Welcome to our end-of-Q2 update and a review of how 2022 has been shaping up. We hope you're keeping warm and well, and we look forward to giving you a peek into what's happening out there in the world of tech recruitment.

General Comments

Salary movement

As you all know, this year started with a bang, with a surge of new positions coming to market in response to growth and new projects coming online, followed by ongoing recruitment for turnover. A significant number of candidates changed jobs in the six months between October 2021 and March 2022, with the tail of that movement still being felt. In addition, project work has continued to shape up and kick-off, driving ongoing buoyancy in both the contracting and permanent job markets.

It's been a really interesting watch. There is a definite sense of a softening of the manic six months mentioned above, and while higher salaries are still on the table, there is also a fair bit of push back from an employer point of view. Employers want to ensure those team members who are being paid over and above standard rates are able to add significant value, complement the existing team, and are not creating significant parity issues from a salary point of view.

While very senior specialist skills are more likely to be paid at above-market rates, on the whole, we are not seeing excessive salary rises that should cause concern. Certainly, we have seen an adjustment, sometimes up to $25k, however, this has to be balanced with the realisation that salaries moved little, or even dropped, between 2019 and late 2021 through COVID-19. Top of candidates’ wishlists right now are being paid 'what they feel they are worth', more favourable working conditions including hybrid/family-friendly hours, and the ability to grow and develop professionally. 

Continued resourcing challenges

As was the case in Q1, with permanent recruitment continuing at pace, the contract market remains somewhat subdued, with the majority effort appearing to be in securing the best talent for permanent positions.

Resourcing continues to present a real challenge to meet the demands of our clients’ growth, and despite the recent opening of the Accredited Employer Scheme, we are seeing some reluctance from employers to utilise international talent pools, taking a 'wait and see' approach as this scheme beds in. We are seeing a significant upswing in candidates wanting to relocate to New Zealand and certainly hope these pools will be able to be tapped soon. 

We have continued to see a slow down in candidates relocating into the Canterbury region from within NZ, particularly from Auckland, which previously had offered a great channel of talent into the city. We are still seeing a smaller trickle of candidates from Otago towards Christchurch chasing better work opportunities, this tending to be mid-level candidates with fewer family ties and seeking promotion opportunities.

Succeeding in the current market

We really feel for our clients, having weathered COVID-19 and now this talent storm. Many are having to reimagine what teams and talent look like, taking a much more flexible approach and considering remote working, flexible work arrangements and other incentives to ensure the ability to secure talent. Most have now engaged a recruitment agency partner to ensure they are first to new talent coming to market, and that their brands are presented as favourably as possible. While online advertising still has its place, it's that ability to get to candidates before they hit the open market that has really become key to success. 

So, is it all doom and gloom from an employment perspective? No. Now that the heat is off slightly, we hope to see those international candidates becoming more viable, local candidates coming to market disappearing less rapidly, and with a little bit more time to breathe through the recruiting process.

---

Hot Jobs

Junior level

Systems and Technology Support Analyst

Our client is a fast paced, fast-growing company that operates within key primary industries. They have a focus on sustainability and an excellent workplace culture. These are office-based roles, where you will be the face of IT and where your customer service focus and technical know-how will add value across the business. Experience in or a desire to learn Microsoft Admin Centre will be favourably considered as is a strong customer focus, problem-solving skills and the ability to identify and implement improvement opportunities.

Intermediate level

Web Developer

This New Zealand company values its people and provides a great work environment. The development team is a hardworking and dedicated group of software professionals who all contribute to the ongoing success of the company and its intelligent solutions. Focusing on a great user experience, you will be responsible for developing high-quality, leading-edge web applications.  Skills required include VueJs or React Js, Typescript, Restful API design and consumption and at least 3 years in commercial web development.

Senior level

Senior Integration Developer

Our Christchurch based company has a fast-growing customer base in the US. This role will draw upon your extensive API development experience in a Real Time software environment. This company is well established, and its team environment is welcoming and diverse and values the skills, backgrounds and contributions that each member brings. Skills required include at least 3 years of experience developing APIs, Services and Message Queues, C#, .NET 6, SQL Server, Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines, Git Version Control, Typescript, Javascript, HTML, CSS.

---

Within Sourced Walls 

It was lovely to see our team of contractors for our annual Mid-Winter get-together. This year we got together as a group at Winnie Bagoes for Pizza and Quiz night with some great success. We relish the opportunity to get our contractors together, not only to catch up with them – which is difficult during their busy work schedules – but also to have an opportunity for them to create new professional connections through our community.

We are looking forward to another of these events in a few months.

Unfortunately, with Orange COVID-19 restrictions we are still largely closed in the office to walk-in visitors but have managed to host visitors recently and look forward to this becoming more of the norm in the latter months of 2022.

Who's in Demand

Demand is high right across the spectrum, with roles in the Infrastructure and Service Desk spaces being busy of late, both contracting and permanent. Development, Test and Professional Services opportunities continue to grow, with the majority being newly created positions. We feel like we are doing less and less turnover recruitment now, with the bulk being new positions. There doesn't appear to have been any slowdown in this, with some really significant projects and business improvement initiatives kicking off.

In the Professional Services space, we have seen the biggest salary increases, particularly among BAs. These BAs remain in demand, with lesser need for Project and Programme Managers. Change roles continue to grow, with more and more coming through on both a permanent and contract basis. In the Test space, Test Strategy and Automation appear to be the most in-demand however not in huge numbers, and tending to be more mid-early senior level. 

Within Development, demand remains very steady in the .Net space and also for JavaScript/PHP/Python skills, both contract and permanent. This is much the same as Q1 with roles typically being more operational than leadership and with more and more openness to training juniors and intermediates through, which is fantastic to see.

In the contracting space, it has largely been made up of the usual BA roles, mixed with a range of helpdesk, project management and systems engineering.

General Round-Up

To date in 2022, we have seen permanent recruitment activity and staff turnover at an all-time high. Multi-offer scenarios have been the norm, but this is softening. Negotiation around pay and work conditions has been in favour of the candidate, and this has really driven candidate activity. For the first time since 2019, candidates have moved around in significant numbers, but with a majority of that now complete, how do we continue to grow as a tech community? This will be the one to watch.

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written some new blogs. You can find them below:

Best Podcasts to Inspire Women in Tech
Being a woman in tech has its challenges, from getting your foot in the door, to being acknowledged as a leader. In these six motivating podcasts, hear from female experts in the field about the obstacles they faced and how they successfully overcame them. Learn more, here.

Building a Successful Cyber Security Career
Curious about a career in cyber security? It's one of the fastest-growing areas in IT with generous salaries to match. Find out about some of the career paths available and the training options to help you succeed in the industry, here.

Welcome to our fourth quarter update and review of 2021 and the year that was. It's obviously been a really eventful one with various opportunities and challenges and we look forward to filling you in on the details. It's so lovely to see the summer days returning, and in these final days leading up to Christmas we have been doing our very best to catch up with clients, recently placed candidates and contractors who have all worked so hard this year.

Looking at the year as a whole, we have included in this report what's trending, who's in demand, who's moving and a general view of the market. We hope this is useful as an update to the Sourced report which came out in August, and as always, we encourage you to contact us if you're looking for any specific market intelligence. We're in a really unique position to watch the market as it evolves and are always happy to share these insights.

General Comments

This year started with a bang, with a continuation of the post lockdown recruitment surge that had really ramped up by Q3 of 2020. This surge continued through the year with exceptionally strong demand for permanent and contract resources through Quarter 1-3, and with only a slight dip in Q4. Through Q4 demand has remained strong, however, activity is now starting to slow as we near Christmas. We expect this to pick up again in earnest by late January.

Resourcing has presented a real challenge to meet the demands of our client's growth, with borders remaining closed and retention holding strong. We are continuing to look further afield to source talent and are seeing a definite increase of candidates relocating into the Canterbury region, particularly from Auckland, chasing lower housing prices and equivalent salaries, and with the market being as buoyant as it is, we are also seeing a smaller trickle of candidates from Otago towards Christchurch chasing better work opportunities. 

Contract Market Reigns

Within the Auckland market, more and more work is being driven towards the contract market, as permanent resources continually become more scarce. As a result, salaries continue to rise.

Permanent team members are looking at work from home options, working for organisations in other centres/countries, and the idea of a traditional 'in office' role is becoming less and less appealing. In both Auckland and Canterbury, while candidates may not be actively applying for new positions, they are very aware of the demand levels for their skills and are increasingly marking themselves as 'open for the right move'.

These candidates will tend to be more selective, more demanding in their salary negotiations and less prepared to move unless there is a significant incentive. With demand as high as it is, this is one we're watching with interest, particularly as recruitment picks up again in January.

Attraction and Retention

Staff turnover levels are rising, in line with the demands we mention above, and in contrast to earlier in the year we now see at least a 50/50 split between new roles coming to market and recruiting to replace existing team members. 

Where we are recruiting new permanent roles, clients are now taking a much more flexible approach and considering remote working, flexible work arrangements and other incentives to ensure the ability to secure talent. Salaries are starting to lift, and unfortunately, we think this will continue into 2022.

All indications are for continued market disruption in 2022 and we will be working hard on quality, long term permanent placements, and experienced contract resources to ensure our clients have the very best chance of success in their appointments.

---

Hot Jobs

Junior level

MediaSuite - Full Stack Developer (PHP/Python)

We are on the lookout for Junior - Intermediate Full Stack developers for our client, working on a range of really interesting and challenging government projects, within a fast-paced, private enterprise setting. This really is the best of both worlds - enjoying the culture and flexibility of the private sector, with the complexity of projects that the public sector offers. Tech stack includes Javascript, React, PHP, Python and there is great opportunity to grow and develop. $85k+, permanent. 

Intermediate level

Embedded Software Engineer

We are on the lookout for an experienced Embedded Software Engineer to join our client, a household name in the NZ tech sector. This is a fantastic opportunity to work across Embedded and Application technologies, in a close-knit team environment, within a privately held business. There are significant opportunities for growth and development here as our client continues to push into new international markets. $80-85k. 

Senior level

Hubspot Strategist

You will be an integral Senior member of the Concentrate team, working alongside Kiwi business leaders and utilizing your expert level knowledge of CRM systems to guide the delivery and implementation of Hubspot projects. Fast-paced, but friendly and social work setting based in the heart of Christchurch City. $80-$100k. 

---

Within Sourced Walls

If you've been in touch with us this quarter, you'll have no doubt chatted to our latest team member Andrea. Andrea has replaced Olivia as our Candidate Manager. Andy comes to us from MYOB and is already settled in and learning the ropes, with Olivia having progressed into a fantastic new role with ARA. Archie, our office Canine continues to entertain the office with his ball chasing tricks and providing pre-warning of incoming couriers. 

Unfortunately, with Level 2 restrictions, we have largely closed the office to walk-in visitors, but have managed to host candidates recently with their own puppies for a work/dog date catch up.

Who's in Demand

Demand is high right across the spectrum right now, with roles covering Infrastructure, Development, Test and Professional Services. Contract has matched permanent, with some clients considering filling crucial gaps within teams. While new activity is now ramping down as we approach Christmas, we are expecting a quick return to activity from mid-late January.

In the Professional Services space, we have seen demand across both operational and strategic BA and PM work, with Programme Management and PMO roles beginning to flow through. In the Test space, Test Strategy and Automation appear to be most in demand, for both contracting and permanent appointments. Within Development, demand remains very steady in the .Net space and for JavaScript/PHP/Python skills, both contract and permanent. While earlier in the year, JavaScript/Python was in much less demand, this is now matching or exceeding demand for .Net and now with recent demands in the Java space.

General Round-Up

2021 has really been the year of the candidate. There are opportunities available across most levels, and skill levels and competition is very high amongst employers. Salaries are on the rise and the availability of resources is low. It will be really interesting to see how this translates in 2022 as more and more employees become aware of their demand and potential worth.

From a permanent perspective, we are seeing an ongoing openness to recruiting when top candidates become available as opposed to waiting for specific roles to be framed up, and then recruiting to cover turnover. While we can't recruit talent from offshore, we continue to look at regional markets to bring in new talent. We expect to be continuing this drive across Q1 of 2021 with expat Kiwis and North Island residents chasing the lifestyle opportunities available in Canterbury, and candidates from further afield considering Auckland based roles on a fully remote basis, and conversely Auckland candidates looking at roles in other centres with a work from home option.

Work/life balance, learning opportunities, growth and development and a positive work environment are still top on candidates' wish lists, however, salary is now featuring strongly. We always expected this as salaries remained static across 2019, 2020 and early 2021, and in many ways, this was a long due adjustment.

We will watch with interest as we head into the New Year, but until then, we would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Hope you take the time to enjoy a relaxing break with family and friends over the festive season!

Welcome to our belated Autumn quarterly update for 2022, where we look back at the last quarter and review how the year has shaped up so far. As you'll no doubt be hearing, it's been an extremely busy time with a lot of permanent recruitment happening, salaries on the rise, and a high level of staff turnover. Will we see this continue into the second part of the year, or are we at the peak of the wave?

Read on to find out.

General Comments

This year started with a bang, with a surge of new positions coming to market in response to growth and new projects coming online, followed by ongoing recruitment for turnover, which is currently at an all-time high in the Canterbury and Auckland markets. If you pause on the street to look around, it's likely that one in three of the people nearby have moved jobs in 2022.

It's been really interesting to watch. As a significant number of newly created positions have come to market, candidates for the first time since 2019 are beginning to move in numbers, but are demanding higher salaries, and negotiating more favourable working conditions in the process. This has created competition between employers to secure this talent, and subsequently, more and more candidates are making themselves available to ride the wave of opportunity and better pay.

This has not largely affected the contract market – if anything it has subdued it, with the majority of effort appearing to be in securing the best talent for permanent positions.

Salary increases are being seen most acutely in the Systems, Business Analyst and Development areas, with Systems Engineer rates also on the rise. In the BA space, we have seen the largest salary spikes, with on average salaries lifting by $20-25k per annum.

The Race to Meet Demand

Resourcing has presented a real challenge to meet the demands of our client's growth, with borders up until now remaining closed. While we are continuing to look further afield to source talent, we have seen a slow down on candidates relocating into the Canterbury region, particularly from Auckland, which previously had offered a great channel of talent into the city. We are still seeing a smaller trickle of candidates from Otago towards Christchurch chasing better work opportunities; this tending to be mid-level candidates with fewer family ties seeking promotion opportunities.

Within the Auckland market, permanent recruitment again appears to be the drive and salaries also continue to rise. As we have continued to report, permanent team members are looking at work from home options, working for organisations in other centres/countries, and the idea of a traditional 'in office' role is becoming less and less appealing. In both centres, candidates are very active, but tend to be more selective, more demanding, and able to easily secure multiple offers allowing a ‘pick and choose’ scenario. As a result, the process is definitely in favour of the candidate.

A Cooling Market?

Staff turnover levels are at an all-time high, and clients are having to take a much more flexible approach and considering remote working, flexible work arrangements and other incentives to ensure the ability to secure talent. So, is it all doom and gloom from an employment perspective? Not necessarily.

While certainly the time to hire has probably been and gone in terms of locally available talent, the wave of demand is also showing its first signs of waning. A significant amount of recruitment has happened already, and this level of growth was never going to be sustainable all year, so we are predicting a cool-down period ahead.

---

Hot Jobs

Junior level

Business Analyst - Nurse Maude

We have an excellent opportunity for an emerging Intermediate level BA to join Nurse Maude. A fantastic charitable trust doing amazing things in the community, you will be working alongside experienced Bas in the business understanding, analysing and documenting requirements for change within critical business systems. This is a great development role for an up-and-coming BA. 

Intermediate level

Software Developer - Vitro

We are looking for an Intermediate .Net Developer to join our client Vitro. Health is a fast-paced and rapidly developing sector, and this is your chance to be involved. Vitro is leading the way in Clinical Data Management & Electronic Medical Records (EMR) for Hospitals, and you can be a part of this.

Senior level

Project Manager - Contract

We are looking for an experienced Programme Manager to work alongside a business looking to establish an internal PMO. You will work closely with the business to establish requirements and begin the introduction of PMO processes into their organisation. This is a contract role for at least six months, based in Christchurch.

---

Within Sourced Walls

If you've been in touch with us this quarter, you'll have no doubt chatted to our latest team member Diana. Diana has replaced Victoria, our Office Manager, joining us from MBIE. Diana is already settled in and learning the ropes, and is busy getting to know our ever-growing contractor community as their primary care contact. Archie, our office canine, is a huge fan.

Unfortunately, with Red and now Orange COVID-19 restrictions we are still largely closed in the office to walk-in visitors, but have managed to host visitors recently and look forward to this becoming more of the norm in the latter months of 2022.

Who's in Demand

Demand is high right across the spectrum, with roles covering Infrastructure, Development, Test and Professional Services. Contract opportunities have slowed, with the real focus being on new and replacement permanent recruitment. We do expect we've seen the peak, however, this doesn't mean we are expecting a quiet next quarter, just a slightly less frantic one.

In the Professional Services space, we have seen significant demand and salary increases across BA, Analysis and Project work, with Programme Management, Change and PMO roles flowing through. In the Test space, Test Strategy and Automation appear to be most in-demand, however not in huge numbers, and tending to be more mid-early senior level.

Within Development, demand remains very steady in the .Net space and also for JavaScript/PHP/Python skills, both contract and permanent. Roles are tending to be operational vs leadership with more and more openness to training juniors and intermediates through, which is fantastic to see.

In the contracting space, it has largely been made up of the usual BA roles, mixed with a range of helpdesk, project management and systems engineering.

General Round-Up

To date in 2022, we have seen permanent recruitment activity and staff turnover consecutively at an all-time high. Multi-offer scenarios have been the norm, negotiations around pay and work conditions have been in favour of the candidate, and this has really driven candidate activity. For the first time since 2019 candidates are moving around in significant numbers, and we expect to see a settling in/calming down period from around June onwards.

We look forward to keeping you abreast with how the year evolves!

For further market insights or if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written some new blogs. You can find them below:

Best Podcasts to Inspire Women in Tech
Being a woman in tech has its challenges, from getting your foot in the door, to being acknowledged as a leader. In these six motivating podcasts, hear from female experts in the field about the obstacles they faced and how they successfully overcame them. Learn more, here.

Tech Employment Shapers – March 2022
When looking at market changes, we often see trends ramp up much harder and faster than we could have imagined or die out before they ever gain traction. So, how have the last few months shaped up, and what are we seeing in the current market? Michelle Bishop shares her insights.

Building a Successful Cyber Security Career
Curious about a career in cyber security? It's one of the fastest-growing areas in IT with generous salaries to match. Find out about some of the career paths available and the training options to help you succeed in the industry, here.

Welcome to our fourth quarter update and review of 2022 ­ and what a year it was. We've been asked a lot over the past month how our year has been and how we're feeling. In short, it's been an unprecedented year of busyness and we're all exhausted! We're very much looking forward to a couple of weeks of well-earned rest over Christmas and New Year as it’s looking like 2023 is going to be more of the same.

Looking at the year as a whole, there is so much to cover. We've tried our best to contain this in the report by looking at what's trending, who's in demand, who's moving and a general view of the market. We hope this is useful as an update to our Tech Shaper's report which came out in September, and as always, we encourage you to contact us if you're looking for any specific market intelligence. We're in a really unique position to watch the market as it evolves and are always happy to share these insights.

