Looking back on 2011

2011 was a strong growth year for the technology job market. The overall volume of roles across the market expanded by 5% quarter-on-quarter until Q4 (calendar) when we saw some flattening in demand, although no slowing in the pace of activity - hirers still felt the heightened pulse of the market.

As we saw during the market recovery, the roles that continued to provide challenges through shortages were those intrinsic to software and product development; 
* Developers
* Business Analysts
* Project Managers
* Testers

Outside of general churn there was relatively flat demand within roles that fell into:
* Telecommunications (outside of some niche roles driven by 2degrees' phenomenal growth)
* Infrastructure and networking (servers, desktops etc)
* Mid-senior level management

The unwillingness of candidates to put their hands up to move from the security of their existing jobs onto these roles provided a challenge, with our advertising response (to placement) down 7.5% from 2010.


What to expect in 2012

You'll probably not spill your coffee to hear that we suspect that the market will provide exacerbated hiring challenges this year. Why? The people market is like any other – it’s governed by the laws of supply and demand:

Demand:
* Government has indicated a willingness to invest more in IT. There are already 4 projects underway in Wellington with a 7 figure development budget attached. This is in addition to the water and feed work that has kept the capital running near capacity
* Enterprise has sat on its thumbs for too long - they are keen to explore moving more applications to the Cloud and otherwise their ageing infrastructure desperately needs a refresh. 
* Telcos have had a few tough years but Telecom's separation should produce focus and growth, Telstra is bullish, Vodafone needs a game changer and 2Degrees is running at about 900 degrees. 
* SMBs have seen some leans times after weathering the storm in 2009/2010 so well and this area may be static (but due to scope doesn’t have the large scale market impact that projects of 25+ people does and thus becomes less material).
* Add into this the international stage recovering - UK jobs up by 25% this year on previous and the USA seeing growth and the lowest level of unemployment in 3 years. Whilst positive news for the global economy this bodes negatively for NZ due to our mobile and attractively skilled workforce heading once more offshore.

Supply
I'm going to beat the same drum I'm afraid folks. As you'll know from my previous installments, New Zealand is approaching a chronic talent shortfall due to dwindling numbers of local IT graduates (down 45% in 5 years with demand increasing by 10%). Immigration is our other key market stoker and with the observed increase in demand from the UK and USA (Australia, India, China etc) our 'share' of people relocating globally will become contracted as people will choose these other markets over ours.

The manifestation of this current shortfall is the issue with recruiting for people at an intermediate level; consider this in conjunction with Kiwi's travel propensity and you can foresee the hole in supply for senior level candidates further down the path.

So what skills will this heating market need?
Outside of increased demand for the usual applications development crowd (Java and .Net) we predict a marked increase in demand for mobile (android and iPhone) apps developers, Cloud applications specialists and the ERP space.

What can you do about this?
I see three different solutions open to us all - ordered in timeframe to usefulness;

1. Get better at recruiting people from offshore - this is an immediate solution but requires a leap of faith in many instances. Mitigate your risk by implementing a 90 day trial in the contract (contact us for a free example written by NZ's top employment lawyer).
2. Where possible take people from the business into IT roles (the classic examples being SME's for application implementations and users becoming testers). More lateral thinking is required for making a mechanic a desktop support guy but consider the break fix similarities...
3. Tell your siblings, kids, nieces/nephews, friends’ kids, postie, barrista (anyone youngish and smartish) etc about the wonderful opportunities available in the ICT market and encourage them to train or retrain in this area!

Or you could get better at hiring contractors...

Tune in next month for how to create a useful and relevant mobile (contractor) workforce.
 

‘Tis the season of giving and we are well into the swing of the festive season here at Potentia!

In lieu of corporate gifts, this year we have instead donated to a cause near to our hearts, the RSPCA. We’re a team of animal lovers here at Potentia and the RSPCA are incredibly worthy recipients of our support.

Check out their December ‘Animals Advocate’ newsletter here: http://rnzspca.org.nz/news/animals-advocate-newsletter

Potentia's 2011 Year in Review report is out now, hot off the press!

In this report, we’ll focus first on organisations hiring activity in 2011, then on the talent pool, and lastly make some predictions for the coming year.

We hope you find it relevant and useful and we welcome any feedback or comments you're keen to share. 

To download the full report click here:
 

Josh has published another blog, this time on self awareness and understanding how you are (behaviour, communication style, reactionary tendencies etc) and its impact upon others.

Click through to read more as Josh discusses what he believes to be one of the critical success factors in your career.

We are excited to share that we are now in our new offices!

Read on to find out more and stop in and see us next time you're in the city!
 

We were proud and honoured to be presented with the SARA Legend Award at the Seek Annual Recruitment Awards (SARAs) last week.  This is the first time the award has been bestowed to the IT Category.

To find out more about the awards keep reading...

The Potentia team successfully completed the award winning Jolt Challenge this month, a 9 week course which focuses on enhancing your Self Intelligence to create positive, practical and permanent change in all areas of your life through exploration of your thoughts, emotions, behaviours and capabilities. 

