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"

The Industry
"Whilst a tough storm to weather - the recession has had some positive outcomes for the recruitment industry". Says Comrie. "There was a period - leading into the back end of 2009 - where a number of poor practices were impacting negatively upon our industry. Recruitment has no barriers to entry or governing body and buoyant times provide an opportunity for unprofessional operators to establish a presence. The recession hit most businesses hard and it saw a high number of people exit the recruitment industry. With the market returning to pre-recessionary levels of activity - there have been some opportunities to bolster our team with talented consultants looking to join an exciting and progressive brand. As a result we have undergone a period of positive change over the past 12 months which has seen the consulting team in Auckland double in size and a key senior resource added to the Wellington team". Comrie is quick to point out that Potentia had no redundancies during the recession.

The Market
The overall market is in its strongest state for the last two years. To provide some reference here - advertised roles are now sitting 60% above their lowest level (seen in March 2009) and we are continually posting higher revenue numbers by the quarter. Perspective is offered however by acknowledging that we remain 40% below the peak of advertised roles (Quarter two in 2008). The activity is relatively well spread across the organisational spectrum with the most hiring in roles spread around the SDLC - with a particular emphasis on Business Analysis and Project Management (which bodes well for the whole market as other project roles will flow on from here). The two areas seeing least activity are leadership and sales roles - but we're anticipating an uplift here into the new year. Salaries are relatively constant with some slight growth eeked out for more senior specialist positions and a class of exceptional outliers being established.

Comrie concludes by stating "We're looking forward to consolidating our position in the industry through some additional service enhancements next year - in line with our continuous improvement value. With the market reaching the acute levels of candidate shortage that we saw through the mid noughties we're anticipating increased levels of contracting requirements hitting the market - which we've geared up for.