General Comments

State of the Market

This year started with a bang and never really stopped. In the first quarter of 2022, we saw more attrition than we had possibly ever seen as a business. It seemed that just about everybody had moved jobs between December 2021 and March 2022. With this came the obvious knock-ons of a huge demand for permanent talent, ever-increasing salary demands and a market that was at its wit's end to attract talent ­ all in the face of closed borders and a severe talent shortage.

Resourcing has presented a real challenge to meet these demands all year, and unfortunately, until we see an even greater softening of immigration policy, we expect these challenges to remain. While the great shift around has undoubtedly allowed a lot of candidates to take on promotion opportunities, new professional development and realign salaries after a very flat 2019/20, most will now be settled into these new roles for the next 2-3 years, meaning recruiting local talent becomes harder still.

With this retention holding strong, we are continuing to look further afield and are seeing a definite increase in international candidates wanting to relocate to the Canterbury region. The challenge is, however, getting them here.

Permanent Market Reigns

While 2021 was the year for the contractor, 2022 was definitely the year for permanent appointments. Candidates have been demanding, and successfully obtaining, higher salaries and are now viewing hybrid work as almost non-negotiable. The idea of a traditional 'in-office' role is just no longer seen as acceptable and this will continue to challenge employers who are slow to adopt it. As with 2021, many candidates moved despite not actively applying for new positions. By becoming more aware of the demand levels for their skills and strong market conditions, they are taking the opportunity when approached to move.

From a Sourced perspective, we have found this all very fractured. There has been no clear answer to hanging on to talent and plugging the flood of those shifting around. Increasing salaries didn't at times seem enough, and there was simply an overall appetite to change it up and chase greener pastures.

We expect 2023 to be a year of review for employers, ensuring salaries are relevant to the new normal and placing culture and well-being front and centre. The hope is that recipe is right to encourage those who haven't moved yet to remain. 

All this permanent movement did see a definite softening in the contractor market, with contractors other than BAs taking longer to find assignments and tending to stay in them for longer. BAs, as always, have been the exception to the rule and demand has remained as high as ever.

Interestingly, we have not seen the same increases in contractor rates as we have seen on the permanent side, with BA rates being the only ones to lift significantly in response to continued demand.

Hot Jobs

Junior level

Service Desk - Level 1 

Manux Solutions is a great, locally owned but nationally operating MSP looking for their next Service Desk Specialist. More than your typical service desk role, this is a great entry point to future Sys Engineering roles and will have you hands-on with tech and working closely with a range of really engaged customers across New Zealand. 

Intermediate level

Data Migration Specialist - Foodstuffs (Contract)

Foodstuffs SI Ltd are looking for a mid-level Data Migration Specialist to join an enterprise team, from January for three months. This will be a great piece of work for a strong SQL Specialist interested in working with an onsite project team on a complex migration project.

Senior level

Chief Information Officer - Hamilton Jet

Reporting to the Managing Director, Hamilton Jet is seeking an experienced CIO to set and execute an IT strategy and vision for the future of their business. This is a rare opportunity to work within one of New Zealand's most iconic homegrown enterprises.

---

Within Sourced Walls 

We were really pleased to recently both sponsor and attend the Canterbury Tech Summit and the New Zealand CIO Summit.

The CIO Summit in particular was an amazing opportunity to learn more about what is driving the IT Sector as a whole at the moment, and certainly, there were three key themes:

• Talent Shortage
• Employee Well Being
• Cyber Security

The CIO Summit was held in the amazing Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre and what an amazing asset this is for our city. It was great to see local faces at the CIO Awards Dinner also, although we're still unsure about Jason Gunn as an MC and Robbie Williams impersonator.

Who's in Demand?

Demand is high right across the spectrum right now, with roles covering Infrastructure, Development and Professional Services. Permanent appointments are front and centre, Service Desk and Infrastructure featuring very heavily across the last quarter. Unlike previous years where new activity would now be ramping down as we approach Christmas, we are already locking in work to kick off in early January.

In the Professional Services space, we have seen solid demand all year across both operational and strategic BA work with demand for PM and Programme Managers beginning to return. The Test space has remained very quiet, including on the client side which perhaps shows a market that has bucked the trend and remained stable. Within Development, demand remains very steady in the .Net space, and with Cloud starting to emerge as a key demand area. We are also seeing this in the Infrastructure Space, with a lot now looking to DevOps, SysOps, AWS and Azure to ensure they are marketable in future.

General Round-Up

As with 2021, 2022 has again been the year of the candidate. There are opportunities available across most levels and skill levels and competition is extremely high among employers. Anecdotally, many employers are simply giving up and looking at different ways to deploy resources from within, bring professional services companies in or simply park non-essential project work. There is little to no chatter about the recession ­ this simply doesn't appear to be a factor. We would counter the candidate availability point that if you lift enough rocks, there are gems to be found, so be kind to your recruitment partner. We are in a great spot to uncover real gems; it just takes time and effort.

Work/life balance, learning opportunities, growth and development and a positive work environment are still top on candidates' wish lists, however, salary is now a predominant feature. We always expected this as salaries remained static across 2019, 2020 and early 2021, and in many ways, this was a long-due adjustment.

We will watch with interest as we head into the New Year, but until then, we would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Hope you take the time to enjoy a relaxing break with family and friends over the festive season!

Welcome to the latest Sourced Quarterly Market Update. We're looking forward to now being able to share with you all of the trends that have been developing post Level 4 lockdown, with our last update just being a bit too early to tell. We are continuing to field a lot of questions about how the recruitment market is shaping up, so hopefully, this will go some way to answering that.

As always, we encourage you to contact us if you're looking for any specific market intelligence, salary surveys, role positioning or similar. We're in a unique position to watch the market as it evolves and are always happy to share these insights.

General Comments

As we mentioned in our last report, by and large, our customers transitioned swiftly and reasonably seamlessly to work from home arrangements as the country entered lockdown in Alert Level 4. The majority of our clients’ employees were able to remain engaged in full-time work and business continued, albeit remotely. We had a very small number of clients who either ramped up rapidly or scaled down at equal pace, but the biggest change we saw was simply a move to digital working with Zoom and Microsoft Teams becoming standard communication channels and a really unique seven weeks of work from home.

Fortunately, those of our clients who were able to scale up during and beyond the lockdowns have picked up many of those left unemployed by businesses forced to downsize, so as is always the case, we have seen a balance. We are now getting to the tail end of candidates being affected by redundancy with the majority redeployed. We have noted with interest that Software Developers appear to have been the slowest to be redeployed, with both contract and permanent positions only 'average' in volume. Conversely, Business Analysts and BI/SQL Specialists have been in high demand and snapped up quickly for both contract and permanent positions. 

Market changes

 Something that we will see a roll-on effect from is the number of candidates, who were disestablished during Level 4 lockdown, moving off into contract positions and fixed-term contracts (from permanent). As a result, we expect to see further bubbles of activity further downstream as these candidates return to market. We are finding that the local candidate supply is meeting demand and roles are being recruited quickly, with the average time to fill sitting at the four weeks and under mark.

As we talked about in the last update, we have been asked a lot about remote working and whether this will become the 'new normal', however, we are still seeing the majority of our clients returning to full-time office hours. There does appear to be a bit more flexibility around working from home 'when needed' but certainly not as a new norm.

The contractor market

While last quarter we saw the contractor market slow down quite dramatically both in Christchurch and Auckland, it is well and truly humming again. We are seeing projects that were shelved during Level 4 pick up again and new projects coming through (particularly within system implementation and business improvement), with lots of activity in the BA/Systems Analyst and Delivery areas.

On the whole, we can confirm that the market is very much back to where it was pre-lockdown, with all signs pointing to a quietly confident return.

Hot Jobs

Junior level

Java Software Engineer 

Our client is seeking an enthusiastic, technically minded Java Developer whose real passion is to get under the hood, work out how and why things work in the world of web, and how they could be improved. Work with enterprise Java and open source technologies in a collaborative environment.

Intermediate level

Backend C#.Net/Cloud Developer 

This is an outstanding opportunity for a mid-senior level .Net Developer to work in a very entrepreneurial, high tech environment based on the outskirts of Christchurch. Get right in the thick of development while working with a small, close-knit team.

Senior level

Design Engineer Team Lead 

This is an exciting hands-on role with leadership component. Guide, mentor and lead the engineering team, while being involved in the full lifecycle of products from design through to enhancement and maintenance of existing solutions.

Within Sourced Walls

We have had a very busy last quarter and are feeling really positive about the market as a whole. It has been an absolute pleasure to walk with our candidates through what have often been really tough times these last few months and watch them head off into great new roles. Many of these people have been return candidates of Sourced’s and occasionally past clients, and a number of them have branched out into quite different roles and responsibilities. Some have taken their first steps into the contract market while others have gotten back on the tools for the first time in years, and it's been fantastic supporting these unique journeys. We look forward to watching them flourish!

Who's in Demand

Our key demand areas right now remain across Business Analysis and BI/Data Engineering for contract roles, and Business and Systems Analysis and Software Development (mobile, cloud/open source and electronics) within permanent. Interestingly, Software Development roles have been almost entirely permanent in demand, with very little happening in the contracting space. Demand has been largely at a mid-early senior level with little at the Tech Lead/Architect level. We have also seen a small number of Team Lead roles come to market which have been quickly snapped up.

We are still seeing the shift from outsourced to in-house models, with internal teams of BA, PMs and delivery specialists growing and contract resources engaged for specifically targeted requirements. Our contractor base is quite aware of this and many are looking at longer-term options, however, again, there still seems to be enough work to go around and the general market feel is positive.

General Round-Up

As we've covered, we have seen a large number of candidates coming into the market, but the majority are now redeployed. We are confident that those still looking will find solid employment as recruitment activity picks up to full pace. Fortunately, a lot of our clients rely primarily on the domestic market and a lot of delivery of services, so they have needed to pick up and move again quickly. We do expect things to quieten slightly as we head into Christmas, but for now (despite what you may be hearing in the media) it's a great time to hire and generally a perfectly safe time to be considering a move.

For further market insights or if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch. 

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written some new blogs. You can find them below:

How to Successfully Manage a Hybrid Team: 4 Questions to Consider

Many businesses have been forced to embrace remote working and a result of this, we will inevitably see a rise in the adoption of hybrid teams going forward. This will be a steep learning curve for companies as they find new ways to tackle employment issues and manage performance within this team structure. Here are four questions you should keep in mind to get the best results from your hybrid team.

An Unprecedented Opportunity: How to Hire the Best People in Today’s Market

In the current environment, forward-thinking businesses that are embracing the future of the employment market will find top talent more accessible than ever. Those who are strategic and prepared will be able to snap up professionals that will be valuable assets to their teams for years to come. Find out more about how to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to hire the best Technology & Digital talent on the market, here. 

We have reached the halfway point of 2020, and are clearly in remarkable times. While we have been asked a lot of questions over these last few weeks about how the recruitment market is shaping up, there really is no one answer. We'll do our best here to give you some insights on what we've seen, what's happening now and our best guess on how this year will shape up.

As always, we encourage you to contact us if you're looking for any specific market intelligence, salary surveys, role positioning or similar. We're in a unique position to watch the market as it evolves and are always happy to share these insights.

General Comments

Firstly, it’s important to address the current COVID-19 situation and its immediate effect on the employment market. By and large, our customers transitioned swiftly and reasonably seamlessly to work from home arrangements as the country entered lockdown in Alert Level 4. The majority of our clients’ employees were able to remain engaged in full-time work, and business continued, albeit remotely. We had a very small number of clients who either ramped up rapidly or scaled down at equal pace, but by and large, the biggest change we saw was simply a move to digital working with Zoom and Microsoft Teams becoming standard communication channels, and a really unique seven weeks of work from home.

A balanced outlook

Fortunately, those of our clients who were able to scale up during and beyond COVID-19 have picked up many of those left unemployed by businesses forced to downsize, so as is always the case, we have seen balance.

While we do still have a number of candidates on the market as a result of COVID-19-driven restructures and redundancy, many have now been picked up in contract, fixed term and permanent appointments, and we don't expect to see unprecedented levels of unemployment. We have had several clients bring their hiring plans forward to make the most of a fairly unique hiring market and have seen great success with this.

The ‘new normal’

We have been asked a lot about remote working and whether this will become the 'new normal'. While we have seen a couple of large employer clients move to permanent flexi work arrangements, the majority are returning to full-time office hours. Certainly, the need to be able to work remotely when needed has become a priority, but we are not seeing this becoming the new way of working. 

The contractor market

We have seen the contractor market slow down quite dramatically both in Christchurch and Auckland, however, all signs are pointing to a return. We are seeing projects that were shelved during Level 4 pick up again, and new projects coming through, both 

system implementation and business improvement in focus.

On the whole, we can confirm the market is quieter than pre-COVID-19 levels, however, all signs are pointing to a quietly confident return.

---

Hot Jobs

Junior level

Content Specialist

We're working with an award-winning marketing agency who are looking to grow their specialist marketing team, bringing in a Content Specialist. You'll get to create high-quality content for a range of customers and help the team drive lead generation campaigns. This is a great graduate/junior opportunity within a supportive and successful company.

Intermediate level

C++ Software Engineer

Join a cross-functional, agile development team where you'll have exposure to a range of awesome learning opportunities. Develop established products with a modern twist. C++ embedded development experience essential.

Senior level

Principal Engineer

Exciting Auckland based technical leadership opportunity in a company that creates world-class, innovative technology solutions for organisations. We're looking for a capable leader and engineer with senior level development experience in .Net or Java frameworks to join this wonderful team and environment.

---

Within Sourced Walls

As we talked about in our last Quarterly Update, being a business that opened its doors on the day of the February 2011 earthquakes, we have always had a huge appreciation for cloud-based working and the ability to work anytime, anywhere. We have transitioned our team back to the office and are enjoying being together as a team, yet safe in the knowledge that if we do see a resurgence, we will be able to make a seamless transition as needed to new or remote ways of working. 

Who's in Demand

Our key demand areas right now remain across Mobile and OpenSource (Android/PHP/Python) Development for contract roles, and Business and Systems Analysis across both contract and permanent. We are seeing quiet but steady demand for contract resources, yet with the overall driver still being employers looking to reduce contractor cost overheads where it makes sense and replace them with longer-term solutions.

We are definitely getting the sense that the market is turning from an outsourced to an in-house model and will watch this with interest. Get ready to see larger internal teams of BA and PM's and delivery specialists, and contract resources only engaged for specifically targeted requirements. Our contractor base is quite aware of this and many are looking at longer-term options, however, again, we also say the market always comes back to balance and we don't expect the contractor market to fall away altogether.

General Round-Up

As we've covered, we have seen a large number of candidates coming into the market, and a large number redeployed quickly. We are confident that those still looking will find solid employment within the next few months as recruitment activity picks up to full pace. Fortunately, a lot of our clients rely primarily on the domestic market and their recruitment has resumed as face-to-face interviews have become easier. We are working very closely with our candidate base to ensure they have every opportunity for redeployment, and continue to look at the various ways in which our clients can engage these talent pools.

For further market insights or if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch. 

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written some new blogs. You can find them below:

Returning to Work After COVID-19: 4 Things to Plan For

As organisations begin planning their transition back to the office, things are going to be different, and detailed preparations will be vital for helping employees adapt to new ways of working post-pandemic. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to planning your team’s return to work, we’ve outlined the key considerations to keep in mind, here.

Should I Hire a Permanent Employee or a Contractor?

The demands of the emerging economic picture will require a flexible and agile approach to risk and reward for all organisations, and this is also true of their recruitment activities. Here’s everything you need to know to make the choice between hiring a permanent employee and a contractor.

Firstly, a very Happy New Year to you all. January is always a time of adjustment as we come back from the lazy days of summer holidays, whilst ramping up quickly for the demands of the new year. Having enjoyed a well-earned break and launching into what's already a busy 2020, it’s now all hands on deck at Sourced. We had plenty of clients approaching us with recruitment requirements for the new year in mid to late December, so we have well and truly hit the ground running.

In this quarterly update, we’ll look back at 2019 to bring you an overview of the year’s key themes, as well as provide a sneak peek of what is to come in 2020. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you're looking for any information on salary surveys, role positioning, specific market intelligence or similar. We're in a unique position to watch the market as it evolves, and are always happy to share these insights.

General Comments

From a client point of view, 2019 was a mixed bag; stability and careful consideration in hiring were the two key themes, with very little staff turnover and muted growth levels. It was generally 'business as usual', with little appetite for shaking the apple tree. It was a market-driven by both contract and permanent requirements – albeit, very widespread and in generally smaller numbers.

Few clients recruited in volume. We saw many clients going through rightsizing exercises, reviewing and reorganising team structures, without necessarily pursuing redundancies. Most were keen to ensure they had the right energy going into the right outcomes, and the right people assigned to the right areas. Whilst permanent recruitment continued at a slightly lower but constant pace across most areas of IT, there was a definite focus on growth in highly specific/targeted areas, and otherwise recruiting for attrition, which was a lot lower in 2019 than in the previous year.

From a retention perspective, we have seen the highest numbers in recent years within the Canterbury tech sector. Most recruitment has been achieved through sourcing candidates new to New Zealand or returning home, and in fewer cases, placing candidates with new clients who have been affected by redundancy.

As in the previous two years, candidates that have moved off into new roles/new companies have been carefully considering their options. They are feeling ready for a new challenge and are still seeking stability, interesting project challenges, work/life balance and growth opportunities. With a market that has offered little in the way of significant growth or exceptional projects, more care has been taken by candidates to fully evaluate potential employers, and salaries have not been a driving factor.

From an employer point of view, there has been a continued focus on developing and retaining tighter, more collaborative teams by promoting a strong internal culture.

As mentioned above, we have seen a smaller number of candidates who have been affected by restructuring and redundancies. Few have struggled to be redeployed, and most are now enjoying interesting and challenging work with their new employers.

From a contract perspective, it was a quieter-than-average year, with a slight lift in demand in the final quarter of 2019. Projects took longer than expected to gain traction or were temporarily shelved whilst budgets and business requirements were reassessed. The primary requirements we have seen in the market have revolved strongly around Business Analysis and Software Development, with very little in the Project and Programme Management space. This is a continuation of the same theme we see mirrored in 2018.

As mentioned above, we have been working with a mix of local job seekers and candidates returning home to Christchurch. In doing so, we’ve noted a below-average level of recruitment in the 'new to New Zealand' market. Certainly, there is still a strong interest in living and working in Christchurch for the international community, but that desire has not always been met by a willingness to employ by the local market, especially considering the availability of local employee talent.

All in all, we expect the majority of restructures to be behind us, and we look forward to a year of growth opportunities for many.

Hot Jobs

Junior level

Digital Marketing Automation Specialist - We're working with an award-winning marketing agency who are looking to grow their inbound marketing team. Focusing on managing their automated technology, you'll be working behind the scenes implementing CRM, integrating apps and completing analysis of web metrics. This is a great graduate/junior opportunity within a supportive and successful company.

Intermediate level

PHP Developer - We're on the lookout for an intermediate level PHP Developer to join a high-quality, Agile development team. Our client is developing an award-winning solution that you'll get to be part of; extending it with new features and managing the delivery of updates. This is an awesome role for a developer skilled in PHP, MSSQL, HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.

Senior level

Data Scientist - We are looking for someone highly experienced in code, data and big data tools to join a unique company. Our client offers an incredible internal culture that is collaborative, encouraging, supportive and prioritises a work/life balance. You'll get to take on a significant level of responsibility within a larger international team.

