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Technical recruiters looking to step up their game will want to be sure to read Rothwell’s Invaluable Knowledge: Securing Your Company’s Technical Expertise, a guide to talent management strategies. Technical professionals in the recruitment industry will find the strategies useful for the day-to-day operations of a competitive IT staffing firm. According to Rothwell, the technical knowledge areas involve focus on very specific technical skill sets, so replacing a previously held role — a scenario technical recruiters routinely encounter — can present a challenge. He identifies this phenomenon as the need for “invaluable knowledge”, and discusses how to retain, train for, and transfer this type of invaluable knowledge so that it doesn’t get lost as IT role responsibilities change hands.

The specialist in technical skills is part of the talent cycle, starting with the hiring process, through the training experience, and finally, to the execution of the technical role requirements. The current technical professional filling a given role should fill the position with the expectation that the position will eventually be transferred to someone else, and document and communicate elements of the role accordingly. That way, a technical candidate who takes over when the prior role-holder moves up the career ladder will have a better. Doing so involves developing practical repeatable processes. As any recruiter in a technical staffing agency knows, the existence of repeatable processes is a key factor in successful transfer of responsibility. Talent strategy plays a central role in an IT staffing firms’ approach to technical recruiting, so recruitment specialists will find this book’s advice to be valuable knowledge. Filling IT jobs can have its complexities, and this book helps simplify them. Boston recruiters working in technical staffing companies can take note — as can technical recruiters in any territory.