Although the tough economic times affect nearly everyone, Diversant CEO Gene Waddy told NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider that employment rates for those in the IT industry are much better than the average. He is trying to grow his $100 million IT staffing firm based in Tinton Falls, said to the be the largest African-American owned firm of its kind in the country.
Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno recently visited Diversant to find out more and highlight the company’s accomplishments. “The lieutenant governor’s visit just capped off a great run for us,” Waddy said. “We started the company in 2005. We made the decision early on to do something very different, very revolutionary in our industry. And that’s called listening to your customers.”
Diversant customers include Fortune 500 companies including Bank of America and Wells Fargo and many and are in New Jersey. Waddy said Diversant has leveraged its diversity status as a certified minority owned business to offer clients more workforce diversity. He said his customers want to hire more minorities, women and returning Iraqi veterans.
Waddy said veterans can be trained successfully in quality assurance and quality testing on software development. “It’s a great entry point into it,” he said. “And we find that our veterans have the discipline, the drive, the tenacity to get through those curriculums and then go on to bigger and better things.”
The IT unemployment rate is only 2 percent, according to Waddy, compared to near double digits overall. “So if you see someone in IT who’s not working, usually it means they’re in a dead end technology or they’re just not marketing themselves properly,” he said. “We take an interest in those people as well and try to help them find jobs.”
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According to Waddy, the 2 percent IT unemployment rate has been stable, even in the economic downturn, which he attributes to the importance of technology in the everyday world. He said as the economy rebounds, IT workers are able to demand more money and be more selective in the positions they decide to fill.
Waddy said it’s a myth that the IT industry is only for young employees. “Actually some of our best candidates for jobs are people who have been in the job in the staffing industry and IT space for 15 years,” he said. “If you’re like a high end business analyst on Wall Street and you’re working in a very high end, high pressure job, that’s not a job for a kid. That’s a job for somebody who’s got some battle scars.”
Waddy said, “The majority of our legacy business does reside in New Jersey with companies like Verizon, Merck, AIG, Goldman Sachs.” While some of those companies have undergone mergers, Waddy explained that acquisitions have been good for IT professionals since it takes a lot of work to integrate two companies.
Nationwide, Waddy said more students need to graduate with the ability to do technical work. “We’re not graduating enough IT talent. We’re not graduating enough STEM talent — that’s science, technology, engineering, mathematics. We’re falling behind,” he said. “I had this discussion with Lt. Gov. Guadagno last week. We need to do a better job supporting public and private partnerships to make sure that our schools are churning out the graduates that are well suited for the jobs that are out there now and in the future.”
Waddy hopes to grow Diversant further. “We want to grow a great company. We don’t know what the future’s going to bring, but right now we’re a $100 million company. I want to be a $500 million company,” he said. “We see this thing big and we’re not going to stop until we get there.”