Within Sourced Walls

It was lovely to see out 2019 as a team, notably one of the most engaged teams we've seen within Sourced walls. As many will know, getting just the right balance in the team can be hard, and we really feel like we've achieved that. We continue to enjoy an office environment that is fun, high-energy, motivated, but mostly just really engaged. We're not corporate; we’re a family business, and we really have developed that culture internally.

Who's in Demand

In terms of candidates in demand, 2019 was very much a broad market. In the permanent space, recruitment was largely geared towards the Software Development/Applications side, with a below-average demand for Project and Programme Managers and a continued but measured demand for Developers, Business Analysts and Testers. Infrastructure roles were quieter than usual and tended to sit at the Systems/Infrastructure Administrator level, with very little movement in the Management/Team Leader space.

We have observed a very low number of Management/CIO roles coming to market; however, this was to be expected given the amount of movement and roles emerging in 2018.

On the contracting side, 2019 was again very heavily geared towards Business Analysis and Software Development (in far smaller numbers). Requirements were driven by projects needing scoping, as well as additional resources needed to get work across the line and to cover periods of absence. It has not been what would be described as a 'contractor's market,' and we watch with interest to see how this evolves in 2020, given that this is a theme we have seen right through 2018.

General Round-Up

For employers, 2019 was again a year of BAU and steady as she goes. There was a much higher level of staff retention than in 2018 and in general, project work has been low, so as a result, recruitment has been carefully considered and very targeted.

From a permanent perspective, we are already seeing a return to growth as we move into 2020, but this may be tempered by a resource shortage given the reluctance of candidates to move at this time. We expect to be driving hard within our international talent pools, expat Kiwis and, in a continued trend, North Island residents chasing the lifestyle opportunities available in Canterbury.

Work/life balance, learning opportunities, growth and development, and a positive work environment continue to sit at the top of candidates’ wish lists, with salaries still remaining static.

We look forward to keeping you abreast with how the year evolves!

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written some new blogs. You can find them below:

Tips to Help Candidates Relax in Job Interviews

Picking the right IT candidate during interviews is tricky, especially when nerves play a part. That’s why it’s imperative to get candidates to relax during interviews and allow their true potential to come through. These five key tips will help you.

6 Top Tech Podcasts You Should Be Listening To

We know how important it is for tech professionals to keep building their industry knowledge and stay up to date with the latest developments. That’s why we’ve created this list of the best tech podcasts to help you get started. Find out more, here.

Should You Include a Photo in Your CV?

If you’ve ever wondered, “Should I include a photo in my CV?”, there are a few points to consider before getting out your camera and adding a professional photo to your next IT job application. Find out the answer, here.

Welcome to the third quarter and the Spring market report for 2019. It's so lovely to see the cold winter days giving way to longer hours of sunshine, and we really are now officially on the countdown to Christmas! It's always hard to believe at this time of year that we're here again, so we hope you enjoy a bit of time to reflect on the year that's been and the remaining few months of 2019.

In this quarterly update, we look at the last three months of 2019, including what's trending, who's in demand, who's moving and a general view of the market. We hope this is a useful addition to the Sourced report, which came out earlier this year and as always, we encourage you to contact us if you're looking for any specific market intelligence, salary surveys, role positioning or similar. We're in a really unique position to watch the market as it evolves and are always happy to share these insights.

General Comments

While 2019 really started with a bang, we noted a definite move into more of a 'business as usual' phase between April and June, and we've certainly seen this continue and with a shift towards business improvement. Talking to a lot of hiring managers over these past three months, there has been a real focus on efficiency gains, business improvement and finding better ways of working. In the last month or two, quite a number of businesses have been right-sizing, restructuring and ensuring resources are in the right places with the right focus, as we see the year out and look ahead to 2020.

Staff turnover levels remain low, which is a real salute to all of the effort that has been going into the culture, engagement and development of talent from within. Where we are recruiting new permanent roles, requirements are specific, more considered, and hiring decisions taking just a bit longer. Where replacement recruitment is happening, again culture is king, with many businesses prepared to wait or forgo tech skills for the right cultural fit. 

While we have been consistently engaged across both contract and permanent recruitment, we have not seen the same urgency as in the first half of the year. Permanent recruitment is currently sitting slightly ahead of demand for contractors, with a real spread across Business Analysts/Product Owners (Business Process, Digital and Business Transformation), Developers (C#) and Testers (Automation). We have also seen new roles coming to the market across BI Management, Network Engineering and UX/UI – areas that have been very quiet throughout the year.

As noted above, we are continuing to see a reasonably flat market in terms of local candidates moving around, as well as an equal balance of candidates coming in from offshore and returning to employment after disestablishment and to a lesser extent, moving from one permanent role to another in Christchurch.

All indications from our clients are for a steady remainder of the year, with projects expected to keep things bubbling along, though without significant plans for growth. 

Hot Jobs

Intermediate level

We're working with a market disruptor, growing their application development team with the addition of a further Developer. Working in the Cloud/SaaS space, this is an excellent opportunity for an experienced mid-level .NET Developer with an interest in Cloud technologies to get involved. This is a very fast-paced, dynamic environment requiring a high level of maturity, resilience and interest in emerging technologies. 

Intermediate level
We are looking for a Market Insights Analyst for our global software client. This is a really interesting and different role that takes in marketing, data analysis and reporting. A great role for those keen on keeping a foothold in the tech sector, while applying their skills and helping drive targeted sales and marketing activity on a global scale.

Senior level
We are looking for an experienced Network Engineer with Palo Alto, F5 and Cisco experience to join our client, one of Christchurch's largest employers of IT talent. This is a genuine opportunity to get involved with design, architecture and engineering, and work in a collaborative inhouse team environment.

Within Sourced Walls 

It's been a nice and steady quarter within the Sourced team, with not a huge amount to report. We thoroughly enjoyed hosting our contractors for a night of Ten Pin Bowling this month, with the Sourced Consultants taking the glory for top scores (depending on who you talk to). It's always a great opportunity to get everybody together, as well as for our contractors to network and meet others who may be working in completely different businesses and roles or have similar experience. We look forward to continuing these events in the future, with talk of BBQ or karting being thrown around!

Our internal team remains stable and engaged and have really enjoyed a productive 2019. We've all managed to enjoy well-earned breaks over the past couple of months, and everybody is refreshed and ready to crack on with the remainder of the year.

Who's in Demand

As mentioned above, we are busy across all role specialities, with a particular rise in the Product Owner/Digital/BA space and new demand in the Network Engineering, UX/UI and BI areas. 

Development, Test and BA have kept us busy in the contracting space, but this is falling off now as we approach Christmas. 

Demand remains very steady in the .Net Development space, both contract and permanent, with less demand for alternative web and front-end technologies such as PHP, React and Angular, which we'd seen at the beginning of the year.

General Round-Up

2019 has meant all hands to the pump and it feels like right now there is a slight lull in that activity as our clients focus on getting their teams and structures right and on deliverables for 2020. Juniors through to seniors are all in demand, with only a small demand for management candidates. Contracting is lowering as permanent employment remains steady, and demand in the Software Engineering space is back, which is typical for Canterbury.

From a permanent perspective, we are seeing a conservative approach to growth as we see out the year, though, as yet, this hasn't really hampered our levels of recruitment activity. We expect to be continuing to drive hard within our international talent pools, with expat Kiwis and North Island residents chasing the lifestyle opportunities available in Canterbury.

Work/life balance, learning opportunities, growth and development and a positive work environment are still top on candidate's wish lists, with salaries continuing to remain static.

We look forward to keeping you abreast with how the year evolves!

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written some new blogs. You can find them below:

Handling Salary Negotiations: Knowing Your Worth

So, you’ve been offered your dream role but the salary doesn’t quite match your expectations. Do you walk away or put your negotiating hat on? In our latest blog, we’ve put together some of our best tips on approaching this often-awkward subject with potential employers.

Should You Include a Photo in Your CV?

If you’ve ever wondered, “Should I include a photo in my CV?”, there are a few points to consider before getting out your camera and adding a professional photo to your next IT job application. Find out the answer, here.

6 Top Tech Podcasts You Should Be Listening To

We know how important it is for tech professionals to keep building their industry knowledge and stay up to date with the latest developments. That’s why we’ve created this list of the best tech podcasts to help you get started. Find out more, here.

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written several blogs. You can find them below:

Tips for People Who Dislike Networking

LinkedIn vs. CV: Three Key Differences

Sourced is proud to announce that we’re officially StaffSure certified! Developed by industry experts, StaffSure is a certification scheme which makes it simple for organisations and workers alike to find and partner with reputable Workforce Service Providers (such as recruitment agencies) for all their recruitment needs. Through independent auditing against industry-specific standards, StaffSure is able to protect the broader integrity of the recruitment industry throughout New Zealand and Australia.

What does this mean for you?

Whether you’re looking for the market’s top IT talent, or need support in your job search, you can be confident in our ability to work to the highest industry standards.

To read more about the StaffSure certification scheme, click here.

Hot Jobs

Junior level

Junior Helpdesk Support Engineer - We have a rare opportunity for a junior Helpdesk Support Engineer, ideally straight out of study, who’s looking to join a progressive, professional corporate environment that really grows and develops their staff. Outstanding opportunity for a graduate to kick off their IT career. $40-$45k.

Intermediate level

Business Development Representative, Concentrate - We are working with Concentrate who are looking to recruit a Business Development Representative to drive inbound sales activity in this busy Technology Marketing Agency. Ideal opportunity for an Intermediate candidate with a strong sales and customer focus, looking to join a progressive, professional consultancy environment.

Senior level

React Developer, Trineo - We are working with Trineo to recruit an experienced React Developer to join their Christchurch team. This is a great opportunity to work with a globally dispersed team on high profile, challenging technical projects, both leading and developing within the Agile environment.

Within Sourced Walls 

It's been a busy but productive start to the year for the Sourced team. We have been delighted to introduce our new Candidate Resourcer Olivia to a number of clients, and she has settled in very quickly to the Sourced way of life. Olivia is proving instrumental in allowing us to provide an even higher level of candidate care to our permanent and contract candidates, and help to identify new talent coming into the market for our clients.

As of mid-February, Sourced went through the StaffSure assessment and we are proud to say we are officially StaffSure certified. This provides our clients and candidates confidence in our ability to work to the highest industry standards.

Who's in Demand

As mentioned above, we are busy across all role specialities, with a particular rise in demand for IT Infrastructure, Technical Support and Helpdesk professionals at a junior, intermediate and senior level. This has been both contract and permanent, and in higher volumes, with some clients hiring two or three at a time, though largely ones and twos.

Demand remains very steady in the Senior .Net Development space, with an emerging demand for alternative web and front-end technologies including PHP, React and Angular. 

The contracting space is hotting up again with demand remaining solid for good experienced BAs, Project Managers and Test professionals who can slot into project environments and add immediate value. Interestingly, we are seeing more and more candidates coming home and heading straight to contracting as opposed to considering permanent roles, and they are successfully making this transition. The last half of 2018 was very quiet in the contracting space, so it's good to see a return to activity, generally indicating a good level of market confidence and growth.

General Round Up

2019 has meant all hands to the pump. Juniors through seniors are all in demand, with only a small demand for management candidates. Contracting is keeping pace with permanent employment, and Infrastructure is holding its own against the traditional Canterbury demand for Software Engineering professionals.

From a permanent perspective, we are seeing a good return to growth as we move through 2019, and as yet this doesn't appear to be tempered by a resource shortage. We expect to be continuing to drive hard within our international talent pools, expat kiwis and in a new trend, North Island residents chasing the lifestyle opportunities available in Canterbury.

Work life balance, learning opportunities, growth and development and a positive work environment remain top on candidate's wish lists, with salaries still remaining static.

We look forward to keeping you abreast with how the year evolves!

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written several blogs. You can find them below:

Assessing Candidates for Cultural Fit

Should You Include References on Your CV?

Tips for Keeping New Employees Engaged Before Day One

How do you ensure you keep your new employee “warm” between signing the contract and officially starting at your company? Here is a checklist on keeping your new IT hire engaged and interested before day one.

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written several blogs. You can find them below:

We hope you've been keeping warm and well in this last cold month. It’s safe to say we are all welcoming the occasional bursts of sunshine and hoping for a quick return to warmer weather. It's been a busy, busy quarter here at Sourced with an almost unprecedented level of activity in the permanent recruitment space, coupled with sustained demand for contractors in the Professional Services space.

In this quarter update, we look at who's who in the zoo, market activity, what to expect in the coming months, and a general overview of the 'state of the IT nation'.

General Comments

The second quarter of the year ramped up even further on an already busy Q1 with an almost unprecedented level of demand across all IT disciplines. Rather than coming from just one or two key clients, we have had a very large number recruiting across the city, with recruitment being a mix of replacing outgoing team members and growth. Recruitment has been both in response to projects coming on stream and as a result of general business confidence and growth.

From a Sourced perspective, for the first time in over a year, 50% of permanent placements made in Q2 of 2018 were candidates choosing to move jobs within Christchurch. We have noted right through 2017 and into 2018 that levels of staff retention have been very high and we've largely relied on candidates relocating to Christchurch from within the country and internationally to keep up with client demands. 

Salary has not really come into the equation to a great extent. Given the market as a whole has been very stable over the last year or so this cannot be unexpected, with candidates naturally starting to come out of a cycle of focus and contentment and starting to question 'what's next'?

As we've commented before, we’re continuing to see an upward shift in candidates moving to Christchurch from both within New Zealand and internationally. We're finding those new to New Zealand are coming directly to Christchurch rather than via Auckland, and those based in Auckland are working a lot more actively to get themselves to
Christchurch, chasing similar career opportunities and salary levels, with a significantly lower cost of living.

From a contract perspective, as noted above, the level of demand of contract resource has held steady with the predominant demand being in the BA and Project Management space, with a small spike in Infrastructure Engineering/support contracts. Contracts have tended to be reasonably contained, typically in the 3-6 month space and for specific, well framed projects.

Hot Jobs

Junior level

Systems Analyst (Kathmandu) - We're on the lookout for an emerging Technical Business/Systems Analyst to work in an iconic Kiwi business, headquartered here in Christchurch. You’ll be junior - intermediate level with solid exposure to modern ERP systems, and a bright, enthusiastic, professional approach. Training will be provided for the right candidate.

Intermediate level

.NET Developer, Invert Robotics - Invert Robotics is seeking a .Net Developer. This is a very unique opportunity to develop software solutions from the ground up in a .Net/Cloud environment and architect, design and develop future solutions.

Senior level

Senior Electronics Engineer, Invert Robotics - We're in need of a Senior Electronics Engineer (also for Invert Robotics). Joining a local company making a huge impact on the global stage, you’ll be working across Firmware and Hardware Development within a dedicated Product Development team. This is a role with huge scope and would suit an all-rounder seeking greater independence, and the ability to work in a fast-paced Product Development environment.

Within Sourced Walls 

It's been a very busy time these last three months with barely time to stop and take stock. We recently farewelled Jessica Massey from the Consulting Team who welcomed a wee boy to the world and has chosen to step back from agency recruitment to spend more time with her family. We have also welcomed to the team, Emma, who will be joining us in a Recruitment Support capacity, helping to continue to drive candidate engagement and supporting the great level of client service that we pride ourselves on here at Sourced.

Who's in Demand

In terms of candidates in demand, from a permanent perspective, there has been a very broad demand for skills across Business Analysis, Project Management, Electronic Engineering, Software Development and Test. 

The R&D/Electronics space has always been one we've covered but has certainly taken centre stage these last few months, and within both our large international clients and smaller startups/emerging tech companies.

Demand for Developers in the .Net space has continued at steady pace, and we have also noted a spike in demand for Technical Business & Systems Analysts, both on a contract and permanent basis. ERP (in particular Dynamics AX) has been in hot demand across a number of clients, both for projects and ongoing support.

We are continuing to see a level of stability in the Management/Team Leader space, with retention levels being very high, and little in the way of new position creation. Graduate/Junior recruitment has been represented in small numbers, however recruitment continues to be at the experienced Intermediate - Senior level on the whole.

As new projects gain traction and move through planning and approval processes. We have otherwise seen a variety of roles recruited in ones and twos across Android/Cloud development, Network Engineering, Helpdesk, and Architecture.

General Round Up

Overall, we are experiencing a much busier than usual period with no signs of a slowdown. Growth is happening across the sector, retention levels are lower than usual, and so this is also driving activity. Contractors and permanent staff members are in demand, and this is for a mix of BAU and large projects. Business confidence remains very high, while salary levels remain static.

We look forward to keeping you abreast with how the year evolves!

______________________________________________________________________

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written several blogs. You can find them below:

Two Simple Tips To Finding A Job You Love

Welcome to Autumn!

We hope you're enjoying the remainder of the warm weather as the days start to get shorter ahead of daylight savings. We hope that you, like us, enjoyed the time off over Easter and were able to relax and unwind over the break.

In this quarter update, we look at how the first quarter of the year has shaped up, and what we might expect to see in the coming months.

General Comments

The year kicked off at a cracker pace, with permanent roles rolling over from December, and new permanent and contract roles coming to market from as early as week 2 of January. This was a particularly early start to the year for the contracting market, which typically does not come online until late February/March. Additionally, the flowover work from December coupled with new permanent roles brought forward recruitment. which usually starts to get busy towards the end of February.

There has definitely been a sense of urgency about to get new teams established and running, seats filled to meet project demands, and market optimism on the whole remains positive. From a retention perspective, it's still a very positive picture for employers, with valued team members broadly choosing not to look at the market and sourcing coming via a range of expat, new migrant, relocation and returning to work talent pools. There has been a small bubble of disestablishments and redundancies resulting in local talent becoming available but this has been only a small percentage overall of our active talent pool.

From a permanent perspective, demand is broad and from junior through to senior/specialist, and from a contract perspective, planning and ramp up of projects is well and truly underway, with a firm ongoing demand for Business Analysts and Project Managers being at the fore.

As mentioned above, we are continuing to draw heavily on international and expat candidate markets, with active movement within the Canterbury region low to steady. This has been a full year trend through 2017.

Hot Jobs

Junior level

Technical Tester - Get involved in one of Microsoft's Top 5 Global Programmes currently underway, right here in Christchurch. A great opportunity for junior, mid and senior level technical testers to get involved with Functional, Technical, Integration and Automation testing. Fixed Term contracts available now.

Intermediate level

House of Travel, Project Manager - Due to the pace and rate of change within our industry, our systems and technologies are constantly evolving to keep up. We’re a business that leads through technology, and with significant projects to deliver across 2018, we are looking for an experienced Project Manager to join our team.

Senior level

Software Architect/Team Lead, VSS Trimble New Zealand - The candidate will have the opportunity to gain excellent on-the-job experience working for a fast-moving software division building full-stack microservices. You will develop performant, scalable applications that are translated into 23 languages and used in 192 countries.  Applications run in Amazon Web Services and you will leverage AngularJS, WebPack, Bootstrap, TypeScript, NodeJS, C# .NET Core and Apache Kafka. Come join us if you like solving hard scaling problems that involve billions of rows of code. 

Within Sourced Walls 

It's been a busy quarter within the Sourced office with, as mentioned, activity at an above average level. We were thrilled to welcome Jess’s new baby, born in February, and otherwise our team has remained very much engaged and stable.

