Jobs in IT
• Trends in the Employment Market
• Finding a Job
Presented by John Barry, President
ITech Consulting Partners
Trends in the Employment Market
According to Careerbuilder’s 2011 Job Forecast:
More employers plan to add full-time, permanent headcount in
2011 compared to 2010 with a continued emphasis on hiring in
technology and revenue-producing fields.
2009
2010
2011
Full-time hiring
14 %
20 %
24 %
Contract/Temporary Hiring
28 %
30 %
34 %
Trends in the Employment Market
Top five functional areas for recruitment :
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Sales – 27 percent
Information Technology – 26 percent
Customer Service – 25 percent
Engineering – 21 percent
Technology – 19 percent
Trends in the Employment Market
Trends in ITech’s New Placements : Comparison from
2007 to 2010
•Market improvement in 2010
•Increase in permanent positions vis-à-vis contracts
•Companies exercised contract-to-hire options
Trends in the Employment Market
25
20
15
Trends in ITech’s
New Placements
10
5
0
2007 2008 2009 2010
Year
Trends in ITech’s Placements
15
Perm
Contract to Hire
Contract
10
Trends in ITech’s
New Placements
5
0
2007
2008
2009
2010
Trends in the Employment Market
Job trends
•
•
•
•
•
Mobile developers, Web designers and software engineers
IS Security
Business Intelligence
ERP (SAP, Oracle Applications, JD Edwards)
Formal SDLC methodologies
Trends in the Employment Market
Niche Jobs / Skills
• Some companies have a preference for experience in their specific
industry (e.g., healthcare, financial, pharmaceutical)
• Industry-based regulations
• FDA/Pharmaceutical: 21 CFR
• Financial: Sarbanes-Oxley (SOx), BASEL
• Healthcare: HIPAA
Trends in the Employment Market
Niche Jobs / Skills
• According to a Dice survey, despite a soft job market and high
unemployment rate, IT organizations still experience difficulty in
finding qualified candidates with hot skills such as Oracle, SAP, serviceoriented architecture (SOA), project management, Microsoft .NET,
virtualization and SharePoint.
• Some jobs require a special combination of skills and/or productrelated certification.
Trends in the Employment Market
Some examples of Skills Set
• Java/J2EE (plus JSF, AJAX, SOAP, Hibernate, Maven, SOA. JDBC)
• Enterprise Security Architect with Certification or experience with
TOGAF, Zachman, FEAF, COBIT, ITIL or Gartner Framework
• JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (E1) Financials with multi-currency
• JDE OneWorld v B7332 or B3317
• Oracle Financials Techno-Functional (plus iPro + JDeveloper)
• SAP (plus module configuration experience)
Trends in the Employment Market
What skills should be upgraded?
•
Latest technologies include new formats like smart phones
(iPhone, Android), tablets (iPad, Kindle) and social media
(Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin) therefore development skills in
these new fields are good to have.
•
According to a 2010 Careerbuilder survey, nearly one-in-ten (9
percent) of employers plan to hire a new employee to focus on
social media. An additional 13 percent plan to add social media
management to a current employee’s responsibilities.
Trends in the Employment Market
What skills should be upgraded?
• Bachelors Degree
• 15% unemployment for no high school diploma
• 5% unemployment for people with Bachelors Degree
• In lieu of a college degree, candidates must have significant
experience in the field
• Certification is desirable only with relevant experience, e.g.,
• PMP
• MCSE
Finding a Job
Using Technology
• Job Boards
• Dice, Monster, Careerbuilder, Hotjobs, Net-temps (IT)
• Indeed, Simplyhired
• Use Google or Yahoo to search jobs or find Niche job boards
• If you are actively looking for a job, complete and update your profile
periodically
• Set up job agents to save time on future searches (matching job list
could be emailed daily or weekly)
Using Technology
More and more recruiters are using social media to post jobs and search
for candidates
• Facebook
• When you set up your profile, be sure to review privacy
settings
• Join groups and fan pages (“like”) that are relevant to job
searching
• Be careful of what you share – current and potential
employers may view your profile
Using Technology
• Linkedin – more of professional networking
•
•
•
•
•
•
“Passive”
Complete your profile
Update your profile periodically
Join pertinent groups (geographic , technical or functional)
Link with other professionals
Research companies or individuals in Linkedin
Using Technology
Be creative in using search terms
• Use Boolean terms to narrow or expand searches
• “Quotes”- link an exact phrase together e.g. “Oracle DBA”
• AND - Links 2 or more terms together e.g. Oracle and DBA
• OR- include either of the terms, e.g. programmer or
developer or software engineer
• Wildcard *- Use * when searching for words with the same
root, e.g.: program* will return documents with program,
programming, programmer, programmed
Networking
• Networking is a continuous process. It pays to build and expand
professional relationships whether you are employed or not.
• Referrals go both ways: if you get a job lead that is not a match,
forward to your colleagues so they can do the same for you.
• Let people know if you are in transition or when you land a new
position.
Networking
Face-to-Face Networking
• Every social situation is a potential networking opportunity:
church, sports, volunteering, community, etc.
• Practice your ‘elevator speech’
• Attend local meetings, e.g., NFP, Danbury Network Group, WNO
• Join Professional organizations: SHRM, SIM, TENG, DACS
• Search online list of networking groups: meetups.com,
landingexpert.com
Networking
Virtual Networking: objective is similar to face-to-face networking
• Instant communication among members
• Wider geographical reach
• Less personal
Examples:
• Yahoogroups / Googlegroups (E.g.
Westchester_Networking_Organization@yahoogroups.com)
• Linkedin
Working with Recruiters
Advantages of working with a staffing agency:
• Some openings are not posted on job boards by companies
• Access to HR or hiring managers (i.e., follow up, feedback)
• One of a few submittals through a recruiter vs. one of hundreds
through a job board
Working with Recruiters
Working with ITech Consulting Partners
• Long-term relationships with clients and past candidates based
on referrals
• ITech has experienced recruiters who have been in the field for a
long time
• Better understanding of the critical qualifications based on
conversations with hiring manager and/or HR contact
• Resume improvement (in terms of format and content)
• Interviewing Tips
• Top Echelon network of recruiters