To find out about our experience on the Jolt Challenge keep reading.

A few weeks ago we introduced the Interview Influence course to you. We've had lots of interest from people who are keen to participate but after more information before they commit. As a result, I'm pleased to invite you to an Interview Influence Introductory Evening with Daniel Batten - job-interview specialist, the Principal at Beyond The Ceiling, and your host for the 2-day Interview Influence course.

If you want job offers, not "job-interview experience" then you'll want to make sure you attend this event!

How often have you read a JD, certain that you have all the skills and experience required, only to bomb at interview? Think that you have all the competence in the world only to deliver irrelevant nonsense at the meeting? Or maybe a lack of confidence in your interview ability held you back from even applying for the role?

If you've ever being in any of these situations, Potentia's Interview Influence course is for you!

The next Interview Influence course runs Saturday 27th & Sunday 28th August, in Auckland.  Read on for more information.

Think you’re not getting paid what you’re worth? Feel like it’s time to move on and realize your immense value? Looked around and wondered why your peers seem to have more…?

Here I’ll discuss concepts around pay and valuing yourself, and if you discover you’re underpaid, what to do about it! To ensure balance, read on to understand the risks around being paid too much.

We’re winners! It was second time lucky at the 2011 New Zealand CIO Awards on Monday night, where we were named winners of the Excellence in IT Recruitment Award.

Welcome to our 3rd annual Inside ICT Survey. 

Since 2009 we have captured organisations' predictions and experiences in business and talent, refining the approach to focus on technology vendors.  The results have uncovered some fascinating perspectives and we're confident you will discover the findings to be insightful and surprising.

So you’ve been looking at the boss and thinking to yourself “I could do a better job” (sometimes you may even be thinking a chant leader from the Hitler youth would be an improvement…), and feel it’s about time to take that step up? Read on my friend, hopefully this article will assist your quest.

Potentia has been announced as one of 3 finalists in the 2011 "Excellence in IT Recruitment" awards.

A recent Computerworld article quoting the CEO of a New Zealand IT company saying senior .Net developers could earn up to $130,000-$140,000 per year created a lot of online discussion about the truth in this.  As a follow up, Josh was approached to offer expert opinion on how realistic this figure is. 

Potentia is proud to support table tennis player John Cordue, who will represent New Zealand at the upcoming Oceania Cup in Adelaide in July.

Do you have an accurate handle on why your last 5 staff left? Without knowing you, I can guess why and suggest some quick remedies, but more on that later. Even if you conduct exit interviews you may not gain complete transparency, as the number one reason for attrition is likely to be you! If you say that people are your most important asset and you have a great product or service then you may benefit from some simple (and some not so simple) suggestions below.

A crew from Potentia will be travelling to London in March to attend the Opportunities in New Zealand Expo being held in West London on 26th and 27th March 2011. We will be in contact with at least 800 IT professionals over the course of the weekend who are looking to work in New Zealand.

To register your interest in being represented in London and swimming in a large candidate pool give us a call now!

For more information on the expo go to http://www.expo-newzealand.com/uk.aspx

2011 is going to see the arrival of the most significant phenomena to affect the workforce since Henry Ford decided that labour specialisation was the key: the retiring of the baby boomers.

“Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not 'the market', or technology, or competition, or their products. It is one thing above all others; the ability to get, and keep, enough of the right people''. This is a quote from Jim Collins' text - Good to Great - Why some companies make the leap and others don't. 
 

Potentia is elated to announce that they have been successful in winning the coveted Seek Annual Recruitment Award (Sara) for 2010.

"This is an awesome achievement" says Potentia's MD Josh Comrie. "Whilst in its own right a significant accomplishment, we're blessed to have won it for the third year in a row - the only IT Recruiter to have ever done this. The team was actually quite apprehensive before the evening" says Comrie. "Whilst there was an air of quiet confidence leading into the event and we'd worked hard to get there, our market is competitive in every way so we weren't certain which way it would go. I was excited for our new team members, but its particularly gratifying to have the long-standing consultants gain this validation and share the success"

I’m an Aucklander who has to travel into the city everyday for work. As I need a car to attend meetings around our wonderfully connected city I keep a carpark in the central city (I'd rather not btw - its painfully expensive!). This involves driving through numerous streets that have been massaged into allowing our version of mass-transit – The Bus - to have a dedicated space – The Bus Lane. I’m keen to point out early (before you switch off) that I’m not going to whine about this phenomenon – it’s the only solution to our forefathers lack of transport foresight; anyone who is waving the rail flag needs to take us to a city that has made a rail retrofit work. Or shot. For a modern sprawling city its eye-wateringly expensive to install and run and is contained to very small corridors. Stepping off my soap-box my parting comment is that we are destined to co-exist on our roads and it needs to work for all motorised vehicles. Until the oil runs out and we can use them for open-air bowling lanes.

I’ve just returned from a 3 week jaunt in South America – Chile and Argentina. Our base and the core portion of the holiday was spent with our good friends Hamish and Sarah in Santiago (thanks again guys!). Hamish has set up and runs a loyalty business in Chile and as a result is enjoying what all successful people in that part of the world do – having a live-in maid.