Who's in Demand

In terms of candidates in demand, from a permanent perspective, there has been a very broad demand for skills across Project Management, Electronics and Web Development (C#/JavaScript) and Systems Engineering. Coming out of a very quiet patch, Infrastructure roles have been on the rise, with the focus lying in the mid-experienced Windows Sys Engineering areas. We are continuing to see a level of stability in the Management/Team Leader space, with retention levels being very high, and little in the way of new position creation. Graduate/Junior recruitment has also only been represented in small numbers, with recruitment continuing to be at the experienced Intermediate - Senior level on the whole.

Web Development in the JavaScript and Front End areas has been very busy, as has broader Android/iOS Development opportunities, both permanent and contract.

There are a lot of organisations really pushing on into new technology stacks and pursuing aggressive product growth plans, which has really invigorated the market and introduced some really interesting opportunities.

On the contracting side, this has been heavily geared towards Business Analysis and Project Management as new projects gain traction and/or continue at pace from 2017. We are seeing a number of projects gaining momentum which will look to carry the contracting market through to at least the second quarter, and which may see a movement of permanent employees towards contract and fixed term roles.

General Round Up

Overall, we are experiencing a busier than usual start to the year, with a slight flattening as we see out the quarter, predominantly due to vacancies being filled quickly and teams getting up to speed/new starts inducted. Growth is happening across the sector, retention levels are high, and as a result we are continuing to grow the market with new talent. Contractors and permanent staff members are in demand, and this is for a mix of BAU and large projects. Business confidence remains high, while salary levels remain static.

We look forward to keeping you abreast with how the year evolves!

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written several blogs. You can find them below:

Women in Tech in New Zealand - The State of Play

Turning Your Offshore Status into Onshore

Unhappy in Your Job? Picking Out Your Next Move in IT

First up, a very Happy New Year to you all. While no doubt there is still a longing to return to the long and lazy days of Christmas, at Sourced we are already forming plans and really ramping up for the new year with energy and optimism. We are now all back on deck and have had a busier than usual return to the year with both contract and permanent recruitment well underway.

In this quarter update, we look at the whole of 2017, bringing you a view of the year that was, and a sneak peak of what to look out for this year. We hope you enjoy it! You will see a Sourced report coming to you also in early 2018 but we encourage you to make contact with us if you're looking for any specific market intelligence, salary surveys, role positioning or similar. We're in a really unique position to watch the market as it evolves, and always happy to share these insights.

General Comments

2017 really was a busy busy year, with little of the peaks and troughs we will often encounter across the four quarters. It was a market driven by both contract and permanent requirements, all within a quieter than usual local candidate market. This meant our candidate pools were tending to come from offshore, the regions (with a noted pickup of relocations from Auckland), and expats returning home to Christchurch. 

While permanent recruitment continued at pace across most areas of IT in 2017, there was a definite focus on growth in highly specific/targeted areas, and with a spike towards the end of 2017 (and into early 2018) of newly created, more generalist roles, aimed at ramping up internal capability for our technology clients. Business confidence appears to be remaining high with the majority of new roles coming into the market for 2018 being new, and again responding to a need to tool up for upcoming projects and product releases. This is also driving contract market activity with contract roles coming to market earlier than we would typically see for this time of year, and in greater volume.

In terms of staff retention, it was a repeat of 2016, with very little movement in the local market, and candidates predominantly coming from outside of Canterbury. Where they are looking, local candidates are tending to be looking for stability first and foremost, interesting project challenges, the opportunity to work with new technologies, work/life balance, and professional growth opportunities.  

In terms of staff retention, it was a repeat of 2016, with very little movement in the local market, and candidates predominantly coming from outside of Canterbury. 

From a contract perspective, there was buoyancy across the year, with a particularly strong demand for Business Analysts, followed by Test Analysts and finally Project Managers. In 2016, coming off the back off of a BAU year, we were predicting 2017 to be a busy one for the Fixed Term and Contract market, and we have certainly seen this. This has been driven both by reasonably significant system implementation projects coming online, and generally holding the fort while plans were developed for longer term recruits.

As mentioned above, we are continuing to draw heavily on international and expat candidate markets, with active movement within the Canterbury region down. We have seen this right through 2016 and 2017, with those choosing to move within the Christchurch market tending to be moving for hands on/mid-senior level roles, or roles for which they have been specifically headhunted by clients for their skills and capability. There is a definite desire at the Senior/Management end of the market for change, and many are looking to new opportunities in the market. However, the market has offered very little in return, with minimal recruitment in this space across the year.

Hot Jobs

Intermediate level

MCS Build & Test Engineer - Outstanding opportunity to join Trimble Navigation, specialising in Android manufacturing software technologies, on a 12 month fixed term contract managing build and test environments. Trimble are a leading global specialist in the navigation technology space, with an unrelenting focus on innovation and a strong presence in Christchurch.

Intermediate level

Business Analyst/Product Owner - We seek to appoint a motivated, driven Business Analyst/Product Owner in a brand new role for Wellington Drive Technologies, a New Zealand owned, global market leading high tech manufacturing and SaaS business. Working between Product Management and an Agile Delivery team, you will provide the analysis and support integral to the successful delivery of this established and growing company’s Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.

Senior level

Senior Web Developer - This is an outstanding opportunity for a skilled software engineer with a solid understanding of 3D graphics, interest in computational design, and experience in writing scalable web applications to join the Computational Design Group (part of Trimble Buildings) in beautiful Wellington. You will work in an environment offering the benefits of both a startup and established global business, becoming a core team member working on an ambitious project that is poised to transform manufacturing & construction, and reach millions of users.

Within Sourced Walls 

2017 was a year of big change for Sourced, with several team members heading off overseas and as a result new team members coming in. In particular we farewelled Hannah Iranon, our very first Sourced employee, who headed off the the US with her husband. However, we're still in touch and enjoying seeing her flourish in a similar role in an entirely new market! 

It was great to round out the year with a Christmas get-together with all of our contractors who have done such a great job across the year. With a number now working with us on multiple projects and across multiple clients, our contractors really are an extension of the Sourced family and it's always a great time to get them together in the same place at the same time.

Finally, as a Sourced team, we finished out the year in typical kiwi fashion with a Christmas BBQ with lots of kids, swimming, and terrible Christmas music. Fun times were had!

Who's in Demand

2017 was very much a broad market in terms of candidates in demand. In the permanent space, recruitment was (as with 2016) very much geared towards the Software Development/Applications side, with a continued but measured demand for Project Managers, Developers, Business Analysts and Testers. Infrastructure roles did show strength, however tended to sit at a Helpdesk/Support and Infrastructure Engineer level, with very little movement in the Management/Team Leader space.

We have certainly continued to see a level of stability in the Management/Team Leader space, with retention levels still remaining high, and little in the way of new position creation. This means we have a very deep candidate pool at this level, and really hope to be able to assist with new appointments this year. While it certainly presents some challenges for those looking to progress their careers, it remains a positive for employers from a team stability and leadership perspective.

We have certainly continued to see a level of stability in the Management/Team Leader space. This means we have a very deep candidate pool at this level, and really hope to be able to assist with new appointments this year. 

For 2018 we are looking ahead with interest. We have clients with large projects well underway, and projects in the wings. Recruitment is already at full pace, and with local candidate retention at an all time high over the past two years, we may well see a movement of local permanent employees coming into the market. Watch out for continued demand in the BA, Development, Test, and Project Management space.

General Round Up

2017 was certainly a busy year of BAU and project recruitment, with 2018 looking busier still. Projects that ramped up in 2017 continue on, and demand remains high for quality permanent and contract candidates.

Work life balance, learning opportunities, growth and development and a positive work environment remain top on candidate's wish lists, with salaries still remaining static. This again has been the case for a couple of years now, so expect an upward swing across the year.

We look forward to keeping you abreast with how the year evolves!

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written several blogs. You can find them below:

Top Tech Trends for 2018

Investment in IT: Post-Election Wrap Up

How to Handle a Request for a Pay Increase

Welcome to our quarterly market update. Hopefully the warm weather and longer evenings are providing you with more opportunities to get out and about and welcome the incoming summer. An eclectic bunch here at Sourced, we're finding the return of daylight savings is providing ample chance to pursue a range of personal pursuits from cycling to music, sports to beekeeping (see image right!). Within Sourced walls, October is always that time of year when we look backwards, look forwards and realise the year really has sped by and we're now in the final ramp up to Christmas. While it's far too early (isn't it?) to be talking Christmas, we're busy in the last push before 'the' holidays in December.

It's been a really busy last 3 months, with lots of activity, events, general community involvement and team growth all in the mix. We are continuing to find that our contributions to the Canterbury tech sector are growing well beyond traditional recruitment, and we've continued to build some really valuable partnerships and alliances over this past quarter. At Sourced, we have always firmly believed that we have an obligation to be great corporate citizens, active community members, and a source of up-to-the-minute information for anybody seeking it. We are always looking for new and different ways to participate, contribute and to give back.

General Comments

As we look back over the past 3 months, we have seen a continued demand for contractors, a demand area that has now held steady since mid-year. Permanent recruitment has continued down the BAU path, however, conversely, we are recruiting full new teams in smaller numbers for new technologies/projects kicking off. This recruitment has been large volume within a small number of client sites, with the remainder of our permanent recruitment focus being BAU recruitment for growth in ones and twos, and replacements.

Larger projects in the market are few, however we do see this changing in the new year, with a number of businesses currently in the planning and preparation stages of ERP and large system replacement projects. We expect these to ramp up in earnest in the very late stages of Q1 2018 and beyond, with no real expectation of movement prior to that. 

We expect big projects to ramp up in earnest in the very late stages of Q1 2018 and beyond, with no real expectation of movement prior to that. 

We are continuing to draw heavily on international and ex pat candidate markets, with active movement within the Canterbury region still right down. Those choosing to move within the Christchurch market have tended to be moving for hands on/mid-senior level roles, or roles for which they have been specifically headhunted by clients for their skills and capability, and are otherwise those affected by planned or actual restructures. Employers are clearly doing a great job in their engagement and retention efforts and we are seeing a very satisfied local employee base on the whole.

Hot Jobs

Junior level

Operations Analyst - Foodstuffs SI Ltd are offering a great opportunity for a Helpdesk Support specialist to take the next step up. This role is a really broad mix, including monitoring and maintenance of servers and backups, customer support and supporting cloud products. You’ll work closely with internal stakeholders assisting with projects from an operational perspective while assisting technical support teams. $55-$70k

Intermediate level

Business Systems Analyst - House of Travel are looking for an experienced Business Systems analyst to work within a dynamic BA team, getting involved in requirements gathering, gap analysis, systems analysis and reporting. The role involves a high level of collaboration with internal support streams and third party vendors, working in a fast-paced Agile delivery environment. $80-85k

Senior level

Web/UI Architect - A long standing employer in Christchurch, Trimble New Zealand offers career opportunities across a range of business units represented here, including GIS Data Collection, Heavy Civil Construction (Machine Control and Software Solutions), Precision Agriculture, and Land Survey. The Web/UI Architect is responsible for continuing to develop and evolve the software architecture that underpins world class user interface software, within a fast paced, dynamic environment. +$120k

Within Sourced Walls

The last 3 months have been a really interesting time for the Sourced team, with team movement and growth. On an extremely sad note, we farewelled our very first Sourced employee, Hannah Iranon. Hannah joined us in the first year of the Sourced business, presenting as a bright and ambitious Coffee Culture Cafe Manager with aspirations of a career in recruitment. Hannah went on to hold a number of roles in the business from Senior Recruitment Consultant to Operations Manager and literally worked alongside Jason and Michelle, forming the building blocks of the Sourced that we operate today. Hannah has headed off to the USA with her husband and has managed to secure an awesome role with a local recruitment company similar to Sourced in her new hometown of Spokane. We know she's going be a star.

We have welcomed Jessica Massey to the recruitment team, joining us here in Christchurch and a lot of you will already have had the pleasure of dealing with Jess. From a strong recruitment, technology and account management background, Jess has fitted into the team quickly and we look forward to introducing her to you over the coming months.

In September, we were once again represented as key sponsors and Trade Show participants at the Canterbury Tech Summit. This year again was an attendance sell out, with over 650 in attendance. It was a really worthwhile day; Canterbury Tech Summit is always 'the' event in the Canterbury national tech calendar (in our opinion), and feedback was very positive around the quality of speakers, venue, organisation, and collaboration and networking opportunities. As is our practice in inviting community groups onto our Tech Summit stand, we this year invited Code Club to share our stand and really enjoyed spending the day with Michael and Bryn and promoting the awesome work they do in getting coding and tech skills into primary schools across the country.

Who's In Demand

Demand continues in the contracting space, in particular for Business Analysts and Project Managers, with the majority of projects being short to mid-term, filling gaps in internal capability, getting projects across the line, and laying the initial foundations for future projects. This is very much in line with Q3 activity and we expect will start to quieten off as we move closer to the end of year. Contracting as a whole is about where we'd expect it for this time of year, though it has held consistency for some time now, not effected by the usual peaks and troughs we see in this market. We expect to see a strong pick up again in Feb-March of 2018 as businesses come back online in earnest.

On the permanent front, again this is best described as business as usual. Permanent retention remains high, and hiring that is underway appears to be in small numbers, for specialist roles and roles that have had real planning wrapped around them as opposed to pure organic growth. That said, we have a small number of clients that are growing significantly, and this is exclusively due to new products/technology sets and teams being built around this. Modern web technologies (Angular, React, JavaScript) and Embedded Engineering requirements are keeping us extremely busy, as is Infrastructure and Systems, an area that has generally been quieter throughout the year. Average appointing salaries have been sitting in the $80-100k range, with mid-senior level 'on the tools' candidates being most in demand. This is up on last year, where an average salary recruit at this time of year was sitting around $65-$80k.

General Round-Up

The market continues to move along at pace both in contract and permanent recruitment. Staff retention is high, growth is well planned and scoped, projects are gathering momentum, with 2018 looking to continue on in earnest. We look forward to seeing how the rest of the year plays out, and will come to you with a final quarter/year wrap up in late December. We hope you enjoy the warmer weather coming, and look forward to seeing you in due course over the next few months.

In Case You Missed It

Over the last quarter, we’ve written several blogs. You can find them below:

Investment in IT: What the Election Means for NZ's Technology Sector 

With this year being an election year, we took a look at how the major parties were approaching the tech sector, and what their policies meant for you. Now that it's all said and done (well, just about anyway!) you can take a retrospective look here.

Job-Hopping vs Stability: Which is Better for Your IT Career?

As IT companies become more receptive to professionals with varied job histories, is having a stable work-history still a plus? In this blog, we dive into the benefits of job-hopping and long tenure and how you can ensure you’re doing what’s best for your career.

How to Pick Out Interview Fraudsters

Goodbye Shortest Day!

We hope you're keeping well and warm as we finally get past the hump of the shortest day. With the coldest days really creeping us on us we've all been spending a lot more time indoors, and making the most of the sun when it chooses to show itself! Right in the middle of a really hectic period internally, we've been working on a range of junior - senior, permanent and contract positions across Christchurch and Auckland, with no pause in sight. It's a busy time, and we look forward to filling you in on why!

In this quarter update, we look at how the second quarter of the year has shaped up, and what we might expect to see in the coming months. 

General Comments

The year continues at a cracker pace, with permanent roles continuing to being released and contract opportunities picking up with equal pace. There is definitely a sense of urgency about to get new teams established and running, seats filled to meet project demands, and market optimism on the whole remains positive. From a retention perspective, it's still a very positive picture for employers, with valued team members broadly choosing not to look at the market and sourcing coming via a range of expat, new migrant, relocation and returning to work talent pools. 

There is definitely a sense of urgency about to get new teams established and running, seats filled to meet project demands, and market optimism on the whole is very positive. 

From a permanent perspective, demand is broad and from junior through to senior/specialist, and from a contract perspective, planning and ramp up of projects is well and truly underway, with a firm ongoing demand for Business Analysts and Project Managers being at the fore.

As mentioned above, we are continuing to draw heavily on international and expat candidate markets, with active movement within the Canterbury region down. This has been a full year to date trend, and given we're already mid year, we do expect this sentiment to continue with recruitment activities predominantly aimed at building new teams, new capability and delivery projects as opposed to recruiting due to attrition.

From Auckland's Perspective

In the year since we opened our Auckland office, the business continues to grow. We have been fortunate in establishing some solid partnerships with key clients as we work with them to manage their talent planning and pipelines, both in New Zealand and offshore.

With the overall technology market growth in Auckland - largely driven by organisations undergoing continuous digital transformation - we are seeing more businesses evolving to cloud-based platforms. In turn, this creates a higher demand for cloud specialists, big data specialists and analysts as organisations underpin their decision-making with measurable data.

Talent in demand continues to be at the senior level. With the demand/supply imbalance, good intermediate level candidates with attitude and an aptitude for knowledge and learning are often stepping up into these roles. Where niche skill sets are hard to come by, we rely on our border talent search to be able to keep up with the growth of Auckland.

Job-seeker trends - A growing number of job seekers are rating workplace flexibility ahead of remuneration.

Employer trends - Aside from the technical skill-sets, employers rate adaptability, cultural/team fit, business acumen and communication skills. Organisations which offer L&D opportunities are winning on the acquisition and retention front.

---

Hot Jobs

Junior level

Junior Java Developer
We are seeking an enthusiastic, technically minded Java Developer to join our unique Christchurch-based client are the bright sparks behind the development of one of Europe's leading online advertising marketplaces. You'll be working at the cutting edge of Agile Development with a large team of highly skilled professionals, renowned for their fantastic culture and commitment to evolving software development methodologies. is the place to be to develop your enterprise Java skills. 

Intermediate level

Intermediate Project Manager

This is a chance to join high profile organisation in the manufacturing industry based on the outskirts of Christchurch. In this role you'll be focused on a varied range of projects, juggling multiple projects at any given time and working with a talented and highly regarded project team. You'll be taking ownership of a number of projects to ensure they are delivered to the highest standard, whilst using your initiative to add value in this rapidly expanding environment. Opportunities on this scale are rare in the Canterbury market and we don't expect the position will be available long!

Senior level

Senior Android Developer - Contract

We are seeking a Senior Android Developer to take on this contract role, working on greenfields development projects within a collaborative, high performing R&D team. Our client has a proud history of innovation and thought leadership, and are not afraid to use bleeding edge technologies to deliver innovative product solutions. In this role you'll have a genuine opportunity to influence the development of products and services, and contribute to new and exciting product offerings.

---

Within Sourced Walls 

Bring on Easter!

We hope you've enjoyed the final days of Summer, as we reluctantly slip into Autumn with just a few warm days remaining to enjoy. With Easter just around the corner we're looking forward to taking a brief pause after what has been an unseasonably busy start to 2017. With new team members in our Auckland team, projects ramping up within our Christchurch business, and little let up in activity between Christmas 2016 and the new year, it's been a really busy time!

In this quarterly update, we'll look at how the first quarter of the year has shaped up, and what we might expect to see in the coming months. You will see a Sourced Report has been released for early 2017, going into detail on a number of key industry trends. We also encourage you to contact us if you're looking for any specific market intelligence, salary surveys, role positioning or similar. We're in a unique position to watch the market as it evolves, and we're always happy to share these insights.

General Comments

The year has gotten off to a cracker of a start, with permanent roles being released a lot earlier than we expect from January onwards and contract opportunities picking up with equal pace. There is definitely a sense of urgency about to get new teams established and running, seats filled to meet project demands, and market optimism on the whole is very positive. In terms of retention, it's still a very positive picture for employers, with valued team members broadly choosing not to look at the market in what is often termed a 'danger zone' period post the summer holiday. 

