In today’s highly competitive AS/400 job market, finding skilled technical staff can be difficult at best. Often, applicants that seem to have the perfect technical skills don’t possess other desirable skills and traits necessary to be a good fit in your shop. Given the dearth of applicants, you may have to train your new hire in your specific business. Due to the investment in time and training, the technical recruiting process is increasingly risky.
What if you could recruit nonprogrammers from your company and make them programmers? I am not suggesting you start conducting covert negotiations with internal employees to fill your programming vacancies. I am advocating a companywide initiative to create a pool of internal candidates, complete with a verifiable company history and a willingness to learn a new trade, and without external influences from other companies competing for their services. I am talking about growing your own programmers.
How do you get started? First, your company has to support the program. Next, your human resources (HR) or training department must work closely with the IT department to design a plan of attack. A public announcement describing the program may be in order. The purpose of this announcement is to measure employee interest. If it does, the next step is to implement a candidate selection process. One approach to candidate screening is to administer a logic test, combined with interviews with multiple IT staff members. For example, one of my clients established high criteria for its internal candidates and only accepted candidates who scored perfectly on the 30-question logic test and passed all the IT interviews.
Once the candidates are selected, training can begin. Training can take many forms and will depend on your company and its requirements. Your HR or training department will have to work together closely with IT to decide on a curriculum and divide training responsibilities. Training should include general computer programming (an introduction to computer programming), language-specific programming (RPG IV and CL), systems operation and support, people-skills, and environment-specific information (e.g., department structure, organization charts, IT architecture). You should combine classroom- style training sessions with independent projects that help acclimate the candidates to an IT environment. For example, once a candidate enters the company-specific training phase, which could include specification writing, the development process, and RPG IV and CL classes, they would train for a week and then work on an independent project for a week. This mixture of classroom and project work can really boost a candidate’s confidence when
working on new assignments, and it allows the IT department to reap the benefits of the new candidate’s work sooner.
Once students complete the training, they can be placed throughout the IT organization. Selecting the correct candidate for each department can be crucial, both for the company and for the individual. Often, knowing a candidate’s experience can improve the selection process. For example, if a candidate has a financial background, he might be better placed in the department that maintains financial applications. If a candidate came from the warehouse, it’s wise to have him work on the warehouse management modules. If you can afford to do so, assign a mentor to guide each new recruit. Mentors should be able to explain department-specific procedures and provide technical assistance without intimidating the new recruit.
Trained, placed, and mentored, these new recruits are ready to start productive programming lives. To ensure their success, you should create a support structure to groom entry-level staff. This structure should include veteran programmers to provide guidance, training, and a large dose of patience and understanding. Not all IT staff will welcome their new colleagues. A few may resent the fact that these recruits were given special training opportunities. Try to involve as many IT staff members as possible in the training program so that no one feels left out.
Kevin Vandever is cofounder of NexSource, a consulting and training firm based in Chicago, Illinois. He can be reached at
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