You’ve got a whole lot of tech people who’ve been working for 10 years looking to advance into management.

You’ve got a whole lot of IT management people wanting to move on from their current role even if just for a change of environment. A lot of these will already have 10 years or more management experience.

This makes for a crowded market for management roles while advanced or technical specialist roles are very hard to fill.

I spoke to an IT Manager last week who had been in management roles for the last 25 years or so. I was probing him as to how he advanced through his career (he’s now the IT Manager of a manufacturing business).

His story was a common one… he was head hunted into IT management roles because of his specialist knowledge in ERP systems which he picked up from the ERP consulting role he did before his management roles. Now replace ‘ERP systems’ for any specialist technology and I think you’ll see the point.

Employers can’t interview all applicants for IT management positions. They need a way to filter those CV’s. Typically they’ll do it either by looking for similar industry experience or similar technology experience.

If they’re doing an ERP upgrade and you’ve had experience with the ERP they’re moving too.. you’ll hit the top of the CV pile.

Hiring this way doesn’t mean they’ll get the best manager.

It also doesn’t mean they’ll get the best cultural fit for the company.

All it means is they’ll get the best of those applicants that had similar technical or industry experience.

So if you’re searching for an IT Manager role.. be smart about it and approach companies where you have industry experience or specialist tech knowledge that they need.

Also consider recording a video of yourself and sending that with your CV so they can see how you present and what your communication style is like. Speak to your management values and philosophy so they have something more than just your CV to judge you on.

For many years I’ve been doing recorded video interviews of my candidates and sending them to clients along with their CV and the difference for all parties in reducing time to hire and getting a better fit has been remarkable.

Check out our job board for IT Management and Senior roles available.