easyJet CIO pilots IT recruitment take off

EasyJet CIO Trevor Didcock is the latest business technology leader in the UK to state that recruitment is one of the major challenges for the CIO community. Talking exclusively toCIO UK in a profile interview Didcock details his strategic vision to fill easyJet’s IT cabin with star IT talent.

“Our employee brand lags our consumer brand and yet we are a fantastic place to work,” Didcock said. The easyJet leadership team is working on making the employment market aware of easyJet as a leading IT organisation. Didcock has featured in the top 10 of the CIO 100 for the last three years for his impressive track record as a transformative CIO.

Didcocksaid he’s considered an operation at Silicon Roundabout in London, but believes it is more beneficial if the organisation remains together.

“You have the whole of easyJet here and there is a buzz with a great environment where you work with the engineers and the operations staff,” he  said in an interview at the easyJet HQ at Luton Airport, Bedfordshire.

Didcock and his team have streamlined the recruitment process with interview to offer being made within a week, including doing interviews over Skype.

“It’s a two way process too so this way we are giving you a chance to see what it is like,” he said. Unlike other market sectors, Didcock believes easyJet should appeal to IT talent as its culture is closer to that of an IT start up, ties are practically banned, its casual clothing and there are a lot of stand up meeting areas.

“We are also doing a lot of work to structure people’s careers so that we can give people more of a career,” this includes investing in training both in business skills and technology certification from the likes of Microsoft.

“We are trying to make sure we give people the opportunity to train and we are moving a lot of legacy skills into our supplier base so that we can keep our people up to date.”