Hi-fi Branding

I love hi-fi (not those all-in-one music systems, but rather your separate components with chrome feet and massive cables). I have been a big fan of it since I purchased my first system as a university student. I still remember it; a Pioneer A 337 Amplifier and a Philips CD502 CD player. Whilst that system has been phased out (regrettably I traded in the Amp about 15 years later - it was a cracker, I should've kept it!) I have been hooked on buying and trading various components ever since.
 

We're excited and rapt to be able to announce that we have been selected as a finalist in the 2010 Excellence in IT Recruitment Awards. As one of four finalists (2 local and 2 global) the competition is bound to be hot, but with our unique value-adds and continued success in somewhat inclement conditions we are hopeful of a positive outcome.

During April 2010 Potentia undertook our annual survey into the ICT Market – Potentia: Inside ICT. The objective of the survey was to discover what was happening across the technology vendor market and queried areas such as growth and change, staff acquisition and redundancies, salaries and internal morale. The survey uncovered some fascinating intel, and we’re confident you will discover the findings to be insightful and perhaps even surprising.

This document seeks to firstly outline the parameters of the survey before discussing the similarities and differences between Wellington and Auckland. In conclusion we seek to determine the possible reasons for the differences and what we might draw from them.

Over 350 technology business leaders were polled across Auckland and Wellington during May 2010 to glean these results. Covering aspects such as growth and change, staff acquisition and redundancies, salaries and internal morale, the survey uncovered some fascinating perspectives. This report draws the differences and some conclusions between the two centres.  

Potentia contributes to success of hi tech awards finalists... http://reseller.co.nz/reseller.nsf/news/nz-hi-tech-awards-finalists-announced - Potentia has delivered to multiple assignments with all of these listed finalists!

Potentia has moved their Auckland head office into a brand newly renovated presence on Shortland Street. At 3-13 Shortland Street in the Old South British Building.......

For the second year running, Potentia has taken home the trophy for NZ’s favourite IT recruiter in the Seek Annual Recruitment Awards (SARA’s).

Wellington's information technology sector is thriving despite the recession, according to a survey by recruitment firm Potentia that has surprised some other market watchers.

Consumer confidence has rebounded, though it is seen as relief at disaster averted and not a sense that happy days are here again.

'One year later. Light-years ahead' reads the banner above that a sharp-eyed photographer spotted at San Francisco's Moscone Centre in readiness for the World Wide Developers' Conference. It takes place there next week, Monday 8th June (our Tuesday).

Amidst rising redundancies in recent months, despite a dramatic increase in the number of job seekers in the market, recruitment industry observers report that many employers are finding it more difficult to find high quality applicants to fill vacant roles.

Business confidence showed a marked improvement in April. A net 15 percent of respondents now expect a deterioration in business conditions over the year ahead, a significant improvement on the net 39 percent in March. This turnaround is the largest monthly improvement since December 2000.

New Zealand computer and communication equipment buyers have not been put off by the recession, with new figures showing a 3 per cent rise in ICT sales during the 2008 financial year.

Financial indicators up for local software vendor
Jade Group has announced operating revenue up 31% for the year ended December 31 on gross revenue of $50.8 million, compared with $42 million in 2007.
 

Kiwi software company Right Hemisphere has followed on from a successful 2008 by picking up a lucrative contract with the world’s largest supplier of commercial aircraft parts, Spirit Aerosystems.

In the second half of 2008 the world's financial systems all but collapsed, fueling widespread predictions of the most dire economic crisis in eighty years. Orthodox thinking anticipated retrenchment, reduced investment, lowered consumption and widespread hardship. If you accepted the conventional wisdom you'd agree this was certainly not a good time to launch a new enterprise. Rather, a time to wrap your dream carefully against breakage and lay it in mothballs on the shelf.

ASB Bank has set aside $1 billion for low-interest loans to small and medium businesses and farmers to help them save and create jobs.

SAN FRANCISCO - Intel Corp. plans to spend $7 billion (NZ$13.45bn) upgrading its US factories over the next two years, a sign that the recession hasn't extinguished chip makers' lust for cutting-edge equipment.

Potentia has been recognised as NZ’s favourite ICT recruiter through winning the Seek Annual Recruitment Awards (SARA’s).

In September 2008 Potentia opened their 2nd office - in the country's capital: Wellington.

The recent fast50 awards announced that Potentia featured again in the top 20 - taking spot #20. To the delight of the Auckland consulting team present, for the second year running Potentia featured in the top half of the register. "We're absolutely stoked to be recognised again" says Josh Comrie. "It was tough competition again this year and some great businesses have been recognised - including a number of our clients. Funnily enough though - had we entered with last years numbers this year, we actually would have won!"

Auckland IT Recruitment Company Comes Up Trumps at Fast 50

Every now and then you encounter someone who demonstrates excellence on the job.

There are thousands upon thousands of job and business choices out in the world.