Applying a Core Competence Model on Swedish Job Advertisements for IT Project Managers

Recruitments of IT project managers are costly and time-consuming, which makes it important to handle them effectively. IT project managers' key function in IT projects conveys that the prerequisites in such job ads become extensive and hard to satisfy because of overloaded descriptions. The organization's core competence (henceforth CC) requirements need to be decisive and explicitly expressed. Hence, each recruitment process should involve the defining of what the CC qualifications are. Advertisements were collected (2010-2013) and a CC lens was tested for assessment of CC criteria in order to get an indication of its value. The study's practical implication is an added understanding of the importance to discern what core competence/-s a specific project requires and furthermore to match those with the job requirements during the recruitment process. The implication for research is an inspiration for further development of methods for determining core competence criteria for recruiting IT-project managers.