ANTenna Blog -- Business & E-Business

Apparently IT is booming in Boston. But the advice provided to Boston-area companies on how to deal with the talent wars and the staffing crunch are applicable to all tech departments looking to staff up.

According to Xconomy, IT in Boston is booming. Writes Xconomy: "Human-resources managers at IT firms in the Boston area say they're hiring more people than at any time since the feverish dot-com days. Demand is so great, in fact, that many companies say they're having to pull out all the stops to find qualified job candidates—and the situation is getting worse (or better, depending on which side of the hiring fence you're on)."

Talented workers are getting snapped up more quickly and, of course, it's the larger companies that are doing the snapping. Xconomy quotes Stephen Vinter, engineering director and site manager for Google's Cambridge lab, who says, "I feel like I have complete control over my growth rate." Xconomy writes that the Google lab has expanded from a handful of employees to more than 100 in the last year. Vinter adds, "We're only limited by the number of people we can effectively absorb."

Of course he is. He is with Google, a company with pockets deep enough to create one of the coolest, employee-friendly work environments around. What about the smaller companies with just as serious a need -- if not moreso -- for talented IT staff?

Xconomy has a list of tips for hiring amidst a talent crunch and while some of them can only work in larger companies -- ie hire from within -- many of them make sense for small to midsize companies. Among the advice: Don't look for people to fill specific positions -- hire on a rolling basis; poach unabashedly from other companies; and, my favorite and the one Xconomy calls the most important, promise people work that will energize them and suit their ambitions -- and follow through on the promise.

Need help with that follow through? Check out CIO Insight's Seven Ways to Keep IT Staff Happy. From recognition of a job well done to reducing unplanned work to treating the IT department as a profit center to allowing for flexible work schedules, they are all cheap, easy ways to ensure that even if there is an IT talent crunch going on in your area, your company can weather it because your employees want to stay put.