Overview

I was recently asked to give an overview of the Irish Recruitment Industry, here is an excerpt;

The Irish Recruitment Industry is feeling the effects of the industries it serves, and many specialist recruitment companies that have been reliant on customers within one of the industries that have been affected by the downturn are also inheriting a weaker revenue stream.  This type of company is certain to fail unless they can realign their modus operandi, or have sufficient cash reserves to weather the storm.  The Recruitment industry is the same as any other, in that the coming months are bound to experience further change.

 

 There has been much speculation in recent times as to what type of acquisitions lay in store and whether or not we are on the brink of seeing another “Marlborough” situation where one of the larger recruitment companies goes under.  The fact that CPL, (Ireland’s biggest in terms of recruitment) issued a profit warning earlier this year lent credence to this in a way.  My personal belief is that some of the bigger recruitment companies will seek to acquire a number of “niche” recruiters or smaller firms that are doing well within industries that are experiencing growth in addition to downsizing their focus on Multinationals and running a mile from capital-intensive Managed Services operations where more of the bigger companies seek to minimise the risk of employing salaried people to run operations that are not strategically important. 

 

The more dynamic recruitment companies are looking further afield and are aligning themselves with customers that are within more favourable periods of growth in industries such as renewable energy and information technology.  Optimism, confidence and opportunism will dictate as to who will be most successful in the coming year.  

Better matching technology

One of the things that consistently comes up when talking about Recruiting is how to improve the matching technology to make a technical recruiter's life easier. It's long understood that Monster is very limited and Recruiters can only source effectively by being string experts. Why shoudl we not expect more? Why aren't more companies trying to do more? Is it a case Monster are too big? Big opportunity for a panel of top technical recruiters, a Dev Team, a Test Team and a Technical Architect to get in a room and get onto it. Match.com is a company trying to push better matching technology but it is limited to the US. There is huge opportunity in the market if someone could take this on

How not to recruit - Part 2

I received an email from an agency recruiter yesterday which was a real peach, and a prime example of how not to recruit. She claimed she knew me, and that we had worked together previously (false - I only do direct sourcing). She sent me a CV for a Developer role (without specifying which role it was). The CV turned out to be that of a Manual Tester..... She also claimed the candidate was really interested in working with a competitor of our company!! That was the best part for me. I wonder how the candidate would feel if he was aware his details were being spammed around in such a useless way.

New Linkedin Group for QA and Test Pro's

There doesn't seem to be too many places these guys hang out on line geared towards the Irish Market - SQA Forums is a total mess so I have created a LI Group for QA and Test Professionals. It's a place to discuss both automated and manual test methodologies with like-minded individuals. The invitation to join the Group is here

Post a job on Linkedin for 1/6th of the price

check out http://opennetworkers.info

linkedin groups

Imagine my surprise to receive a mail from Linkedin saying that the Groups function will no longer be abusable, and members will only be able to have a max of 50 Groups on their profile from now on. This will limit the ability to source from specific tech groups who have unfortunately been over-run by overzealous recruiters for some time now. Real people with real tech skills looking to join a real Group have been turned off by being contacted about jobs from having their details associated with a Group, despite having a profile indicating they are not on the prowl. I run my own group on Linkedin and get multiple requests from dozens of individuals who have no visible connection with the subject of the Group, they simply want another badge for their profile. People with this type of ambition ruin it for the rest of us, and now LI have taken some action.

it's been quite some time since I posted last, I've been really busy working with some start-up technical companies, helping them build their technical teams to be based out of Ireland. There has been a lot of media attention recently regarding the economy and jobs. I read an article recently that stated that only 7% of Irish private sector companies are hiring at the moment. I find this very hard to believe as I have seen nothing but growth but then again I am working with mostly high-tech so it's not as balanced as the findings of the article.

I came across some interesting articles on technical competency interviewing methods but will wait until I have confirmed permission to post from the Creator, but cool stuff nonetheless.

Anyway, here is something cool just released from Microsoft http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/experienceIt/ExperienceIt.aspx

interesting metaphorically as it's like an inverse version of Google Earth, looking at the galaxies