Ear to the ground, IT sector.

Dictyostelium

Hello everybody, this is my first post, sorry about starting off with a 'help needed' type of post, instead of being a bit more contributory to the forum, but alas I have some difficult decisions to make.

I have been working in Asia (China and Japan) for the last 7 years in Financial IT, as with everybody in Ireland, since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the industry has been pretty much been devastating for all of us, unfortunately for myself, most of my work had been contractual (i.e. never could actually get a direct hire even though my services were in demand) and eventually landed an actual job with a trading firm which went belly up and ultimately left me in a difficult position and I have had to move home.

With EU rules, I am unable to claim any social services, and with the lack of bonuses since the crisis, it’s not like I am rolling it anyway. The rest of my move home I expect to be difficult and I am taking a risk and want to settle in Cork as opposed to Dublin.

I have read the thread Recruitment agencies - name, shame (and praise) I can see from the general tone of the thread , that agencies have monopolized the market for themselves somewhat, in Asia and one of the reasons I am leaving Asia is that jobs posted by agencies are just about impossible to have the required skill for. Even despite I am extremely talented in my field and have been working at management level for the last 3 years , plus ancillary skills with a huge amount of domain knowledge for companies operating in Asia, my resume will get overlooked because it is perceived I won’t fit into the organization (an example of this is requiring near native local language skills for a position that is actually in a 100% English environment)

Well my questions for you guys is, for those of you who have been in a similar situation in Ireland, how long between positions are you having to wait until you get picked up?

Are you noticing a trend in the sector where positions seem increasingly impossible to fulfill with your resume (or anybody’s for that matter), on top of that has there been a market decrease in posted salaries, or senior positions, listed with senior requirements, basically with titles changed and looking for junior people to cheaply cover that position? Qualifications a junior person cannot possibly attain (e.g. requiring a PMI)

This move back to Ireland, has been the biggest hurdle I will have to work through in my career and ultimately I wonder am I doing the wrong thing coming home, a couple of my friends have said I shouldn’t go back. But one of the draws in going back is I am going back to a country with some social protection (though I can’t avail of it instantly) where in Asia, I have always had to make sure jobs overlap since there is very little protection if you have any gap in your career and you immediately end up eating into your savings.

fret_wimp2

Are you noticing a trend in the sector where positions seem increasingly impossible to fulfill with your resume (or anybody’s for that matter),

yes. very much so. i have a varied skillset covering many areas in IT, but currently, unless you have specialized skills in all of the areas on a particular job spec, you wont be considered, and if i did have the skillset, i would be asking for almost double the guideline salary.There is no consideration for a candidate who shows they can be diverse in their skills and would be a valuable investment. You need to hit the ground running or your out.

Everyone knows that its next to impossible to hit the ground running in any decent job.

Companies should also realize that good employees are worth an investment of time and possibly training.

This will hopefully hit a lot of companies big in a few years when they have an exodus of staff they refused to invest in or treat well.

for those of you who have been in a similar situation in Ireland, how long between positions are you having to wait until you get picked up?

There are jobs out there, but mostly contract. my cv is out there, and before i specified that im only interested in permanent positions, i was getting a few calls a week. i know they are not job offers, but a call is a call, so there is work there.

Smoggy

I work in the financial sector and our place is short of devs and is looking abroad to recruit, so it can't be that bad. Also a collegue who is looking for a change has been interviewing to financial dev positions and seems to be interviewing on a weekly basis, they would be only going for full time positions.

Dictyostelium

Thanks for the replies so far lads. Fret, I find it very difficult myself to actually pinpoint how this is actually happening in the industry.
For me, I think its comes from a mixture of Large US corporate culture propagating to other countries and indeed smaller businesses that want to work with large entities.

The nature of IT Admin staff in general having a fierce amount of competition between their own colleagues and working horrendous unpaid overtime to prove that they are indispensible, no trade union representation of any kind and a lack of understanding of professionalism in the IT workforce as a whole.

On top of that, the cut and paste work that goes on in the recruitment industry plus the drive to have people on contract so they become a yearly renewable source of revenue for recruiters. With that I feel to maintain skills that are relevant, you have to constantly reinvest on your own dime and time as opposed to learning relevant skills and a clear growth path in an organization.

Although people who do put in effort to maintain their skillset out of their work environment have my admiration and I will do the same myself, they just don’t have the hands on experience in delivering projects in that new skillset. This year I was doing a huge amount of hiring for positions I wanted to fill in the team I was building, the large majority of young people who had been tailored to work in the positions I had available, had the qualifications but none of the experience.

Smoggy, I can see your points, after the org I was working collapsed the Devs got placed immediately, there is a huge global shortage in almost all kinds of developers in every part of the financial industry and the wages are good, anybody with 3-5 years experience should be earning over 100000 euros. I myself am not a developer so I don’t expect to be hired immediately.

I would like to go into consultancy myself and work at a daily rate, but I have never worked in Ireland or Europe until now, so I would prefer to round out some of my skills in a permanent position before I made the transition.

hmmm

Are you a project manager or a generic "IT manager"? Two a penny at the moment, everyone who has ever worked in IT and is unemployed is applying for those jobs. Hard skills are still in demand and often difficult to source.

The requirements on jobs ads in Ireland are generally aspirational rather than strict requirements and won't stop you being considered if you can fulfil most of the criteria. Bypassing "normal" channels is not a bad route to take if you really want a job (i.e. either by networking or finding out elsewhere how to route your application to the right person).

The nature of IT Admin staff in general having a fierce amount of competition between their own colleagues and working horrendous unpaid overtime to prove that they are indispensible, no trade union representation of any kind and a lack of understanding of professionalism in the IT workforce as a whole.

This has always been the nature of a profession like IT which involves a fast moving environment. It's not likely to change anytime soon and I suggest many of the participants wouldn't like it to change.