There is definitely a sense of urgency about to get new teams established and running, seats filled to meet project demands, and market optimism on the whole is very positive. 

From a Sourced perspective, only 10% of permanent appointments during the first quarter were candidates moving from one Christchurch employer to another, with 50% moving into Christchurch from other New Zealand centres and offshore, and 40% being in positions of redundancies, having taken breaks from working or returning from contracting to permanent employment.

From a contract perspective, planning and ramp up of projects is well and truly underway, with a firm ongoing demand for Business Analysts being at the fore.

As mentioned above, we are continuing to draw heavily on international and expat candidate markets, with active movement within the Canterbury region down. We do expect this sentiment to continue with recruitment activities predominantly aimed at building new teams, new capability and delivery projects as opposed to recruiting due to attrition.

From Auckland's Perspective

The Auckland economy continues to grow and, along with it, many of our clients are in expansion mode. According to the March 2017 Infometrics Regional Perspectives Report, "Auckland is New Zealand's growth engine and is expected to outperform the national economy over the next four years," with nearly 85,000 new jobs forecast to be created by 2021. Job creation will be strongest in the professional, scientific and technical services sectors (16,450 jobs), healthcare and social assistance (11,050) and education and training sectors (8,200).

Talent and skills demand in the IT and Technology sectors continues to over-reach supply, reinforcing more than ever the importance of business investment in training and development. At Sourced, we are going some way to mitigating this challenge by working alongside our clients to understand their plans so we can proactively build talent pipelines. 

The roles in hot demand and keeping us busy are in the digital strategy and transformation space (app developer gurus take note); software engineering and development; senior program and project managers;  to name a few. We are also working on off-shore based roles with clients expanding into overseas markets.

---

Hot Jobs

Junior level

e2 Digital - Customer Support Analyst
This role is all about providing the support clients need to operate at peak capacity. You'll action and resolve support requests via phone or our email support system (Zendesk) in a friendly, efficient manner. You'll be part of a talented in-house team of certified digital specialists working on an array of interesting projects for a range of great clients; a team dedicated to delivering amazing digital solutions by working collaboratively and utilising each member's unique skills.

Intermediate level

Trimble - Software Engineer - C#/Automation

The candidate will be a member of an agile feature team working on creating and improving a distributed enterprise-level SaaS application. The candidate will focus on writing code to automate testing process and improving the automation test framework, and will be working with internationally distributed development teams.

Senior level - Christchurch

Opmetrix - Software Development Team Lead

The candidate will be a member of an agile feature team working on creating and improving a distributed enterprise-level SaaS application. The candidate will focus on writing code to automate testing process and improving the automation test framework, and will be working with internationally distributed development teams.

Senior level - Auckland

Wellington Drive - Engineering Manager

Wellington Drive Technologies' mission is to deliver solutions to solve its customers' commercial refrigeration energy efficiency and system control problems, through the development of Advanced Electronic Motors, Airflow Solutions and Intelligent Refrigeration Controllers. Small, specialised, and focused, not a large faceless and diversified monolith, Wellington Drive Technologies are technology leaders with an engineering team among the best in the industry. This is your opportunity to be at the helm, managing day to day departmental operations, while driving successful new product development and product support project delivery within this global business.

---

Within Sourced Walls 

Welcome to 2017!

First up, a very Happy New Year to you all. It's always an interesting time of year, a mix of longing for a return to the long and lazy days of Christmas, whilst already forming plans and really ramping up for a new year with energy and optimism. We are now all back on deck at Sourced, having enjoyed a well-earned break, and looking forward to a busy 2017 both here in Christchurch and Auckland.

In this quarter update, we look at the whole of 2016, bringing you a view of the year that was, and a sneak peak of what to look out for this year. We hope you enjoy it! You will see a Sourced Report coming to you in early 2017, but we encourage you to contact us if you're looking for any specific market intelligence, salary surveys, role positioning or similar. We're in a unique position to watch the market as it evolves, and always happy to share these insights.

General Comments

With a market driven by both contract and permanent requirements, 2016 really was a mixed bag, however, overall, a market best described as 'business as usual'. While permanent recruitment continued at a constant pace across most areas of IT, there was a definite focus on growth in highly specific/targeted areas, and otherwise recruiting for attrition, which was very low across the year. From a retention perspective, it was a very positive year for employers, with valued team members tending to be looking for stability, interesting project challenges, work/life balance and growth opportunities. With a market offering little in the way of significant growth or exceptional projects, there has been very little incentive to consider a move in 2016 and this has resulted in tighter, collaborative teams promoting strong internal culture. 

We are predicting 2017 to be a busy one for Fixed Term and Contract markets due to several very significant system implementation projects coming to the South Island.

We have certainly noticed that the recruitment we have had underway has been appointing candidates, who are new to Christchurch, into specific/targeted gaps. At the same time, we’ve also been redeploying highly skilled professionals who were affected by redundancy into new roles, and companies who have grown in small numbers (>5).

From a contract perspective, while the year started off very quietly, by the end of the 3rd quarter it was well and truly underway as plans started for some notable projects coming online in 2017. Coming off the back of a BAU year, we are predicting 2017 to be a busy one for Fixed Term and Contract markets due to several very significant system implementation projects coming to the South Island.

As mentioned above, we are continuing to draw heavily on international and expat candidate markets, with active movement within the Canterbury region down. Those choosing to move within the Christchurch market have tended to be moving for hands-on/mid-senior level roles. Otherwise, these candidates have been specifically headhunted by clients for their skills and capabilities, or are those affected by planned or actual restructures.

We certainly expect most restructures to now be behind us, and are looking forward to a year of growth opportunities for many.

---

Hot Jobs

Junior level

We are looking for a Customer Support Analyst with the ability to build strong interpersonal rapport with customers and teams, alongside a ‘can-do’ attitude and strong attention to detail. A competitive salary is on offer with the chance to join a professional, motivated team that promotes team spirit and high quality results, in an internationally renowned organisation in a state of growth.

Intermediate level

There is an outstanding opportunity for an experienced SharePoint Developer to join a successful, high-profile, and caring company. You’ll become part of an engaged workforce who encourages collaboration and communication, and embraces change and innovation. This role offers the chance to develop game changing applications that will change and enhance people’s lives.

Senior level

We are looking for an ambitious, collaborative, and forward-thinking Lead Software Tester to join a highly successful, privately owned New Zealand enterprise. This role offers a fantastic chance to lead a close-knit testing team, whilst working closely with the wider Christchurch technology group. With high-profile projects that will shape the next 9-12 months due to kick-off shortly, this is a great time to come onboard.

---

Within Sourced Walls 

Welcome to Spring!

Welcome to our quarterly market update. We hope you're enjoying the first signs of Spring and the return to daylight savings with the promise of warmer, longer nights and great BBQs! October is always that time of year when we look backwards, look forwards and realise the year really has sped by and we're now in the final ramp up to Christmas. We realise it's far too early to be mentioning a certain Santa, but we have it on good authority that Advent Calendars are already in stores!

It's been a really busy past 3 months within Sourced, with lots of activity, events, general community involvement, team growth, and an expansion into the North Island all in the mix. We are continuing to find that our contributions to the Canterbury tech sector are growing well beyond traditional recruitment and we've continued to build some really valuable partnerships and alliances over this past quarter. 

At Sourced we have always firmly believed that we have an obligation to be great corporate citizens, active tech and business community members, and a source of relevant and up to the minute information for anybody seeking. We always strive and are always looking for new and different ways to participate, 

contribute and to give back.

We're also delighted to announce that we are once again a finalist for the SEEK Annual Recruitment Awards in the Agency of the Year category! Thank you to SEEK judges for choosing us amongst the finalists, and thank you to all of our clients and candidates for working with us and enabling us to provide you with an award-worthy service. 

General Comments

As we look back over the past 3 months, we have seen a continued swing back towards demand for contractors, an area that as mentioned previously has been quieter than usual since the last quarter of 2015. While we started to see a move away from 'BAU' recruitment to recruiting for larger projects coming online in the second half of the year, this appears to have stalled slightly, with more time being put into planning and preparation and looking to ramp up in earnest in the very late stages of the year, and early into 2017. Again, ERP and system replacement projects appear to be driving future demand, but we do expect this demand to be coming online a little later than anticipated. This said, plans can often change and quickly, and we may see this activity push towards a busy end of year. Watch this space!

We are continuing to draw heavily on international and expat candidate markets, with active movement within the Canterbury region down.

We are continuing to draw heavily on international and expat candidate markets, with active movement within the Canterbury region down. Those choosing to move within the Christchurch market have tended to be moving for hands on/mid-senior level roles, or roles for which they have been specifically headhunted by clients for their skills and capability, and are otherwise those affected by planned or actual restructures, Speaking of this, we have seen a small amount of activity in the restructuring/reorganisation and disestablishment space, however largely those affected are either being redeployed within their existing businesses (ideal) or being snapped up quickly by local organisations. 

---

Hot Jobs

We are looking for a Second Tier Technical Support person to fast growing company in a competitive industry. This is a chance to work with a company that really goes the extra mile to make their workplace a fantastic place to be. You would provide second tier technical support to the Business, Customer Support and Infrastructure teams, manage and maintain desktop operating systems and applications and ensure the support, services and functionality provided to the company are of a high standard.

We are looking for an Intermediate BI Analyst to take an active hand in the development of Business Intelligence solutions within a medium sized local organisation, who are part of a larger global group. Located in the central city you will enjoy the support of a collaborative environment that values innovation and the need for Business Intelligence within their core product offering. There is currently scope for this role to become permanent for the right person.

We are looking for a Senior UX Designer to join the world's leading designer and manufacturer of electronic controls for power wheelchairs and scooters. You will be responsible for UX design and improvements on both new and existing applications and product development; taking ownership of the overall design of the product, presenting designs in the form of best practice UX methods and ensuring compliance with UX design and brand requirements.

 

---

Within Sourced Walls 

The last 3 months have been a really interesting time for the Sourced team, with team movement, growth and a brand new location! Based on an ongoing demand from national clients to expand our services, we have taken quiet steps into the Auckland market, servicing existing clients with North Island representation and also growing organically into new areas. Our focus remains very firmly in the IT & Technology space, but we're now looking to grow our capability further with teams, clients and networks and spread nationally. If you're going to be in Auckland and would like to meet with one of our team, please get in touch with Michelle to arrange this!

We have taken quiet steps into the Auckland market, servicing existing clients with North Island representation and also growing organically into new areas.

On a less fortunate note, we say goodbye to two of our Christchurch team members this quarter, both heading off on international travels. Hamish Calder, who has been with us for the past year as a Recruitment Consultant, is heading off to Canada with his partner to follow outdoor and travel pursuits, while our very long serving Office Manager, William Huang, is following his partner to China as she pursues her career in International Business Banking. We are very sad to see them go, William was our second employee at Sourced and has really grown with us over the years; he and Hamish will be missed!

We were once again represented as key sponsors, and Trade Show participants at this year's Canterbury Tech Summit. This year was a record turn out at the Wigram Museum Convention Centre, with 650 in attendance and a further 50-100 on the waiting list to attend! It was a really worthwhile day, always 'the' event in the Canterbury national tech calendar, and feedback was very positive around the quality of speakers, venue, organisation, and collaboration and networking opportunities. As is our practice in inviting community groups onto our Tech Summit stand, this year we invited Renea Mackie and students from the Kohknowco Lab.

If you haven't heard of Kohknowco before, Kohknowco is an innovation framework, designed through practice, to support kids to do what they love; collaborate, work in teams, and develop their own startups. With an experimental Lab running at Ao Tawhiti Unlimited Discovery School, the Lab runs just like any other class, but in their class, they have designers, artists, music producers, coders, film makers, writers, and all sorts of colorful characters! If you'd like the opportunity to visit Renea and her students at Kohknowco they are always very welcoming of industry visits. Just let us know and we can arrange this!

Who's in Demand

Demand remains strong in the contracting space, in particular for Project Managers, Developers, Business Analysts and Testers, with the majority of projects being short to mid term, filling gaps in internal capability, getting projects across the line, and laying the initial foundations for future projects. This is very much in line with Q3 activity and we expect this will start to quieten off as we move closer to the end of year. Contracting as a whole is about where we'd expect it for this time of year, and we expect to see a stronger pick up in Feb-March of 2017 as businesses come back online in earnest, and look to hit key KPIs before end of financial year.

Recruitment has been adding capability to existing teams, replacing the occasional departing team member and largely tweaking existing structures.  

On the permanent front, again this is best described as business as ususal. Permanent retention remains high, and the hiring that is underway appears to be in small numbers; for specialist roles and roles that have had real planning wrapped around as opposed to pure organic growth. As we commented last quarter, recruitment has been adding capability to existing teams, replacing the occasional departing team member and largely tweaking existing structures. Areas of activity have been in the UX/UI (contract and permanent), Business Analysis (contract and permanent), IT Technical Support & Engineering and Testing. Average appointing salaries have been sitting in the $65-$85k range, with mid to senior level 'on the tools' candidates being most in demand.

General Round Up

The market continues to tick long nicely. Staff retention is high, growth is well planned and scoped, projects are gathering momentum, with 2017 looking to start on a high note. We look forward to seeing how the rest of the year plays out, and will come to you with a final quarter/year wrap up in late December. We hope you enjoy the warmer weather coming, and look forward to seeing you in due course over the next few months.

---

In Case You Missed It

We've written a number of blogs over the last quarter, which you can find here:

8 Tips on How to Stay Productive When You're In-Between Jobs

Being between jobs can often leave you drained and deflated, making staying motivated difficult. Although job searching takes time, non-stop scrolling through job boards isn’t the way to go, so check out our 8 tips on how to stay productive.

Retaining Your High Performing People

 With the widely discussed "talent shortage" being the biggest concern for employers in today’s job market, retaining your top staff is more important than ever. So, what can you do to keep your employees better engaged? Read more here.

A Guide to Choosing a Winning Reference

What your referees say about you has the power to help you win or lose the job of your dreams. If you need some tips for picking the right people to advocate for you, click here for our guide to picking a winning reference.

An Onboarding Guide for IT Employers

In the fast paced IT industry, a well-designed onboarding strategy can help you retain top talent and decrease staff turnover. Click here to read through our guide and download our onboarding checklist.

How to Hire for Team Fit

In many organisations hiring someone that is a team fit is considered to be just as important as getting the job done. So what exactly is team fit and why should you know about it? Find out more here.

Mid Winter has arrived - but will there be snow?

Welcome to our quarterly market update. While we've had an incredibly long and warm Summer to Autumn transition, it feels like winter is finally upon us; and now the question on everybody's lips - will there be snow? Having a 3-year-old in the family certainly makes it that bit more exciting, although if first attempts at an introduction to snow are anything to go by, we definitely have a summer child.

It's been a busy past three months within Sourced, with lots of activity, events, fundraising, and general community involvement going on. We are finding that more and more our value and contribution to the Canterbury tech sector is growing well beyond traditional recruitment and into areas such as start-up business and tech strategy, organisational structure and creating strong delivery teams, supporting and developing next generation tech professionals, and building connections and formal mentoring programmes through our networks - to name a few. This is where we really find our passion, being able to exist and grow as an integral and contributing member of our community, giving back to an industry that we are extremely passionate about.

General Comments

As we look back on the last quarter we have seen a heavy swing back towards demand for contractors, an area that has been much quieter than usual since the end of 2015. We are also seeing a move away from 'BAU' recruitment, towards starting to ramp up for larger projects coming on-line in the second half of this year. ERP and System replacement projects appear to be driving future demand, and with this we expect to see an even larger demand for specialist contracting resource.

We are continuing to draw heavily on international and expat candidate markets, however these numbers have balanced out against candidates moving from within New Zealand and within the Canterbury region. Those choosing to move within the Christchurch market have tended to be moving for hands on/mid-senior level roles, or roles for which they have been specifically headhunted by clients for their skills and capability. 

Being located in the centre of the Innovation precinct, it has been really great watching so many businesses returning to the CBD or reestablishing themselves here. 

Being located in the centre of the Innovation precinct, it has been really great watching so many businesses returning to the CBD or reestablishing themselves here. We were recently able to complete a tour through the new Kathmandu building which is a cornerstone of the Innovation precinct, and with Environment Canterbury in, and Vodafone and Wynyard soon to follow, the inner city is looking forward to a really exciting phase of transformation.

If you wander down Cashel Mall now there is a definite sense of our major retailers returning and a vibrancy that is starting to emerge. We are really looking forward to the opportunities of working in a brand new and evolving CBD, where small, large and enterprise tech companies are all co-existing in really unique spaces.

---

Hot Jobs:

Junior level

We are currently recruiting a Graduate Front End Developer on a 12 month contract. This is a chance to make your mark on a large and complex enterprise environment, with significant project work underway. This is a role for a smart grad with strong interpersonal and problem solving skills, who is able to work independently.

Intermediate level

We are currently recruiting an Intermediate Test Analyst. This is an opportunity to join a global leader in their field while enjoying the benefits of working with fantastic technology in a fully functioning Agile environment. You will get to work with cross-functional teams to develop a wide range of skills while having the chance to learn advanced test techniques from senior team members and to hone your mentoring skills by guiding the junior members.

Senior level

We are currently recruiting a Senior Big Data Developer. This is your opportunity to join a growing organisation who are ready to take their product to market. With an impressive list of clients already established in the US they are in an excellent position to take the world by storm. There is a strong emphasis on big data and cloud services, ensuring their solutions remain cutting edge and ahead of the trends. Now is your chance to get on board with the ongoing development of their product, in an autonomous environment that welcomes innovation, new ways of working and thinking, and good work-life balance. 

---

Within Sourced Walls

We are extremely fortunate to have built a highly engaged, committed team at Sourced, and we are extremely proud of the hard work of the team which continues to build our reputation for excellence and genuine engagement in the community. We recently traveled as a team to Auckland for the RCSA (Recruitment and Consulting Services Association) New Zealand recruitment industry awards, where we were nominated for the Excellence in Client Services award, having been named as a finalist against Tradestaff New Zealand. We were thrilled to take away the win, particularly with this being a New Zealand-wide, all industries award, and getting recognition for the work we do to build meaningful and long term relationships with our clients. A great night was had - ball gowns, suits and all.

We also recently hosted the Canterbury Women in Tech Meetup, which is a monthly event aimed at bringing existing and emerging women in tech together to learn, develop and network. This month's topic was 'Opportunities for Learning and Development through Mentoring' and we enjoyed bringing together a really interactive session with guest panellists Charlotte Walshe (CEO, Dynamic Controls), Renea Mackie (co-creator, Kohknowco Innovation Framework, Kohknowco Lab - Unlimited) and Jess Downs (Head of Tech Girls, ARA). This was hosted at the EPIC Innovation Centre, always a great venue for larger events. The event sold out in 48 hours, which just goes to show the increased level of connection and involvement of women in tech in Canterbury.

Following on from this, and something we'd be really interested in talking to you more about, is the evolution of a Sourced Mentor Connection Programme. We are very fortunate to sit in the centre of a really rich network of skilled employees, contractors, managers etc., and a network of up and coming talent who could really benefit from, and are starting to seek out professional mentoring/coaching. We have recently matched up a Senior Project Manager with an Intermediate level PM who was looking for perspective outside of her current company, and this has been a really valuable partnership for both parties. If you are interested in becoming a mentor, or are looking for an opportunity to be mentored please let us know - we can help!

