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Cross-border scheme to aid small firms

A cross-border programme has been launched to boost small businesses in Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Republic.

IT contractor pay rises on the horizon

According to www.contractoruk.com new research from a UK computer jobs agency confirms what many IT contractors have suspected since the onset of the downturn – that freelancers have been hit the hardest.

ReThink Recruitment says 98% of IT contractors saw their rates cut or frozen in 2009, compared with 71% of IT staff who suffered the same fate with their salaries.

And although more contract IT jobs are emerging, the agency said, such roles are unlikely to compensate the pay dip, as 83 per cent of clients plan to keep rates steady.

Permanent IT staff appear better placed, given that the proportion of clients set to freeze wages in the IT department is slightly less, at around more than half of respondents.

But following two years of cuts in IT rates and salaries, pressure on end-users to peg back pay is beginning to abate, said ReThink director Michael Bennett.

According to the firm, although IT directors will keep a tight rein on pay, only five per cent of IT contractors will see their hourly rates downgraded again in 2010.

The outlook signals a significant improvement since 2009, when one in four IT departments cut the pay of contractors, in some instances by as much as 25 per cent.

“Contractors are more vulnerable to market fluctuations, so it’s no surprise they have been hardest hit by the recession,” Mr Bennett said.

“That said, with the job market now tightening rates for contractors should rise ahead of pay increases for permanent staff.”

However, any pay increases for IT staff, contractor or perm, will be “subdued,” as the computer jobs market has only just finished bottoming out.

Those measured pay rises are most likely to go to candidates skilled in C#,.Net, Java and LINUX, as demand for such expertise has leapt over the last quarter, the agency said.

“Good quality candidates with the right skills are already difficult to find,” Bennett reflected. “As IT departments begin hiring again they will increasingly have to poach personnel from rival organisations, which will fuel rapid pay rises.”

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IT Salaries in Northern Ireland

There is alot of mystery that surrounds the issue of salaries.  People like to play their cards close to their chest in relation to their salary especially in Northern Ireland.  Sometimes Chinese whispers can inflate the real figures creating a very different perception in the market place. This is something which has become apparent in my first few weeks as IT Business Manager with CPL IT Northern Ireland.  Last week I was out with a number of clients who both asked for my opinion on salaries for their sector throughout NI. One commented that their organisation had previously been mentioned as having higher than average basic salaries however upon further inspection this was quite clearly not the case.  There are mixed opinions out there.  In my mind the majority of companies are focused on offering competitive salaries with most staying within the ‘accepted’ range.  You will of course always get those companies who want to pay lower however with skills such as Java and .Net not overly abundant in the market place a fair salary is a pre requisite.  Often its not solely the salary which is important but the technologies utilised, benefits offered, team, work/life balance and flexibility of the organisation.
What is your opinion of salaries for Software Engineers in Northern Ireland? Is salary still the primary motivator or are candidates interested in other things as well?

Unemployed and looking for work? You're not alone.

With Ireland in the grips of a recession there are many people out of work, whether it's through redundancy or contracts not being renewed, or a graduate just finished college. One thing is for sure, if you're out of work, you're not alone. Working in recruitment I'm faced with it every day but I'm also surrounded by it in my personal life. And what I see is embarrassment, anger, resentment , desperation and fear, in no particular order. At this difficult time, the most important thing is attitude. As hard as it is, staying positive is critical to getting back into the workforce (or entering it for the first time). I've seen candidates turn down opportunities to interview because they can't face any more rejection - unfortunately, rejection is usually part of the job hunt, boom time or recession time. If you're not willing to even try, it's going to be a long wait. Below are a my top 10 tips and hints for job hunting. These are quite general and obviously will vary depending on sector and industry but hopefully they will be of some benefit.

1. Prepare yourself for a long wait: companies tend to be much slower in their recruitment process during recessionary times so the typical hiring process can take a few months now instead of a few weeks, so even if you start interviewing straight away, you may be waiting a few months to secure a new job. Prepare yourself mentally for a wait of a few months and it will help you to stay positive.
2. Keep as much stucture to your day as possible: try and build a routine into your day. Often I hear how unemployed people feel one day blends into another, losing track of time and days and feeling like they are in an endless cycle. If you keep a routine to your day, you are helping to avoid this, and will also find it easier when you are going back to work, early mornings won't be such a shock!
3. Look into taking up a new activity that will add to your CV, use your spare time productively. Whether it's learning to drive, improving your computer skills or doing a course related to your career. Even if you feel you aren't getting anywhere fast with your job hunt, you will feel the achievement of learning something new.
4. If you don't drive, try to learn. This is a great skill to have, but it may also broaden your employment opportunities. You can look at new locations to work in and depending on the industry, it will allow you to work in shift based positions. The more you can do to widen your opportunities, the better.
5. Make sure your CV and Cover Letter are top notch. Most recruitment agencies will be happy to help you with this and there are also paid services out there, where they will write your CV and ensure it is formatted correctly.
6. Register and meet with recruitment agencies. Find out who are the most relevant recruiters in your field, and try to meet with them. They are more likely to remember you in future and call you about jobs if they have spent some time getting to know you and find out what you are interested in.
7. Think outside the box! A lot of companies aren't advertising on jobs boards anymore whether as a result of costs or otherwise. Relying on a jobs board to find a job just isn't going to cut it. Again contact agencies to find out who is recruiting or go directly to companies and find out if they are hiring.
8. Make sure you keep a list of the companies that you are applying to: companies tend not to be impressed if they start receiving your CV every day for the same job, or worse, for extremely different jobs. Apply for the jobs that match your skillset the most and keep track of it.
9. Follow Up: If you don't hear back after a few days, whether its a company or an agency, get in touch with them. Find out if they received your CV and what stage they are at with the recruitment process. Don't hound the recruiter but do give them a gentle reminder about you!
10. Stay Positive: Dont be embarrassed about being out of work, you are not alone. If you know you are doing everything you can be to find work, then keep your chin up. When meeting with recruiters and when interviewing, a positive attitude will shine through - and can't really be faked - so stay positive all along.

