It’s tough to find the perfect IT person. It’s a sad fact that I’ve run into time and time again. Of course, I’m running into it again now with my latest resource search. So what makes the perfect IT person?

eWeek took some time to design the perfect IT person with the help of some CIOs. They’re not far off from what I’ve always believed. The perfect IT person doesn’t need to have the best technical skills, merely a base knowledge set, passion and attitude. What they need is a strong (and preferably broad) set of non-technical skills including general social skills, communications, and an understanding of how business works. By communications, I do mean listening (and listening more, and hearing and listening) and communicating with non-technical people, of course.

Good communications and social skills is important for any IT person who plans to see the light of day. There will always be the IT cave dwellers – very highly skilled programmers or network gurus who are happiest if their contact with people doesn’t involve more than “12 Redbull, that will be $15″. There’s definitely a place for those people.

That place isn’t anywhere near other people though. Most IT people, especially support and consultant types need to be able to communicate clearly to their non-technical clients and exude just the right amount of confidence to minimize any fears that client may have (without being too cocky). Thus, when I’m interviewing, I ask myself the following questions:

1. Does the candidate communicate clearly in non-technical terms (even though I’m very technical)?
2. Does the candidate answer questions with confidence? How do they react to questions they don’t know the answer to?
3. Does the candidate have an aptitude and passion for technology?
4. Is the candidate willing to learn and adapt or are they stuck in their own ways?

Of course, I have a ton of other questions, but surprizingly few of them are tech-trivia based. Once I’ve gotten a feel for the base technical knowledge level, I ask more situational and best practice questions.

My focus really is making sure the person has the social and communications skills and technology aptitude first. Assuming a base level of knowledge, the rest can be taught. Sometimes it’s actually better that way – so you can ensure that the right practices are put in place early.

I guess the REAL question iends up being: What % of the perfect IT person is dependant on their IT skills?

I’m amazed and disapointed by the response to my job posting.  I received about 75 resumes over the course of a week. 

At first I wanted to help people.  I even replied to one person, thanking them for applying and (while letting them know that they didn’t meet the requirements) pointing out that they really have to build an appropriate resume before applying for other jobs.

Clearly I have to do some rewriting of my job posting.  Most likely, I’ll have to include a list of people the job is NOT appropriate for and post it in some more focused areas. 

Here’s some observations and thoughts for those people applying for jobs.  I might add more later, but I’m out of time for now.

Read the Job Posting First

This may seem like something pretty straight-forward, but clearly it isn’t.  I received a good number of resumes for programmers looking for work.  Only a couple of them were from Indian outsourcing companies …

Write a Real Resume

What do you get when you send a one page resume, done in 9 point Arial bold?  Certainly not an interview.  And yes, I did get more than one of these (maybe not that met all the options).

Today there are so many GOOD sample resumes, templates, resume creation tools and the like out there that some of the crap I received absolutely blew me away.  Believe it or not, some technical people (with more than 3 years of experience) even sent me resumes that fit on a single page. 

Before applying for any job, stop and review your resume.  Make sure you’ve promoted yourself well and shown your technical prowess.  Try using a Skills Matrix.  Remember to tweak your resume to meet the requirements of the job posting. 

Now that you have your amazing skillset listed, print your resume.  I don’t care how good you are techincally, presentation matters.  Would you show up for an interview in your wife-beater shirt and torn jeans?  No?  Your resume promotes you the same way.

If your resume is ugly, have your friend with some design skills help you make it pretty.  If you’re not sure if it’s ugly, it’s ugly.  Do remember to turn off the formatting marks in Word – they’re really distracting when reading the resume online.

Read the Job Posting Again

What?  Do it again?  YES!  For example, my job posting was very clear about a few things:  it’s a consulting role and that strong communications skills was of prime importance.  I clearly asked for a cover letter.  Why would I do that?  To test people’s communication skills, of course and to see if they could meet a client’s clearly written requirements. 

Sample cover letters I received:

“Find attached my resume”
“Attached: MyResume.doc”
“Please e-mail me your e-mail address so I can send you my resume”
“<System Message: Chinese characters not installed …>”

Truthfully, after filtering the telecommuters and offshore outsourcing groups, I only received 5 cover letters.  Which means that only 5 people really read what I wrote. 

Final Note – You can’t work a part-time business hours job if you’re working full time.  That’s just common sense, people!