White Consulting Partners - Candidate Toolbox

Candidate Tool Box
Your tool box is made up of your professional skills, experience, commercial knowledge and personal qualities – the tools that you use in your professional life. Your attractiveness to a potential employer and your edge over your competitors will be directly related to the currency and quality of your tool box.

For IT management positions, look at having the following items in your tool box:

Technical
A theoretical and practical understanding of the latest methodologies, models and frameworks relevant to your area of expertise will put you a step ahead of the competition in the eyes of many employers.

Although there is no substitute for good solid experience, the fact is that if you're looking for a management or senior role, there are a lot more candidates with experience than with credentials in current techniques and methods. Examples of such techniques include Prince2 or PMBOK for Project Management, architectural models and frameworks such as TOGAF and Zachman, analytical tools such as UML and Use Cases.

Experience
Again, for management or senior roles, potential employers are looking for candidates who not only have the technical experience, but can also demonstrate an understanding of the business drivers within an industry and how this impacts the role.

Personal
The following may look like a list of clichés straight out of a job advertisement, but we cannot stress enough the importance of your ability to communicate with people who do not have your technical skills (be they financial or IT). You must also be able to manoeuvre and influence within the complexities of today's business world. These qualities will give you the edge.

Superior interpersonal and communication skills
The ability to articulate technology into business solutions and to communicate a technology vision within a business context
The ability to influence via indirect reporting lines
The ability to manage disparate stakeholder relationships
Strong negotiation skills
Results focused

Commercial
The investment in IT needs to be managed like any other investment. As an executive managing IT you need to appreciate the commercial aspects, such as:

Return on investment
Economic value
A portfolio management approach to the management of IT
Contract management and, where applicable, the supply management aspects of outsourcing arrangements.