Recruiting and Grooming Future CIOs

By Courtney Macavinta

The success of most CIOs relies in large part on recruiting and retaining the most talented IT staff. Although analysts say IT leaders have expanded recruiting efforts to tap technology and business degree programs, it's somewhat surprising that most are still largely absent from deeper involvement with colleges and universities -- the training grounds for the majority of their future employees.

While 88% of IT organizations recruit computer science graduates, the level of involvement with higher education institutions among these same enterprises is much lower, according to February 2007 Forrester Research report "CIOs Should Build IT/Academia Partnerships."

Forrester found that although 43% of IT organizations participate in job fairs, just 23% serve on an advisory board or lecture in the classroom. Only 12% serve on a curriculum review committee. As a result, CIOs often miss out on opportunities to shore up their talent pipeline, influence the next generation of IT talent, and realize the cost savings that accompany proactive engagement with academia. Case in point: IT organizations that are disengaged from academia have an average turnover rate of 12%, while those who work with academia have a rate of only 6%, according to Forrester.

"By becoming more engaged with academia, you can increase and accelerate the productivity of those you hire -- especially at the entry level," says Forrester analyst Samuel Bright. "The CIO has to set the vision and raise this as a priority."

Here's how experts say CIOs can improve their talent pool by partnering with academia:

Step No. 1: Reach out
Bright suggests that CIOs make the first move in engaging academia: "Not only give some of your time, but also be willing to form a steering committee and then hard-wire working with academia into your goals so it becomes more of a team approach and strategic initiative." CIOs can start by creating relationships with the alma maters of their current staff and by partnering with human resources to identify and reach out to college and universities that are already turning out qualified job candidates.

Step No. 2: Train future employees through universities
According to Forrester, even though 89% of IT organizations use training to develop their staff, only 17% are working with academia to devise educational programs that are aligned with their organizations' staffing needs. CIOs can become more involved in academia by shaping curriculum, either as guest lecturers, by serving on advisory boards, or helping students stay on top of trends in the IT work world by developing internship programs.

"You might as well shape the candidates you're going to get on someone else's dollar," Bright says. And a CIO's deeper involvement with academia "also enriches the learning experience, allowing CIOs to see the best and brightest students who need to be scooped up."

Step No. 3: Partner with MBA programs
Just as CIOs need to be business-minded strategists as well as IT experts, so too do their employees. With this in mind, some CIOs are developing relationships with MBA programs where students are researching the business issues that CIOs face or are studying general business management principals that can be applied to IT.

Some universities also focus on CIO development. For instance, the Center for Digital Strategies at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth hosts roundtables for academics, Fortune 500 CIOs, and business vice presidents to foster collaboration around IT and business strategy. The center also connects CIOs with research and case studies along with its MBA candidates.

"Our belief has always been that CIOs have had to become more business focused and business strategic to be successful," says Eric Johnson, a director of Tuck's Center for Digital Strategies. "At Tuck, we are extremely focused on one residential MBA program which is designed to create general managers. We see functional areas like marketing, supply chain, and finance all as critical parts of general managing, and IT is a thread that runs through all that."

The payoff for IT organizations to partner with academia is well worth the investment given the fact, Johnson says, "that we have students who want to be CIOs one day."

Courtney Macavinta is a Silicon Valley-based business and technology writer. Her articles have appeared in CNET News, Business 2.0, Red Herring, Wired News, and The Washington Post. She also is managing editor of  the online program The Online Family.