From a philanthropy perspective, this quarter we decided to support the Chomondeley Children's Centre, with a 'Finding Dory' movie night at Hoyts Riccarton. It was really great to see so many clients, candidates, contractors and their families all coming together to support such a great cause. We are always looking at new and different ways to give back to the wider community, so if you have any specific charities of choice or causes that we can contribute to in some way, we'd love to hear about them!

We also supported the Ronald McDonald House Christchurch once again, with 2 dinner programmes bringing together clients, contractors and Sourced team members to serve up meals to approximately 50 family members staying at the house. This was a follow on from our involvement last year; we really enjoy supporting such a fundamental service, and having the opportunity to meet family members needing support at a really critical time.

Who's in demand

Demand is up in the contracting space, in particular for Project Managers, Developers, Business Analysts and Testers, with the majority of projects being short/mid term, filling gaps in internal capability, getting projects across the line, or laying the initial foundations for future projects. Contracting as a whole is still slightly down on what we'd expect at this time of year, but is showing more confidence as new budgets are approved, the new financial year kicks off in earnest and serious planning is underway for the year ahead. Expect to see some larger projects coming to market in the second half of this year, particularly in the new systems implementation space.

Permanent retention is remaining high, meaning that recruitment that is underway is focusing on adding capability to existing teams, replacing departing team members or tweaking existing structures.

On the permanent front, this is best described as business as ususal. Permanent retention is remaining high, meaning that recruitment that is underway is tending to be ones and twos, adding capability to existing teams, replacing departing team members or tweaking existing structures. Candidate confidence is actually lower than expected, which is an interesting insight, given the continued talk of 'talent shortage' and a general impression among employers that recruitment permanent staff, particularly in the software space, is a very tough undertaking. We are finding that candidates that are actively looking may be affected by redundancy, have just returned back to Christchurch, or are reevaluating careers, and are more flexible than you may think in terms of salary, position, level of responsibility, and their level of flexibility in terms of considering 'out of the box' opportunities.

While internal staff retention is high, this does mean that there is a degree of selectiveness that we're seeing from our clients in terms to bringing in new team members, but again with a work force prepared to be flexible, not pushing for inflated salaries or senior position titles, it makes for a very balanced market where both employer and employee are very carefully considering their market position.

General round up

The market continues to hold buoyancy, and has steadily ticked away as we've moved towards mid year. Permanent has been far more predominant than contracting opportunities, however we expect to see that swing back as we move out of a 'business as usual' phase, with an expectation of larger projects starting to ramp up from July onward particularly in the ERP space.

We are watching the Brexit situation with interest, as, along with a number of other factors, the UK ex-pat and UK-New Zealand new migrant market appears to be one building steam. On the whole our major international workforce are still in the 25-35 year age gap and tend to be working and travelling prior to settling and starting families, or travelling through and opting to stay on, in favour of making New Zealand 'home'.

We look forward to keeping in touch with you over the coming months, and as always encourage you to connect with us for whatever it is you may need or wish to contribute. 

---

In Case You Missed It

We've written a number of blogs over the last quarter, which you can find here:

3 Steps to Closing the Deal on Technical Talent

The way in which people are engaged with and interviewed can sometimes prevent an IT company from securing a great hire. Check out these three steps that can bring you closer to closing the deal, and retaining that top candidate. Read more here.

How to Gracefully Resign Without Burning Bridges

Starting a new job can be tough, but approaching your current employer and co-workers to resign can be worse. With so much on the line, how do you avoid damaging the reputation you spent years building when jumping ship? Click here for more.

Using Job Rejection to Empower Your IT Career

Job rejection shouldn’t leave you disheartened. In fact, it can be a chance to make yourself more appealing to employers and lead you to securing the role you want. Click here for our guide on how to use rejection to further yourself.

Five Tips on Choosing the Right Recruitment Agency

Choosing the right recruitment agency can be tricky. Here are our top 5 tips to ensure you select the agency that best matches your needs. Find out more here.

What Talent Shortage? The Secret to Recruiting Top Candidates in a Tight Talent Market

Much has been made recently of the talent shortage, especially in the technology sector. However, is there really less talent available than previously, or are we as employers simply not doing enough to attract it? Read more here.

Welcome to our regular quarterly market update. We hope you’ve enjoyed a relaxing Easter break, and the last of the long warm nights, as daylight savings has drawn to a close. Autumn is no doubt upon us, but as always it offers a new season and opportunities to look ahead to what is shaping up to be a busy year.

The past 3 months have proved very interesting, with some variation on what we would typically expect of market conditions for this period. We’ll look forward to filling you in on this, and general market news, during this latest quarterly market update.

General Comments

The market has gotten off to a slightly quieter start than we would typically see for Q1, influenced heavily by a late surge in permanent recruitment in November/December, and a quieter than usual contracting market. With permanent recruitment projects completed in late 2015, carry-over recruitment has been minimal and organisations have been able to focus on inducting new team members, resource planning for Q2, and as we typically expect of the January/February period, spending time with family and enjoying well earned breaks before the year kicks off in earnest.

The market remains heavily in favour of permanent recruitment, with contract recruitment just starting to come back online; a market which has been subdued since the end of Q3 2015. Recruitment of permanent positions is tending to be well planned, highly targeted and either replacing departing team members (and looking for like-for-like) or adding very specific skills to existing teams. Software Development, Business Intelligence and Professional Services have been our 3 key recruitment areas, with a small bubble of Senior/Leadership positions, which is great to see given the scarcity of these opportunities in late 2015.

The drop off of contract resource demand in 2015 is slowly returning to balance with a lot of our experienced/Senior level contractors now re-engaging in local projects. We are not seeing a huge volume of growth in the project space, with contractors being used more regularly to lead, engage in or support existing projects needing extra resource or smaller projects that are not able to be resourced internally. Testers, Business Analysts and Project Managers are first off the rank, with little movement in the contract software development market right now.

As with 2015, we are continuing to recruit a strong volume of candidates from offshore, new to Christchurch, or returning home, as those employees now in work locally keep their heads down. There has been little appetite in the new year for local employees to move about, and now is the time we would typically see this movement, which speaks volumes of the market, the efforts of local employers to improve reward and retention strategies, and the opportunities already in play within our tech sector. Our local candidates that we are recruiting are tending to be those returning home, moving from contracting into permanent positions, those affected by redundancies in 2015 or moving from study into full time employment.

A trend we have been watching with a lot of interest is the movement of our Senior Leaders, CIO’s and Technology Managers moving out of the permanent market and looking to embark on solo projects, consulting engagements or just taking the time out to reflect, re-energise and reengage. We openly recognise that there remains a ceiling in the Canterbury tech sector market for our aspiring leaders, and we wonder what the answer to the ‘where to from here’ question will shape up to be, because there are many people asking it. This seems to be particularly true with those who have risen through the ranks quickly, and have perhaps discovered there is more they are looking for. But where does that ‘more’ exist? Many are answering it in many different ways, from starting new consulting businesses to taking a full change in career direction, to simply stepping back to spend time with family and reevaluate. If you have a take on this, we’d love to hear it.

Hot Jobs

Junior level:

We are currently recruiting a Junior - Intermediate .NET Developer for Orion Health. This role predominantly entails Windows application development in C#, working on a very large and complex product that is being implemented right here in the South Island. Great culture, very mature Agile development processes and access to global projects!

Intermediate level:

We are currently recruiting a Technical Support Specialist for Trimble Navigation. The Support Engineer is responsible for providing high-quality technical support for the Trimble Connect SaaS application. This person will also work on other documentation projects as required. Support Engineers deliver effective technical customer support to our rapidly growing customer base, delivering solutions to both technical and non-technical end users while also supporting a wide range of technologies.

Senior level:

We are currently recruiting a BI focused Business Analyst for McKesson group. This is a great opportunity to combine your BA, Agile and BI skills into a role that traverses both external consulting and internal development. Lead a proactive TDD Agile development team delivering quality BI solutions to Australasian companies.

Within Sourced Walls

We all enjoyed a very well deserved break across Christmas/New Year and have come into the New Year rearing to go. Our team remains stable with an Operational/Leadership and Consulting team of 7 and while we expect further growth this year, we are enjoying a stable and highly engaged team who work exceptionally well together.

We are looking forward to some upcoming community events, which we really enjoy getting involved with, including hosting two further Ronald McDonald dinner programme nights, where we will invite a number of clients to join us in feeding the families of the house, and a Hoyts Premiere Screening night, raising funds for Cholmondeley Children’s Home - a fantastic organisation really making a difference in the community.

In late March, we were pleased to promote the Canterbury IT industry at the Lincoln University Careers Exhibition. Alongside companies from a variety of industries, we chatted to the next generation of IT people and spread the word on current IT demands and trends. It's always great to be touching base with the new influx of Canterbury IT talent and helping them understand the market as they transition from academia into the commercial world.

Since January our Operations Manager, Hannah Iranon, has joined one of the oldest and most trusted IT bodies in New Zealand: the Institute of IT Professionals (IITP). As a coordinator for the Christchurch region, she is contributing to the betterment of the Christchurch IT community through assisting the IITP in improving the education and professional development of IT professionals as well as working with the government and the education sector to further promote and advocate for the IT industry in New Zealand.

We really enjoy opportunities to engage with industry and the community above and beyond our day to day work, and these are just a few examples of how we’re doing it.

Who's in demand?

As with Q4 of 2015, demand remains very much focussed on Software Development, with an increase in demand for BI (contract and permanent), Project Management (contract and permanent) and Leadership roles. Permanent recruitment is far outweighing contract, and roles are tending to be at a mid-Senior and Management level.

Contract requirements are tending to be in the Test, PM and BA space, but we are seeing many contractors returning to previous projects, adding support or bolstering existing teams as opposed to being heavy influencers.

General Round Up

The market continues to hold buoyancy, however it would best be described as 'stable’ as opposed to in growth mode, with demand leaning heavily towards permanent, and candidates reasonably available provided there is flexibility to consider non-New Zealand natives. There is little movement within Christchurch unless candidates are ‘actively sought’ and there remains a really untapped market in the mid level, new to New Zealand candidate market. These individuals are bringing in excellent technical skills and experience, and a desire to learn and grow within an NZ workplace.

Many of our leaders are on the move, or looking for the next move, so we watch with interest as this has the potential to have a significant impact locally, and also affords rare new opportunities to those on the cusp of leadership.

We expect Q2 to gain pace as we move into the new financial year, planning is completed and projects start to come onstream. While possibly at a slight pause point, the market does look set to go again and we will look forward to updating you on this is in our next report.

Did You Know?

Sourced Quarterly Market Update - December 2015

Welcome to our year end quarterly market update. We at Sourced very much enjoyed the break after what has been a busy and eventful 2015. We may have all headed off in different directions, but all with the common theme of time well spent unwinding, spending time with family and generally making the most of the summer season.

General Comments

As we look back over the last 3 months of the year, there has been a continuation of the heavy swing back in favor of permanent recruitment over contract recruitment with a continued ongoing demand for mid-senior level Software Developers and Software Testers. Recruitment remains a direct result of increased confidence and strong pipelines of work that necessitate the growing of internal teams, and we are not seeing any let up in this as we move into 2016. Contract opportunities are still there in ones and two's, however for now, it is most definitely a permanent employment market. While we recruit predominantly in the Canterbury region, our reach continues to grow, with Dunedin becoming a real emerging market as their market and economy continue to boom. Again, recruitment is mostly geared towards permanent roles, however watch this space as the early months of the new year will often see a sudden and short spike in demand for contract resource.

We are continuing to draw heavily on international and ex-pat candidate markets, but these numbers have balanced out against candidates moving from within New Zealand and within the Canterbury region. Those choosing to move within the Christchurch market have tended to be moving for Senior/Executive roles, very specialist roles, or roles for which they have been specifically headhunted by clients for their skills and capability. On the whole, there is still a high level of stability and low staff turn over in the Christchurch market and little appetite to be moving, which we would always expect for this time of year.

We expect to see a flurry in activity in the early months of 2016 as people come back from breaks away and start to consider their futures, so it's a timely reminder to be thinking about engagement, retention and reward strategies to ensure high performing teams are in place for the year.

Hot Jobs:

Junior level

Service Desk Analyst (Level 1 & 2)

Email and telephone based, you will be the customer support lifeline. You will offer 1st and 2nd line analysis, support, and fault resolution where applicable. This is a great mix of hands on, customer support and fault analysis, and will expose you to a broad range of systems and technologies

Intermediate level

Embedded Control Systems Engineer

This interesting and challenging role is focused on the post-release product life cycle for Hamilton Jet's electronic control system products. We are looking for an intermediate level electronics engineer to provide high level technical and systems support for product applications, manufacturing, supply chain and field support.

Senior level

Software Tester

Working alongside the Test Team Leader, you will be assisting with the continued development of first class test practices, providing mentoring to other team members as needed, and working as an active team member on enterprise scale Agile development projects. Projects are varied, with a mix of web, enterprise application, and BI focus, and testing is across smoke, functional, regression, load, and acceptance testing.

Within Sourced Walls

We are extremely fortunate to have built a highly engaged, committed, fun team at Sourced, and we've had a great 3 months. As a group we have bedded in our two new consultants and really grown as a team. As you'll no doubt understand, teams can often be hard to build and even harder to retain, particularly in competitive markets. So we feel very fortunate to maintain both a high level of team retention, and growth this year that has also added to the internal dynamic.

We have further growth plans for 2016 as demand for our services increases, and we look forward to keeping you abreast of this as the year progresses. We have just wrapped up our CIO and senior management recruitment project for the Dunedin City Council, which has been hugely successful. We were really impressed with the calibre of candidates expressing an interest in the DCC, and have recruited people from Hungary, the UK, Australia, and the North Island and Southland, so there's a very broad range coming in. Dunedin is such an exciting, emerging city and offers significant lifestyle benefits which were very easy to present to potential candidates. Feedback has been really positive around the outdoor opportunities, family friendly facilities, cost of living benefits and the ability to grow meaningful careers without the drawbacks of large city life.

We recently celebrated a year in our new office on St Asaph Street, and it's definitely been an eventful year in terms of new bars, restaurants, offices, and other businesses joining us in the central city. The Innovation Precinct will next year welcome Vodafone, Wynyard and Kathmandu, and we have watched with interest the building of the new eCan facility drectly opposite us which will bring several hundred staff back to the city. For those with more of a family focus, we are also very excited about the opening of the new Margaret Mahy central city play space, and the return of families to the city as it begins to find it's feet once again.

A big thank you to our Sourced Contractor crew who joined us this month for an end of year/Christmas celebration in the office. It was really great to see you all, and to celebrate all that this year has brought, and have a chance to meet each other, given the diversity of the organisations we currently engage contractors for.

Who's in demand

As with Q3, demand is still very much focused towards Software Development and Testing, and predominantly on a permanent basis. We have had a burst of Senior Management/Executive recruitment, including the Dunedin City Council, however most recruitment has been at the operational/development level.

We have seen an increase, which has been a purposeful focus shift for Sourced, for permanent resource in the R&D/Embedded Technologies space. This is very much a growing market for us and we have been delighted to work with a number of established and growing R&D organisations growing their permanent embedded team base.

Contracting is still very quiet at the moment, with permanent recruitment far outweighing requirements, and we expect this to be the case into the first few months of the new year, however watch for that spike in contract requirements around February/March time.

General round up

The market continues to hold buoyancy, and has steadily built as we've moved towards the end of the year. We expect this to continue in earnest as we enter 2016, with demand leaning heavily towards permanent, and candidates reasonably available provided there is flexibility to consider non-New Zealand natives.

As we talked about in our last report, there is still a really untapped market right now in the mid level, new to New Zealand candidate market, where individuals are bringing in excellent technical skills and experience, a desire to learn and grow within an NZ workplace. While there is always perceived risk, we have some really great success stories coming out of this candidate market, which we'd be happy to share should you wish to chat about this further.

The Sourced office will be closed from the end of Wednesday 23rd December, and reopening on Tuesday 5th of January. As a team we will be returning between the 5th to the 18th of January, however there will be full operational support available from the 5th.

Did you know?

Employee motivators are changing - financial incentives have become slightly less important as a contributor to work place satisfaction (down by 7% compared with March). Instead, the things employees enjoy most about their current role are more intrinsic, life-focused motivators such as flexible hours and having a broad variety of work. In addition to the above factors it is also clear that IT professionals highly value having the opportunity to work with latest and most interesting technologies.

It's great to be in Canterbury at this time of year! 

Welcome to our regular quarterly market update. We hope you're enjoying the welcome return to the warm weather and longer days that Spring brings, and are making the most of the opportunities that the new season provides. 

The past 3 months have been a really positive period of growth for the Sourced team including some new faces, new clients and some really great high profile projects.

General Comments

The market has really swung heavily back in favor of permanent recruitment over contract recruitment in the past month, after a 6 month period of confidence in the contracting market.

We have also seen a strong return to recruitment of mid-senior level Software Developers and Software Testers, coming off the back of a period of intensive demand for BA and Project Management skills. Recruitment is as a direct result of increased confidence and strong pipelines of work that necessitate the growing of internal teams. We have also seen a number of clients recruiting in bulk, and a number of Senior/Executive level roles coming to market, which is reasonably rare for this time of year.

We really enjoyed the recent opportunity to partner with the Dunedin City Council on a number of senior roles including CIO as they prepare for some significant transformational change. While we recruit predominantly in the Canterbury region, our reach continues to grow, with Dunedin becoming a real emerging market as their market and economy continue to boom.

The drop off in contract resource demand this last month has been quite definite, coming off a very busy recruitment period in the preceding 6 months. While we had previously seen a very solid demand for contract Business Analysts, Project Managers and Testers, projects also appear to have slowed, with work more focused on longer term objectives and business-

as-usual activity. Whilst our contractor base continues to grow, we are most definitely moving towards a model where the majority have completed assignments with us before and come highly recommended and are able to be deployed as opposed to growing to keep up with a buoyant market.

We are also continuing to recruit an increased number of candidates from offshore, new to Christchurch, or returning home; as those employees now in work locally keep their heads down and focus on projects ahead, having little appetite to change employers at this stage of the year. This may well change, though this has been the norm for the past 5-6 months and heading towards Christmas we don't expect to see a lot of movement here. February-March time is typically when we will see a level of churn at the local level, so now is a good time to be reflecting on staff retention and engagement initiatives.

Hot Jobs:

Junior level

Javascript Developer

With a strong focus on service quality and delivery, our client develops applications for a global client base. To continue to deliver a superior user experience we need a Software Engineer to work with other developers and UX designers to bring designs to life as scalable and secure web-based software. This is a unique opportunity to sharpen your development skills in an advanced technical environment using JavaScript, CSS, SASS and HTML5.

Intermediate level

Mobile Developer (contract to perm)

Our client is a leading developer of augmented reality (AR) hardware, software and experiences. They are now building a development centre in Christchurch, focused on open-source development of the foundation layer of future AR systems, and we are seeking world-class developers to join the team. For the role of Mobile Developer – iOS we’re seeking a developer with strong iOS development skills, and experience in augmented reality, virtual reality, computer vision, or other real-time software. Essential skills and experience include Strong C and Objective-C skills, 3D graphics and OpenGL, experience with imaging on mobile platforms, a strong problem-solving mentality, professional approach to relations with colleagues and customers, and the ability to take on varying roles in a small team.

