Cloud computing is the new normal and organizations that don’t understand how to properly design, deploy and manage cloud infrastructure—whether it's a public or private cloud—are at a disadvantage.

If you're in the business of IT recruitment for staffing firms or in-house, it's essential to validate your job candidates' cloud skills so your clients and stakeholders can hire IT talent with the skills needed to leverage the benefits of cloud and keep their business moving forward.

When you accurately validate an IT candidate’s cloud skills, you will:

Reduce Churn and Improve Retention

Churn is a significant issue in the IT industry, and it can profoundly impact an organization’s bottom line. If you take the time to validate mission-critical skills, candidates will be more successful on the job and the likelihood they or your client will look for opportunities elsewhere is reduced.

Increase “Quality Hire” Rates

By administering assessments during the hiring process, you can weed out applicants with great resumes who don't actually have the skills you require—a problem that’s more common than you might expect. This can help you avoid costly mistakes down the road and increase your chances of making a quality hire.

Differentiate Your Hiring Firm in a Saturated Market

If you consistently deliver pools of high-performing cloud experts to your clients and stakeholders, they’re more likely to come to your firm first. A good quality hire rate gives you a significant leg up against the competition and could be the deciding factor when a client chooses between firms.

When you’re looking for the right person to fill an IT role at your company, it can be extremely challenging to find candidates who legitimately have all the skills needed. For example, you might get applications from people who say they’re proficient in Kubernetes, but they may only have a basic understanding and be unable to manage a complex deployment.

So how do you accurately narrow down your applicant pool of IT professionals to legitimately qualified professionals to avoid wasting the time of job candidates and yourself?

With a solid pre-screening process you can create a short list of exceptional potential hires.

Benefits of a Strong Candidate Screening Process

Before your hiring team sits down with IT job candidates, send out a prescreening questionnaire to determine whether a person is right for the role.

When crafted strategically, a candidate screening process can lead to decreased recruitment costs, a selection of better-qualified candidates, and a faster hiring process. While you may experience a decrease in the volume of potential hires, the quality of your candidates will increase exponentially.