Recruiting and Retaining Top Tech Talent

Some attendees included (apologies on name spelling)
Sara Worrell-Berg (IT Services)
Kim Seidler (IT Services)
Ken Sharp (School of Earth Sciences - Administration/Finance)
Pat Deasy (IRT Web and Systems Engineering)
David Hart (H&S Dean's Office)
Anne Pinkowski (IT Services)
Glenn Worthey (Digital Initiatives Group)
Sharon Krossa (Faculty Development and Diversity Office)
Joelle Crepsac ( Financial Management Consulting & Support Group)
Todd Ferris (IRT IT Services)
Daniel Pepke (sp?)
Glenn Peacock (IRT IT Services)
Gunner Schaeffer (sp?)
Sherwin Smith (Student Computing)
Jeff Melton (Medicine - Med/Stanford Prevention Research Center)
John Chao (Academic Computing Technology Services)
Joseph Kautz (Academic Technology)
Amy McGuire (Internal Audit Dept)
RECRUITING:
Talk to people in the University to see if they know of people that would be a good fit. Post job applications online. Be in contact with other hiring managers (like this UNConference group) where you can collaborate and talk to other people to find out what is working for them.
People are out there that are looking for a change and for positions that have more meaning.
It seems like I have the most luck with people who had previous University experience.
List where we can go to some good sites that get good quality people.
Hire known commodities leverage Linked in and other social networks .
The transition from Corporate to Academic is tough for some people to adapt to.
In the Bay Area, hiring is more aggressive and dynamic and sometimes random. There seems to a lot more noise in your candidate pool that you need to sift through.
Spend time on your job description and advertisement. Be careful how you represent this position. Don’t ask for the moon as it may scare off some really qualified people. Be careful about formal qualifications. Sometimes re-writing the job description is needed if you aren’t attracting candidates.
EMPLOYEE RETENTION:
Mentorship and growth are important and Stanford offers a lot of growth opportunities.
If you find out what drives and motivates people to stay in their position you know whether or not you are going to be able to retain staff: compensation, relationships, stability, work/life balance, vacation, the package, etc. Lots of people are inspired by making a difference in the way people work, money is not the key motivator. You have to find the place you love the most at the University. When staff is ready to go, encourage them to stay within Stanford by having and open door policy.
Autonomy, Mastery – give me all the tools I need to be real good at my job, and Purpose (Stanford wins hands down as there is an incredible purpose to working at Stanford). Figure out a way to tie people’s jobs to the Stanford purpose.
Flexibility.