of relevant experience

• They have a high level of soft skills and scores well on “The Secret Code”

9What we look for when recruiting

Soft skillsSome years back, 7N conducted an inter-nal study of our most successful consultants to answer the questions: What makes the successful consultants stand out? Why does the customer praise one consultant’s performance, while another might just be adequate – even if they on paper seem to be equal on qualifications?

The study showed that what makes a dif-ference is the way the consultant uses his IT skills. We ended up defining six social and personal skills, which are present - at least to some degree - in all our top performers. Upon this finding, we developed a propriety methodology named ‘The Secret Code’ that has become our key tool when com-municating with clients and consultants, both present and future.

Recruiting specialists who score high on ‘The Secret Code’ are a key reason be-hind our successful track record. For our clients, it means they are guaranteed to contract a specialist who makes positive use of his abilities - and knows his own lim-itations. Someone who understands all the important aspects of a given project – also the non-technical ones, and who can use his professional overview in a considerate manner. The client will find the specialist sociable, accommodating and helpful.

Our resistance to compromise on either ex-cellence, experience or social skills explains our long-lasting client relationships. In our experience, once a client has contracted a 7N unicorn and have seen what this person can do for their organisation, they return for more.

Insight into own strengths

and weaknesses

High performance

under pressure

Holistic project

understanding

Diplomatic authority Social capacity Empathy

The six skills are:

For more than 25 years we have focused on working with IT specialists who perform extraordi-narily well. We have built a community for them dedicated to their professional and personal development. Furthermore, each of our special-ists is assigned an agent who serves an average of only 25 specialists. That approach has proven to keep our service level high.

This setup has been our core business model since the very beginning, and up until now we have grown to be present in 9 countries, with 50+ agents and close to 1000 specialists at work worldwide.

Our client portfolio is diverse, comprehensive and represents business sectors such as finance, insurance, pension and energy. We invest in long-term relationships and our agents devote both time and resources to understand the cli-ents they serve. A great deal of our clients have been with us for more than a decade, and sev-eral has gone near- or offshore by establishing 7N IRD (In-house Remote Development) offices in Poland or India.

If you want to learn more, please do not hesitate to contact Kim Rohde, Executive Recruitment Specialist.

Tel: +45 2670 4455Mail: kiro@7N.comwww.7N.com

Agent for High-End IT Professionals