Job Opportunities in Krakow!

With the dynamic recruitment market over the past 18 months we have been hearing more and more about recruitment and job opportunities in Eastern Europe.  One of the cities where major investment has taken place is Krakow (or Cracow) in Poland.  Krakow is one of the largest and oldest cities in Poland and a popular tourist destination.  The city dates back to the 7th century and has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural and artistic life, and is currently one of Poland’s most important economic centres.   Recently a number of Shared Service and IT Centres have established a presence here, these include:  CAP Gemini, PWC Polska, IFS Poland, Airline Accounting Centre (Lufthansa Group), IBM BTO Business Consulting Services, Centrum Finansowe Tesco, Electrolux, Shell, Google, Motorola and Delphi Polska.  These multinational companies offer a variety of opportunities including:  technical support, software development, customer service, accountants, teamleaders, account administrators with a large proportion of the roles requiring multilingual candidates.  Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish and German to name a few.
 
Krakow offers an excellent opportunity to gain both work and life experience, it is a thriving city with an active social scene and for jobseekers with a second language offers career opportunities that may not be possible in their home country. 
 
Lets take an example;  a Dutch speaking candidate with a financial qualification and maybe 3 months work experience.  In Krakow, they could be offered a role of Accounting Assistant with one of the worlds leading IT companies.  The role involves processing transactions and supporting experienced accounting professionals as well as providing input into improving processes and procedures.  This type of position is just a starting point and with time it is possible to progress and develop their career within this company either locally or internationally.
 
But aren’t salaries in Eastern Europe at a much lower level to the rest of Europe?  Yes that is true.  HOWEVER cost of living is a lot lower.  Lets look at the above example; for this role you would be looking at an average salary of 5000pln before tax, sharing a 2 bed apartment in Krakow city centre would cost approximately 700 pln, so for your rent you are paying approx 15% of your monthly salary.  For a similar job in Dublin you would maybe be looking at a salary of €1800 per month and for a similar apartment €600 per month.  In this case you are paying 30% of your monthly salary.  As you can see your disposable income is proportionate to the expense of living in a city so take a second look when you are evaluating a job!
 
For more info contact Anne on 0035316146084 or anne.lavelle@cpl.ie

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Engineering Recruitment in the West

Noticing a lot of engineering contract opportunities in the West of Ireland - exceeding the perm engineering roles at the moment!

Nordic recruitment

In Ireland at the moment there is an enormous demand on Nordic languages (Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish); one of the main reasons for this I find is because of the Nordic countries having a great public service in place.

Google has been a busy bee. . . .

Google Buzz has just been launched and is fast becoming the hot topic on a lot of the social media networks. Having become acquainted with it myself this week; I have to say it is quite addictive.

It was designed as a social networking tool that would be integrated with all the other Google services – email, chat, reader, picasa and well as the main blogging and photo sharing sites.

Using Google Buzz through your Gmail is easy and efficient – just remember to adjust your privacy settings. Google have made the default security settings as private – this basically means all your Gmail contacts can see all your contacts and if you’re using an iPhone it will also show your current location using Google Maps. There is logic behind this though - Google did this - to "bootstrap" the network by generating links automatically, rather than requiring people to manually add links. The reason is that they wanted to quickly build a large social network to compete with sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc

If you look at the current stats for social network use you’ll see why Google wants to increase their Google Buzz network as quickly and efficiently as possible – LinkedIn just reached 60 million users, Facebook has 200 million and Twitter predicts 18 million by the end of this year. Twitter in particular is struggling with the huge increase in numbers, which you’ll know if you’re a user with their message “Twitter is over capacity. Too many tweets. We'll try to lighten the load and have things back to normal soon.”

Some people have raised privacy concerns about Google Buzz over the default privacy settings, where 'friend' links are automatically created from your Gmail and Reader contact lists - and these links are then exposed to the public. Fortunately some good advice is available online to quickly remedy this problem, both from Google itself and from some industry experts. Some don’t necessarily see the privacy settings as all that bad and have made some good arguments as to why this is the case; I think it’s good to read both sides of the argument.

From my own point of view, I’m enjoying using it - although it’s still only a week old I have to say so far so good. It's easy to use, has a good interface, and having it closely linked with Gmail means I tend to use it more often as a result! I’d be interested to hear other people’s thoughts on Google Buzz?