2. Business skills are critical today. Should I poach job candidates from the business?

According to a recent Robert Half Technology survey, 41 percent of CIOs place a greater emphasis on business fundamentals when evaluating candidates than they did five years ago. So it only makes sense that the CIO recruit IT staffers from the business.

If only it were that simple.

Consider the issue of rotation programs. Forrester recently examined IT-business rotation from three angles: rotating employees through different jobs within IT, moving businesspeople into IT and moving IT employees into the business. A survey of 281 IT leaders revealed that they were quite good at job rotation within IT. However, only 12 percent of respondents were sending IT employees to the business, and just 7 percent were bringing business workers into IT.

Rotation programs "require CIOs to make a credible case from two angles", says Forrester's Bright. They have to prove that if IT workers go to the business, there will be a measurable improvement in IT performance; they also must show that a businessperson who spends time in IT will bring value back to the business. The latter is the harder argument to make — impossible even, in organizations where IT isn't valued, Bright says.

Nonetheless, it's good practice to create career development paths that cross back and forth between IT and the business. "Some companies have internship programs that include a rotation into the business," says Diane Berry, managing vice president of Gartner's human capital management content development group. Permanent job transfers from the business to IT can be a by-product of successful rotation programs. "A businessperson spends some time in IT, sees value in the role and wants to stay," says Bright.

Blatantly poaching employees from other departments is risky business. If you steal high performers, you're not exactly setting yourself up for a good partnership. If you do plan to recruit from the business, try hiring those who have expressed an interest in switching to an IT career.

"The argument there is that the other department within your company would lose the employee anyway, so it is preferable to lose him or her to an internal department," says Katherine Spencer Lee, executive director for Robert Half Technology. Just make sure you consult with managers from the affected departments before making a move.

Of course, not everyone working on the business side of the house will make a valuable addition to IT. "It depends on what part of the business they come from and what role they played," says Larry Bonfante, CIO of the US Tennis Association. "It helps if they have some process discipline or at least an appreciation of how technology works."

The symbiotic give-and-take of workers between IT and the business — "talent alignment", Bright calls it — is the ideal state. To achieve it, though, takes time. Behenna of Harvey Nash is working toward that by "demonstrating where joint ventures result in joint benefits: joint projects, initiatives, objectives, strategy. Don't ask. Give. Once you've gained acceptance as enablers, the job is half done."