Information Technology

Megan Torrance, president and CEO of TorranceLearning, is our latest profile in the Hired! series.  TorranceLearning designs and develops custom training for clients that want to use the internet to deliver their training.  It builds interactive and engaging self-paced training that can be accessed anytime via the intranet or internet.  This enables clients to teach a large number of people who are dispersed geographically or who don’t all need the training at the same time.

Q. What types of positions have you filled within last year?
A. We’ve filled 2 Elearning Course Developer positions this year, bringing our staff up to 8 (one is currently on sabbatical/leave). Elearning Course Developers take a detailed outline for a course (created by an Instructional Designer) and give it the graphics, sound, and interactivity that make it engaging for the learner.

Q. What types of skills required of these positions?
E-learning Course Developers need a combination of creative graphic design and deep attention to technical details.  We use a variety of software packages as a course makes its way through the design and development processes.  Both a working knowledge of the major design software packages and an ability to learn new ones quickly are required of this role.

Our team culture and values are very important to us – attitude & personality as important as technical skills.  We want to hire people who are fun, flexible, hard-working, generous and willing to learn.

Q. What's the top thing you look for in a new hire?
A. We look for some basic skills that demonstrate an aptitude for the job.  The actual software packages or actual work experience/background are less important than the demonstrated ability to pick up the concepts and do the work.  We use some pretty specialized software, and its unlikely to find someone who’s used it before – we’re prepared to train the right job candidate on the specific tools and processes we use.

Q. What's one thing that HR managers look for in a new hire that job seekers should focus on in interviews, resumes, etc.?

Be eager, but not desperate.  I would much rather hire someone who’s eager, interested, prompt, curious, and wants to make sure the job’s as good a fit for him or her as it is for us.  It’s quietly likely that, if someone’s desperate, they’ll take any available job just to have one – regardless of the actual interest in doing the work, finding a good fit, or learning something in the process.  I’ve spoken with candidates who were over-eager, almost to the point of stalking, and that’s a real turn-off.

Michael J. Zwick, president of Assets International, LLC, is our latest "Hired!" profile.  Assets International, based in Southfield, is a licensed private investigation agency that specializes in locating missing heirs and others who do not know that they are the beneficiaries of assets that we locate.

Q. What types of positions have you filled within last year?

A. We created and filled four new positions, an associate in-house attorney, a vice-president of business development and two research analysts. We also hired two new secretaries, one to replace an employee whom we terminated and another assume the role of someone whom we promoted within our company to office manager. We also hired a new research analyst to replace someone whom we terminated.

Q. What types of skills required of these positions?

A. The attorney position required both a legal background and some management experience. The business development position required great organization and people skills. The research analyst
positions required prior experience in database searches and genealogy research. The secretary positions required basic knowledge of Microsoft Office software and people skills.

Q. What's the top thing you look for in a new hire?

A. In most cases, more than practical experience, we look for people who can work well with others and who have dealt with similar people or situations as they will when working for us. For example, we
have two people whose work is almost exclusively obtaining information from government bodies and large corporations and other for-profit entities. One of those people came to us from being a legal secretary at Chrysler while the other worked an office job in the United States Air Force. We hired them for their current positions because they had proven their ability to succeed in the mazes of bureaucracy.

Q. What's one thing that HR managers look for in a new hire that job seekers should
focus on in interviews, resumes, etc.?

A. Most HR managers and hiring officers get hundreds if not thousands of resumes for each position they are filling. Since the skills and experience that the better applicants have may not be so distinguishable, we look for those who will get our attention without being over the line about it.
 

Like many small businesses in Michigan, MicroMax is completely self-funded, largely out of a desire to maintain control. Rachel McCormack, MicroMax's president, also notes the difficulty in collateralizing receivables for services businesses. Service businesses typically have few sellable assets, and banks are concerned that customer service fee revenue will dry up, leaving them nothing to collect if the loan goes south.

Kevin Phillips, founder of LTI-IT, believes in setting a point on the horizon and then sailing for it (download 7 minute iPod compatible video, 34MB). He began his journey 12 years ago as an internal IT technician for LimnoTech, the parent of LTI-IT. After 3 years, he had succeeded in getting LimnoTech's network to a very high level of performance, and he was ready to leave.

LimnoTech countered with an offer to let him start a division. Five years ago, they made the decision to start spinning that division out to a separate company. In the next 5 years, he would like the company to go national. He believes their training advantage will enable this move, and they already have projects in Washington, D.C., and Tijuana, Mexico.