Senior level

Senior Infrastructure Specialist

This is an outstanding opportunity to join an established Infrastructure Support & Engineering team, as a Senior Infrastructure Specialist. You can expect to be hands on with latest version enterprise Microsoft technologies, Sharepoint, and moving to Azure cloud technologies in the very near future. You could be an experienced mid level Systems Engineer ready to take the next step, or a Senior Systems Engineer/Administrator looking to move into a fast paced, rapidly evolving technical environment with this progressive Australasian business.

You will act as a Senior Engineer within the Infrastructure team designing, implementing and supporting a large and geographically dispersed corporate IT environment. Sitting within a team of Tier 2 Technical/Desktop support administrators and systems administrators who are supporting enterprise applications and systems such as Microsoft Office 360 and Windows 8, you will mentor and support more junior team members while taking on technical leadership responsibilities.

Within Sourced Walls

As mentioned above, we have been very fortunate to be able to grow the Sourced team in a short space of time this quarter, bringing two new recruitment consultants into the team. Hamish Calder has come across to join us from Enterprise Recruitment where he had successfully built a portfolio of IT clients, and we have also welcomed Carolyn Esterhuizen who was recently arrived in New Zealand from South Africa. We look forward to being able to introduce Hamish and Carolyn to you as the opportunity presents itself. This brings our total team to 7 now, servicing clients right across the South Island, as always with a predominant focus on the Canterbury region.

You may have seen us at the recent Canterbury Software Summit, an event we are very pleased to be able to sponsor on an annual basis, and possibly the pinnacle of the Canterbury tech sector annual calendar. This year was an outstanding success with around 550 attendees. Once again you would have found our stand in the exhibition space this year and we really enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with clients and candidates alike including many faces from the past! 

Back in the Sourced office, we are continuing to enjoy the increasing pace of the rebuild here in central city, and trying out the local eateries and cafes that are popping up with increased frequency. Right opposite the Sourced building, we have been watching the rapid construction of the new Environment Canterbury HQ which will bring back several hundred employees into the central city. They will no doubt enjoy our favorite Indian Restaurant downstairs, Coriander's, on their arrival!

The latest instalment of the Sourced Report was released earlier this month, you'll note that we've also pulled the reports into the main Sourced website to make it easier to read.

Who's in demand

Demand has very much focused back towards Software Development and Testing over the past 3 months, after a period of sustained demand in the Professional Services space. Currently, recruitment is predominantly on a permanent basis, with a burst of Senior Management/Executive recruitment, including the recruitment of the new CIO for the House of Travel Holdings Group and Dunedin City Council.

Contracting has quickly gone very quiet, however it has been very buoyant when looking back over the last 6 months. In current conditions, permanent recruitment far outweighs contract requirements.

General round up

As it was at the end of the last quarter, the market continues to hold buoyancy, 

while best described as 'balanced' with demand leaning heavily towards permanent, and candidates reasonably available provided there is flexibility to consider tho

se from further afield.

As we head towards Christmas we expect contract requirements to fall off further, whilst permanent recruitment tends to remain steady right up until the break with a view to starting new team members in the new year. This is a great example of how quickly things can change around us, as the eagle-eyed of you will note that our most recent Sourced Report discusses a period where contracting has been uncharacteristically strong (data gathered in the period up to early September).

We hope to have the opportunity to catch up with you before the festive season is upon us, and as always if we can help in any way feel free to call, email or visit us in the office for a chat.

Did you know?

Read more of the latest Sourced Report here.

The shortest day has been, it's nearly Summer?!

Welcome to our regular quarterly market update. We hope you're keeping warm and well, and indoors through this cold patch. We've all been watching out the window hopefully over the past week or two looking for snow, but it would appear we are only going to be treated to cold temperatures and the odd sleety shower, as opposed to the white stuff!

The past 3 months have been a busy period for the Sourced team on a work and home front. We have enjoyed the pitter patter of new feet in the office (all four of them), have been active outside of work with some really great community focussed initiatives, and while the market appears to have dipped slightly, we have been enjoying a strong mix of contracting and permanent roles coming to market, keeping our feet firmly in both camps.

General Comments

The market appears to have stabilized as we've hit mid year, with a lot of planned growth recruitment complete. Projects are either in ramp down or in the early stages, and a high level of employee retention means roles that we are recruiting have tended to be specialist, in direct response to discrete pieces of work, or planned recruitment without the absolute urgency we have seen earlier in the year. 

We have definitely seen a lift in demand for contracting resource, again as employers look further out and identify that requirements are discrete, well packaged pieces of work that do not warrant permanent investment in, or where specialist skills are required to be injected to get work across the line. We have thoroughly enjoyed maintaining a committed group of specialist contractors/consultants who we have been able to move from one project to another, ensuring we are delivering a continued level of service, and our contractors enjoy the benefits of the client network we have built over the past few years. While we continue to grow our contractor base, we are most definitely moving towards a model where the majority have completed assignments with us before and come highly recommended.

We are recruiting an increased number of candidates from offshore, new to Christchurch, or returning home, as those employees now in work locally keep their heads down and focus on projects ahead, having little appetite to change employers at this stage of the year. This may well change, however for now we are seeing that staff turnover is very low and we are predominantly recruiting into new positions across the board.

We have seen an interesting bubble of candidates coming to us from South America, meeting and/or placing at least 8 individuals over the last 3 months being from the Argentina/Brazil areas. We're not quite sure what is driving this, however we have had some really great talent arriving from the region.

Some interesting points to come out of CDC's recent Economic briefing:

Another week, another big announcement about the growth of the IT sector here in Christchurch. Minister Steven Joyce was on hand last week to announce two new ICT graduate schools: one to be established in Auckland, and another in the Innovation Precinct right here in Christchurch.

The South Island school will be called the South Island Graduate Network and Lab (SIGNAL), hosted by the South Island Tertiary Alliance—a partnership of the University of Canterbury, Christchurch Polytechnic and Institute of Technology (CPIT), Lincoln University, Otago Polytechnic and the University of Otago.

Once fully established, these graduate schools are expected to train in excess of 350 students per year. Here at the Christchurch school, programmes will focus on key ICT areas relevant to the regional economy, including agri-tech, health technology, and communications products and services.

Our industry needs these skilled graduates to keep feeding our growth. The 350 per year expected to graduate from these schools are a good start, but we’ll need even more yet to become the economic powerhouse in New Zealand that we know the tech sector can be.

It’s also another welcome cornerstone tenant in the burgeoning Innovation Precinct, joining the Lightning Lab, Wynyard Group, Vodafone and others as key tenants at the eastern end of the CBD. With progress well underway on the new construction in this area, we’re entering perhaps the most exciting phase yet of the rebuild for this zone.

Hot Jobs:

Junior level

Junior - Desktop Support Engineer (6 Month FTC)

Working in a close knit, dedicated team of Desktop Support Engineers, you will be acting as an escalation point for any desktop issues, providing break fix support, assisting with desktop projects and contributing to the stability and robustness of the desktop environment, within an enterprise business setting.

For more information contact Michelle Bishop (+6434202999)

Intermediate level

McKesson - Applications Analyst

This is a role that has a stronger emphasis on L2/3 technical analysis, including tracking of issues, testing, documentation and working with the development team to address critical fixes.

You will be working with end user customers both by phone and email, triaging issues as they present, working through the best route to resolution with the support of the local development team. As the applications our client delivers are heavily data driven, experience analysing, testing, and resolving issues within a SQL database/datawarehouse environment would be highly regarded.

For more information contact Michelle Bishop (+6434202999)

Senior level

House of Travel - IT Director

At House of Travel we're travellers at heart, passionate about seeking out new experiences and sharing them with fellow Kiwis. This is an exciting and rare opportunity for an experienced, ambitious IT Director to join New Zealand's most successful kiwi-owned travel business.

The IT Director role is well positioned to make the most of an established, yet continually evolving wider group strategy, with a focus on executing against long term business objectives. Working closely with the Group Strategy Director, the IT Director will consult and feed into the group strategy, specifically in the area of technology and innovation.

For more information contact Michelle Bishop (+6434202999)

Within Sourced Walls

As we alluded to above, there has been the pitter patter of new paws in the Sourced office, with Ted the Black Russian Terrier finding his puppy feet with us over the next month or two. While we have managed to keep him behind doors, he is available to meet and greet on request. We are expecting to announce a new addition to our consulting team over the next month or so also - so please watch this space!

We really enjoyed hosting a number of clients recently for our Ronald McDonald House Dinner programme, where we served up dinner to 45 family members staying at the house. Many of our clients weren't aware that The House relies on businesses and local individuals to provide meals to the house every night of the week, and they are not always able to achieve this. We thoroughly enjoyed our two nights, meeting the parents and kids staying at the house, and coordinating feeding many hungry mouths, with just an hour and a half to plate up. Many of our clients commented that they would be taking this programme back to their own work places, so we really felt that this was a great result. 

We are just starting to look ahead to the second half of this year and how we continue to get involved with our local community. If you have any great ideas you'd like to contribute please let us know!

Otherwise we have been business as usual here at Sourced, enjoying the increasing pace of the rebuild here in central city, and trying out the local eateries and cafes that are popping up with increased frequency.

Lookout for us as sponsors at Canterbury Software Summit, which is approaching with increasing pace. The Lightning Lab Business Accelerator 2015 program is looking for interns at the moment - head to the link (Facebook page) for more info.

Who's in demand

Demand has been broad and varied over the past 3 months. We appear to have had a bit of a bubble in the demand of Level 1 & 2 Applications Support Analysts at a technical level, and for contractor and permanent staff in the Data Migration, SQL, BI space.

Contracting on the whole has been buoyant with demand for Testers, BA's, Project Managers and BI Specialists. On the permanent front, other than Application Support Analysts, we have been busy across the usual Developer/QA areas with a slight dip in Engineering/Infrastructure requirements.

We have seen some great specialist and Senior Management roles coming to market, recently recruiting in the PreSales space for a brand new vendor to New Zealand, and we have underway recruitment for the new IT Director at House of Travel group.

General round up

The market continues to hold buoyancy, while best described as 'balanced' with demand even across contracting and permanent, and candidates reasonably available provided there is flexibility to consider non-New Zealand natives.

There is a really untapped market right now in the mid level, new to New Zealand candidate market, where individuals are bringing in excellent technical skills and experience, a desire to learn and grow within an NZ workplace. While there is always perceived risk, we have some really great success stories coming out of this candidate market, which we'd be happy to share should you wish to chat about this further.

Did you know?

As always, keep in touch and we look forward to catching up with you soon!

These six-monthly reports provide Canterbury employers an insight into the emerging trends in the Canterbury IT market.

Competition is returning to the Canterbury IT sector and employees are upping their game in response, as expectations continue to rise around Christchurch’s role as New Zealand’s tech-hub.

To put some actual shape around what we often report as the state of the Canterbury IT scene, we have created the Sourced Report which features the results of a six-monthly survey sent to a database of Christchurch IT employers, employees and job seekers registered with Sourced. While it restates what we continue to talk about, having the data to back us up is proving invaluable for some customers who are using the findings to formally support business decisions where people from outside of Christchurch or New Zealand are involved.

Besides, who doesn't love data?

---

The report can be seen below, but also downloaded as a PDF or read again from http://sourcedreport.co.nz

Competition coming back to the Christchurch IT sector

For the first time since the earthquakes, the IT sector is experiencing a significant boost in competition within the industry. The rebuild has brought some good opportunities, but also a good deal of competition for roles, and employees are upping their game in response and taking the chance to demand more from their employers.

The uncertain period since 2011 led to many employees place job security above anything else, but there is a sense that employees are now seeking more challenges, opportunities and remuneration.

There is new evidence that businesses have become comfortable with their wage rates, but as the sector grows employees will be looking for more competitive offers. Most employers believe they are paying the market rates, but the past 12 months have seen an increase to 35% of employees saying their salary does not meet their expectations (based on their skills and the industry average).

While survey responses generally acknowledged a dip in the importance of salary after a significant time in the industry (seniority) and after a certain salary level was reached, it would seem that the importance of strong remuneration has generally increased in importance (to 85%) for those considering employment opportunities. Indications are that this is for purposes of family provision, keeping up with increasing living costs in Canterbury and inflation. Many employees noted the importance of fair remuneration in comparison to market rates and the desire to have steadily increasing remunerations (ideally annually).

Professional development more important for retaining staff

Christchurch employees appear to be settling into working life and are placing a greater demand on their employers for professional development. Since August 2014, there has been a 10% increase in people benefitting from professional development at work, while there has been a small drop in those having flexible working hours. However, employees still feel more training is needed to help in-house progression, as only 47% currently benefit from professional development. The sector has also seen a 4.5% increase in staff churn since August, and employers could expect to see this rise if employees’ development needs are not met.

On the whole, those within the IT community see a vibrant, innovative IT sector as vitally important to the Christchurch rebuild. IT is seen as a change enabler, bringing more job opportunities, investment and a stronger market to the city. The current season is seen as a prime time for Christchurch to re-invent itself as a technologically modern city, but as the rebuild charges forward, how is the sector keeping up?

Contracting an attractive option

Christchurch has a small but steadily increasing pool of IT contractors and employers are becoming more open to using them. The significant amount of project work available means demand for talent is high but varied, meaning employers are not always in a position to appoint a full time role.

Businesses’ intentions around employing contractors have remained steady over the last 12 months, with 96.8% preferring to fill roles with permanent staff. However, employers have indicated that an increase in the contract talent pool would continue to make contracting a more attractive and viable option to them.

Key reasons for hiring

1. New work/projects 
2. Replacement of staff
3. Increased demand from customers
4. Increased demand of IT within the organisation  
5. Technology upgrades

The Christchurch IT and technology market is maturing

The past 12 months have seen a significant increase in the percentage of employers filling vacant roles through internal promotion, from 24.1% in February 2014 to 50% in February 2015.

As business continues to return to normal, postearthquake, this is a sign that the IT sector is maturing and in-house professional development is preparing employees to take the next step in their career.

While this is great for businesses, some employees who are looking to progress outside their organisation or are new to the Christchurch market are indicating that companies tend to be insular in their recruitment and are primarily promoting from within. There is however, a steadily increasing trend indicating that the Christchurch market is becoming more hospitable to career minded employees.

New work and projects boosting IT demand

New projects are continuing to drive IT recruitment in Christchurch, as over two thirds of the total hiring intention within the next six months is to meet this demand. Evidence for this is also seen in the types of roles employers are looking to recruit, with software developers still in highest demand. In addition to this the percentage of employers needing project managers has doubled in the last six months, while the need for help desk/ support roles has tripled, indicating a number of projects are reaching implementation phase and additional resource is needed for customer support as other roles experience increased workload.

Supporting growth in Christchurch IT

As Christchurch continues to grow, more and more startups and SMEs are popping up in the city. IT support is still significant for the success of these businesses, and those working in the sector have started seeing the outcomes of some of their initiatives.

UPCOMING IT ROLES
 

1. Software developer
2. Help desk/support
3. Project manager/ leader
4. Management
5. Testing/quality assurance
6. Architect
7. Business analyst
8. DBA database developer
9. Hardware engineer
10. Software architect

Happy Easter!

We hope the last few months have treated you well and you are looking forward to the long weekend ahead, and indulging in far too many eggs and hot cross buns! It's been a very busy few months for the Sourced team as we head into Autumn and we're all looking forward to a bit of a pause and a chance to enjoy the remaining warm days before Winter arrives.

You will hopefully have received your Sourced Report this week (http://sourcedreport.co.nz/) which we run biannually, and gives you a really informative view of what's been happening in the Christchurch tech sector, themes, intentions and general confidence levels. Thank you to everybody who participated in the survey which pulls this data together, and hope you find it to be a useful tool.

The last 3 months have been a busy time for the team, with a constant flow of both contracting and permanent opportunities, and a definite trend of movement within the local market from candidates both moving to new permanent and contracting roles. We are expecting to see this continue towards mid year as employee and employer confidence remains high and companies continue to grow and offer outstanding opportunities to the market.

General Comments

When we look over the past 3 months, a really interesting trend has continued to hold, which has been the majority of Sourced permanent placements a result of individuals moving within the city. Now we have seen a number of people unfortunately fall victim to redundancies, come off fixed term contracts or make the decision to transition from permanent to contracting work or vice versa, so this should not make employers too nervous. On the whole, retention remains high among the majority of our clients, and the majority of those moving about locally are doing so for very specific reasons.

A really interesting statistic that has come out of the Sourced report is the significant increase in the percentage of employers filling vacant roles through internal promotion, rising from 24.1% in February 2014 to 50% in February 2015. We have also seen a return to optimism in terms of 'how easy is it to grow your career within Christchurch' within only 35% of respondents in February noting that they still found it hard. We are really pleased to see this as it feeds into the key drivers we are seeing for employees seeking new positions - career development, recognition. long term prospects and work life balance.

In terms of what is actually driving the recruitment market, we are seeing a very equal balance of contracting and permanent positions. In the contracting market, we have not been able to keep up with the shear demand for Testing resources, with demands from junior through to test team leadership. This has been followed by a mix of BA and PM requirements, technical writing, project support, web and engineering. We are finding that a lot of organisations are experiencing short term spikes of work, may not have the long term view to appoint permanently, or simply the time, and with contractors being available to start at very short notice and add immediate value, it's a very attractive offering.

In the permanent recruitment space we are seeing a real range of opportunities coming to market. It has certainly been a very busy time in the IT Management/Senior Team Leadership space with an unprecedented number of opportunities coming to market in the year to date. This has been met with enthusiasm from the market as these roles have historically been rare, and highly contested. Through these recruits we are getting exposure to the real depth that the market has to offer, the level of skills and experience that we hold locally, and how they contribute to the success of some really key local businesses. We are finding again that a lot of leaders have come to market through restructuring, reorganisation, or simply a time to reevaluate and so the impact on businesses losing leaders has actually been quite minimal, but the opportunity for hiring companies to pick from the cream of the crop has been exceptional.

We are also seeing an ongoing permanent demand for testers, software developers and technical engineers. Roles are tending to be very 'middle level', with only minor demands a the junior/grad and lower team lead/management levels.

From a client activity perspective, recruitment has been steady and focused, with a mixture of recruitment for projects coming onstream, growing existing teams, and some employee turnover. As we commented last quarter, a very measured approach has been taken with clients taking the time to ensure business requirements are well understood, technical and cultural fit aspects well assessed, and long term candidate motivations well understood to ensure a sustainable solution. Recruitment has been equally spread between permanent and contracting opportunities, with skill demands right across the board.

Hot Jobs:

Junior level

Junior - Intermediate Software Tester

You will be responsible for analysing, designing, developing and maintaining test systems in a continuous improvement environment. You will ensure that functional and non-functional requirements are implemented in accordance with business and technical specifications and get exposure to both manual and automated test methodologies

For more information contact Chris Woods (+6434202999)

Intermediate level

CCL - Systems Engineers

This role will specifically suit a high caliber Engineer looking for a great new environment, without the handbrake of bureaucracy. Company culture is important, therefore this role will only suit you if you are genuinely flexible, personable and can leave your ego at the door. We’re after an Engineer who can demonstrate talent, is willing to share their expertise with colleagues and clients, and who truly enjoys working in a team.

For more information contact Rachel Brown (+6434202999)

Senior level

CCC - IT Service Manager - Intergration and Interoperability

As the IT Service Manager - Integration & Interoperability your team of technical specialists will develop, deliver and support the Council's integration, and master data management capability, creating an open data environment where the community, other agency, business partners, can 'plug and play' to gain easy access to the Council's services and data. This newly created position is truly greenfields, with the opportunity to turn 'nothing into something', working from a blank sheet transforming the Council's current integration capability, with significant support from the CIO.

For more information contact Michelle Bishop (+6434202999)

Within Sourced Walls

We are now well and truly settled into our new office space at Level 1, 222 St Asaph Street. With purpose designed boardroom, meeting rooms and a larger space to accommodate the team, it’s been a fantastic move and we’re really pleased to seeing the ongoing developments within the CBD from our new space. We are however, eating far too much curry. If you are in the area, we can highly recommend Coriander's downstairs!

The Sourced team remain stable as we settle into the year and don't have any further plans for growth at this stage.

We are really looking forward to supporting Ronald McDonald House in May, inviting a number of clients to join us to cook an evening meal at the House through the Family Dinner Programme. As many as 26 families could be staying at Ronald McDonald House (South Island) on any given night. For some it is just an overnight stay, while for others it is a ‘home away from home’ for many months and frequent visits. We will be making the meal, setting the tables, serving the meals and then eating with the families. We have two nights booked in, and are really looking forward to it.

Once again Sourced has signed as sponsors for the Startup Weekend and the Canterbury Software Summit. We have added another event to our list this year and are programme sponsors of the Lightning Lab Business Accelerator 2015

Who's in demand

In the permanent space, demand has been broad and varied, with only two positions really standing out as volume recruitment efforts, These have been in the Senior Management/IT Management/CIO space and test areas.

In the software development space, demand has actually been quite stable with a quiet demand for .Net and web development skills, however with no significant volume or urgency. These roles tend to be based on decisions to bolster teams further, and so are more considered and tend to take a bit longer to come to market.

In the test space, the primary driver in the permanent space has been mid level Functional test expertise, with some automation. In the contracting space, demand has been at all levels, with particular call for seniors and test leads. These demands have been in response to key projects hitting roadblocks, needing additional support, guidance, or simply bums on seats to get work through.

In the professional services space, demand for BA’s and PM’s has been average, with a larger demand in the contracting space than permanent. We have certainly found in the PM space that supply currently outweighs demand, however this is a timing issue and we expect the pendulum to swing back by early new year.

In the infrastructure/engineering area we have again experienced an average level of demand, with a mix of contract and permanent opportunities, with more roles towards the level 1 Desktop Support end than Senior Systems Engineering. Helpdesk and Desktop level 1 roles have certainly picked up, predominantly in the contract and fixed term spaces, and usually to support critical periods of organisational busy-ness.

We continue to encourage graduate recruitment, but this is not a time we expect significant activity.

Overseas recruitment remains steady, with a number of returning kiwis, and new migrants seeing the opportunities on offer in Christchurch. While these numbers are not in significant volumes, they are rising, and we believe in response to the increased optimism in the local economy, employment market, the progression of the rebuild and the lifestyle benefits that are starting to return.

General round up

As we speed towards winter, we expect to see a consistent pace of recruitment across both contracting and permanent roles. There appear to be no signs of the current pace slowing, and we are looking forward to bringing you some great opportunities over the next few months as well as celebrating with clients as they grow their businesses and deliver on really key project milestones.

We are really enjoying the opportunity to work in a market that is buoyant, stable, mature and well organised.

The Sourced office will be closed for both Good Friday and Easter Monday, returning to BAU Tuesday 7th May.

As always, keep in touch and we look forward to catching up with you after a nice, loong weekend!

End of Quarter/Year wrap up.

The end of year is nigh. Although we haven’t yet started the countdown to Christmas we’re all acutely aware that the year is wrapping up at a rapid pace, and the remaining days are filling up quickly. The last few months have been, to be honest, a bit of a blur in the Sourced office, but one very important stand out has been our recent success at the annual Seek SARA Awards.

For you who have been with us since the beginning, you’ll remember that we have been twice runner’s up, so it was with a huge amount of pride, relief and excitement that we were this year recognised as winners of the new format Seek SARA ‘Most Innovative Use of Insights’ award. Specifically recognising Jason’s work on the FluxNZ initiative (www.fluxnz.com), and the Sourced Report (http://sourcedreport.co.nz/), this award means a huge amount as it highlights the effort and committment Sourced pay to keeping our market up to date with participation, activity, movement and trends in the local IT sector.

FluxNZ and the Sourced Report are your key tools to understanding who’s who, developing what, moving where, seeking how much, and moving why. All available free to you. We hope you’re making the most of these essential resources. Watch for an updated Flux poster this week, showing the changes and additions since our launch earlier this year.

Our second major news, is the long awaited move into our brand new premises at 222 St Asaph Street (upstairs from the new Coriander’s flagship restaurant). Purpose built to accommodate our team and growing visitor volumes, we’re thoroughly enjoying the new location, although having to watch our waistlines at the same time (best Indian food in Christchurch is downstairs, in our humblest of opinions)!

The Sourced offices can be found in the top left of this picture - access is via the carpark found on Welles St.

The last 3-6 months have otherwise been a busy time for the team, with a constant flow of permanent recruitment requirements, an uplift in contracting opportunities, and a definite trend of movement within the local market from candidates both moving to new permanent and contracting roles. We are expecting a quiet start to the new year as clients and candidates take a well earned break, with the bulk of activity kicking into gear by early February.

General round up

As we speed towards Christmas, we expect to see a rapid wind down of new opportunities to market, and a focus on finishing up exisiting recruitment projects and planning for the new year.

We remind clients that there is a really great opportunity in the late December/early January time frame to be advertising ahead of any requirements for the first quarter of 2015, as this is a time where typically candidates are quite active and recruitment activity quite low. If you’re keen to get ahead of the game, this is the time to do it.

We are really enjoying the opportunity to work in a market that is currently very buoyant, stable and well organised. Solid decision making processes are in place for hiring decisions, and we’re seeing some great candidates move off into really exciting new roles.

We expect 2015 to be another busy year, and are looking forward to connecting with you all when we return in January.

The Sourced office will be closed from December 24th - early January.

As always, keep in touch and we look forward to catching up with you, rested, relaxed and revitalised in January.

Canterbury tech sector, August 2014 | The Sourced Report Infographic

Here is the second in a new series of infographics that is designed to inform and guide business and individuals working in the Canterbury IT and tech scene.

Released every 6 months, the Sourced Report will highlight the changes in the industry as the year progresses, ensuring that those involved in the local scene are up to date with the moods and attitudes of all contributors, employees, employers and jobseekers alike.

If you would like to be part of these results, please click through to let us know.

The report can be seen below, but also downloaded as a PDF or read again from http://sourcedreport.co.nz

Sourced Report | August 2014

Canterbury tech sector growth steady

Download our infographic from http://sourcedreport.co.nz/

http://www.computerworld.co.nz/article/553897/six-monthly_report_shows_strong_hiring_trends_canterbury_region/

More than 85% of Canterbury employers are planning to recruit new IT personnel in the next six months as businesses move into an active growth phase, according to new research data.

The six-monthly Sourced Report from Christchurch’s specialist IT recruitment agency Sourced, shows hiring intentions locally remain very high, up around 1% since February, with 62% of employers recruiting for new projects.

“Indications from the data are that businesses are moving forward from planning into action and growth,” says Sourced Director Jason Bishop.

“Along with most employers recruiting for multiple roles, we’re seeing an overwhelming need for software developers and other results-driven roles such as network engineers and web and multi-media developers. Businesses are moving forward.”

Job security is also high in the region with more than 92% of employers hiring for permanent positions reflecting long-term growth commitments and 8% for contractors; a dynamic that differentiates Canterbury from New Zealand’s other main IT centres where contracting is significantly higher.

However, staff churn is up with 46% of employers hiring to replace staff, compared to 22% in February, and 40% of employees planning to look for new work in the next few months compared to 25%.

Bishop says the data reflects the cyclical nature of job churn, which tends to peak mid-year, and should be used by employers to support continued investment in their workplace culture.

“It’s a risky time of year for staff churn, so employers need to be zeroing in on their teams, communicating collectively, supporting people and actively building motivation and engagement.”

Indeed, the survey shows the vast majority of employees (81%) see professional support from management and leaders as the most important part of a workplace culture, followed by professional development opportunities and flexible working hours.

“Clearly that support and connection from management is critical.”

However, Christchurch is still not seen as a great place to progress an IT career, despite the abundance of opportunities that have developed across the full breadth of sectors, creating one of the most diverse IT centres in the country.

But, there’s a sense that employers are over-focused on qualifications when hiring and often reluctant to cross-train existing employees into progressing their roles and skills.

“Employers can learn a lot by taking note of what’s happening in Canterbury‘s buzzing tech sector. As well as support and training, IT professionals are hungry for opportunities to interact with their peers. There’s a running calendar of tech cluster events happening and employers should be encouraging their people to get out, share, learn and grow.”

The survey also shows that employers and professionals alike feel more could be done to support start-ups with a strong call for financial support such as subsidies and tax incentives along with free services ranging from broadband through to conferences and showcases.

“The strongest message from the survey is that Canterbury’s tech sector is critical not only to growth and to attracting investment and talent to Christchurch, but as a growing hub of knowledge and innovation nationally.”

The Sourced Report is a survey-based insight of the Christchurch IT sector, highlighting local employment trends and market expectations. It is published every six months by Sourced, Christchurch’s specialist IT recruitment agency.

http://www.sourced.kiwi/

For more information contact Jason Bishop, APRCSA

Sourced Director

t +64 3 928 2315

End of Quarter wrap up

Service Desk Engineer - Computer Concepts Ltd

Computer Concepts Limited (CCL) has forged an enviable reputation for providing innovative, cost effective engineering-powered IT expertise nationally backed with strong customer service. Due to ongoing business success, CCL is establishing an additional and entirely new Service Desk Engineering team. Be part of it!

For more information contact Rachel Brown

Intermediate Level

Intermediate Mobile Developer - Trimble Navigation.

The Trimble Navigation Mobile Computing Solutions group develop innovative products that enable mobile workers to be more efficient in extreme outdoor and industrial environments. Their suite of rugged handheld computers help users collect accurate field data and work more productively in any outdoor or service-related application.

We are looking for an Intermediate .Net/Mobile Application Developer to join their team.

For more information contact Michelle Bishop

Senior Level

Intermediate Test Analyst - House of Travel

The House of Travel offers a workplace second to none. Their staff turnover is extremely low, and they are continuing to grow due to the fast paced and competitive nature of their industry. Staff are regularly rewarded through incentives and rewards and they really go the extra mile to make their workplace a fantastic place to be. 

We are looking for an Intermediate - Senior Level Test Analyst to join their team.

For more information contact Michelle Bishop

The second SourcedReport is underway and we are asking people to once again complete the survey ( this takes less than 5 minutes!)

We have designed this survey to further increase and build our industry's understanding of the local Christchurch IT market, and we're confident that our findings will continue to provide a valuable insight for you and the wider IT industry.

Both job seekers and employers have been invited to participate. All responses are strictly confidential and we do not use this information for recruiting purposes. 

Please head over to the survey to complete it, and be sure to share it around https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PXGWV66

---

General round up

As we march full steam into the second half of 2014 we expect to see a below average level of employed local IT Professionals looking to move about, and a continued demand for this same talent. We expect to be continuing to develop our wider networks and really promote Christchurch as a lifestyle location with a level of role quality easily comparative to our north island compatriots.

We are really enjoying the level of focus companies are placing on their professional brands and internal engagement levels, and encourage this to continue. Christchurch is a competitive market right now and a company's ability to keep their best speaks volumes.

We'd like to remind you that we are available at any time to elaborate of what we've spoken about here, to provide updates, insights or focused/specific stats on the shape of the local market. If you'd like more information on FluxNZ please feel free to contact Jason - this is an initiative we expect you'll continue to hear more about this year! 

As always, keep in touch and we look forward to catching up with you over the next few months.

As published in The Press, 14 May 2014

Re-engage re-energise tech staff

Recruitment activity in Christchurch’s innovation and information technology sector is at an all-time high – 85% of employers are hiring to service unprecedented growth across the sector and the region.
 

Suffice it to say, it’s a vibrant ‘tech sector’ job market. New projects are the main driver of recruitment and with 97% of roles on offer for permanent positions we’re seeing growth commitment and increased job security. 

And there are a lot of really exciting and challenging roles emerging in everything from agri-tech and health-tech, high-tech manufacturing and IT services through to the thriving start-up scene which now makes up about 18% of the market.

In total, the local tech sector comprises 6% of Canterbury’s GDP and employs around 12% of the national tech workforce. 

That's 7,000 people, and it's forecast to double in size by 2031. For employers, the challenge is not only to find the right talent but keep current employees engaged and energised – particularly at this time of year when there’s an increased risk of job turnover.

People have settled back in after summer breaks and if they've not yet re-engaged with enthusiasm about their current role, they'll be looking elsewhere.

There are plenty of opportunities to tempt them away, so it’s a critical time to focus on ensuring your team is energised which will help create a strong workplace culture – culture drives behaviour, which drives productivity and is a competitive advantage.

So what defines a strong workplace? Our Canterbury tech sector survey, the Sourced Report, shows what matters to job seekers and how employers should respond to that. The top three qualities job seekers look for in a Christchurch IT role are work/life balance (80%), challenges (70.7%) and career

opportunities (69.3%).

Not surprisingly, those who are currently in employment said the aspects of their workplace they enjoy the most are variety of work (66.7%), flexible hours (58.7%) and access to good technology (56.7%). This tells us how important it is for employers to maintain and build their identity and

culture to attract the right people.

Interestingly, remuneration is not at the top of the list which reflects the strong team-driven innovation culture in Christchurch. But, we are expecting to see salary increases as business move out of recovery and into growth, which makes it a great time to be here. Around 10% of job seekers also want stock/equity options with their employers, which tends to be readily available among the smaller and start-up organisations that make up such a big chunk

of the market. And, both employers and employees want to see greater investment in up-skilling employees, very promising for job seekers.

Alongside these research-based insights into what the market expects of a good workplace, we can offer some general guidelines around how to re-engage and re-energise your team:

• Talk to people – Give as much attention to people and process as to projects and delivery. Some people may want more time with managers, some more time with the team or whatever is appropriate for your business. The key thing is ensure you’re connected and not solely relying on reports to see how well your people are doing.
• Share the vision – People need a good idea of the year ahead as well as the long-term vision. Continue to communicate work in progress, what’s coming in terms of new projects, what people have to look forward to as well as what to plan and prepare for. Ensure everyone’s working toward a common goal with a winning mind-set, culture and positive team environment.
• Connect and up-skill – Encourage people to participate in Canterbury’s wider tech community. It’s an active scene that offers plentiful learning and networking opportunities. We have a lot of software user and IT interest groups ranging from the Institute of IT Professionals through to the Canterbury Software Cluster. Employees get to do something for themselves, learn how to keep themselves up-skilled and bring that learning back to their workplace.
• Excite and inspire – Give people something to be excited about, build a forward-looking and positive frame of mind. This isn’t just about new projects and business goals, but what’s in it for them. Collectively plan some team-based events like a training programme or an offsite challenge to ensure there is more to life than business as usual.

We know that Christchurch wants and needs ambitious people who are great communicators, collaborators and want to be part of a team that is helping to make a difference. We also know that right now, employers are most interested in finding people who are team-players. In many cases, employers will actually invest in training these people rather than hire someone who is qualified but not the right ‘fit’ for an organisation.

The bottom line? Building and maintaining a strong and inspired workplace culture is one of the best investments a business can make.

If you want to be a part of the Christchurch IT sector, get in touch on (03) 420 2999 or visit www.sourced.kiwi for more information, including the latest Sourced Report.

Trimble Navigation is a leading provider of advanced positioning solutions, with products in use in over 141 countries around the world, with employees based in more than 30 countries. Though best known for GPS technology, Trimble integrates a wide range of positioning technologies including GPS, laser, optical and inertial technologies with application software, wireless communications, and services to provide complete commercial solutions.

A long standing employer in Christchurch with over 210 employees based locally, Trimble New Zealand offers career opportunities across a range of business units represented here, including GIS Data Collection, Heavy Civil Construction (Machine Control and Software Solutions), Precision Agriculture, and Land Survey.

Employees are recognised through a range of benefits including comprehensive Medical, Life and Disability insurance, profit share, stock purchase programs and an active social club, and enjoy the career development opportunities associated with working for a global business.

On behalf of Trimble, Sourced are now recruiting for a number of Technology Professionals in the following areas

GeoSpatial - .Net Web Architect, .Net Mobile Application Developers, Dev Ops Engineer

Trimble's Geospatial group focuses on developing web and desktop solutions for the GIS and Survey sectors. They are in a growth phase and have a permanent vacancy for an experienced engineer to join their development team with a focus on managing and maintaining build systems and development and production servers.

Caterpillar Trimble Control Technologies (CTCT) - Android Developer, Technical Writer

The Caterpillar Trimble Control Technologies group, a division of Trimble Navigation, develops 3D positioning and control products for earthmoving machines in the construction and mining industries. The products are used in a range of applications where the operator of the machine benefits from having accurate horizontal and vertical blade guidance and where machine activity data must be collected for display to site or mine management personnel.

For more information on working with Trimble Navigation, please contact Michelle Bishop or Chris Woods at Sourced on 03 420 2999, or click through to job and type in your keyword.

Huge growth in the CTCT division of Trimble

---

The Caterpillar Trimble Control Technologies group, a division of Trimble Navigation, develops 3D positioning and control products for earthmoving machines in the construction and mining industries.

The products are used in a range of applications where the operator of the machine benefits from having accurate horizontal and vertical blade guidance and where machine activity data must be collected for display to site or mine management personnel.

With a significant growth path ahead, expanding our core technical platform, and pushing into new technologies including Android, we are looking for a number of team members including:

UX Analyst – Now closed

C++ Software Engineer – Now closed

Software Test Automater – Now closed

Technical Writer – Now closed

To register your interest in these positions please call Michelle Bishop or Hannah Iranon at the Sourced office 03 4202999

• Remember to follow @SourcedChch on Twitter and Facebook – most of our roles can be found on either of those channels

Test & Compliance Engineer

---

Hamilton Jet  is the world leader in the design and manufacture of waterjet propulsion systems for high-speed marine craft. With over 50,000 waterjet propulsion units installed worldwide, Hamilton Jet represents the latest in waterjet technology and is recognised as the world’s most experienced waterjet manufacturer.

Based in Christchurch, New Zealand, we employ over 300 people worldwide in all aspects of waterjet design, manufacturing and distribution and we export 98% of production. Producing much more than just recreational units, Hamilton Jet propulsion and control technology is utilised in vessels for the military, security, search and rescue, fast ferry, oil and gas and renewable energy sectors.

About the Role

****This role is now closed****

We are looking for a Senior Electronics Test Engineer to fill a key new position in our control systems engineering team, working on design verification and production test equipment development as well as compliance related activities.

Our Test Engineer will have outstanding technical capabilities in test system development and operation for embedded electronic control system products and will be highly self-motivated and able to build sound relationships with engineers, PCBA suppliers, production engineers, contractors and compliance organisations.

This is a senior role in a relatively small team and so will provide the opportunity to make a very significant contribution to our products and business.

A salary and benefits package reflective of experience will be negotiated.

What do you need to do?

Sourced are working on this role exclusively, so if this is of interest to you, don’t hesitate to call Michelle on 928-1402 (Christchurch) for a confidential discussion about further job details.

• Remember to follow @SourcedChch on Twitter and Facebook – most of our roles can be found on either of those channels.