End of Quarter wrap upWe’re putting this newsletter together at the end of a very cold weekend, which has come as a bit of a shock after an extremely temperate start to winter. If you’re anything like us we’ve been making the most of the sunshine and getting out and making the most of it. Who knows when the first winter snow falls will make an appearance!The last 3 months have been very busy for us with the launch of FluxNZ, some minor reshuffling internally, and a new team member coming onboard (read more about this further down) and we can see by the way the market is moving that this level of busyness is not going to let up.We are very encouraged by the sheer number of projects coming onstream in the local tech sector and at the same time acutely aware of the growth that will be required to satisfy this. We are continuing to focus very strongly on international and where possible graduate recruitment, and really starting to ask the hard questions of ourselves and our clients around ‘where do we source our talent’.As we like to move at pace, Sourced was also the first official sponsor of Code Club (more to be announced soon). Keep an eye on @CodeClubNZ to see news on their new website go-live, but spread the word also:A nationwide network of volunteer-led after school coding clubs for children aged 9-11To get on their mailing list or for more info: [email protected]General commentsAs mentioned above, we are now seeing a large number of projects either preparing for, or already in, full swing, and with a limited population to deal with this growth, we are increasingly looking to offshore, and where possible graduate talent pools to satisfy demand. We are having to work more creatively with clients around how and who they source, and at the same time really focusing on keeping their existing teams engaged. While we have not seen any significant lift in salaries yet, we are starting to wonder how long this will hold.In the permanent space, while the usual Developers, Testers and BA’s are in high demand we are also seeing a significant lift in demand for Service Desk, Desktop Support and Systems Engineering specialists. As with last quarter, project work continues to dictate demand, and these projects are long term/multi year, meaning demand is really in the permanent space.The local candidate market is a really interesting one right now. As we have continued to highlight, with the demand for skilled talent being as it is, it’s a really important time to be focusing on engagement and development opportunities internally. If we look at candidates who are currently active in the local market, time and time again the reasons are the same: internal culture, lack of development opportunities, work life balance, older technologies. Something to be thinking about in the year ahead.We are finding candidates who are more passive in the market are really taking their time to make the right decision/find the right ‘fit’ which is really encouraging. There seems to be little appetite for moving around and we are really working to ensure that candidates and clients are making informed and honest decisions about their futures together.Within Sourced Walls You’ll no doubt be aware of our new web address? sourced.kiwi officially went live with our new look website which has been in development since the middle of last year. The site is built in the latest technology, using HTML 5 and local storage, and has been designed with smoothing the user experience on all devices in mind. Basic job searching and job alert functionality as well as finding or calling us can all be done with your thumb!As a very early adopter of the .kiwi TLD, we secured a number of domains pre-sunrise period by having all trademarks registered with the Trademark Clearing House last year. If you were at the May Software Cluster gathering at Trimble Navigation you would have seen the first public launch of the FluxNZ Canterbury Technology and Innovation Sectors report, a joint venture between Sourced and Memia Ltd, with support from the Canterbury Development Corporation.Profiling Canterbury’s Technology and Innovation sectors in depth, the report represents many months of effort scouring websites, social media and interviewing many of the individuals who make this industry so exciting to work in locally. The result is a substantial deliverable which shines a light on the scale, diversity and quality of commercial technology innovation which is happening right here in Christchurch and Canterbury.The FluxNZ report has been widely reported over the past month across print, online and radio media and is now available for download by visiting us online at http://fluxnz.com/Flux has generated significant local and national media interest, and if you were listening carefully you may have even heard Jason discussing the report on Newstalk ZB a few weeks back! We are really looking forward to keeping in touch with future progress on Flux as it continues to grow. At an internal level, you may have heard that Hannah has decided to return to study part time to complete her degree at Canterbury Uni, and as a result will be moving to a more behind the scenes role at Sourced. She will still be just as active in the business, just with a slightly different focus. We are very pleased to welcome Chris(tine) Woods to the team, who has been busy over the past couple of months working with Hannah and our clients to get up to speed. Chris has many years of local recruitment experience across a number of domain specialties, and has already rediscovered a few familiar faces out there. You can read more about Chris here: http://sourced.kiwi/OurTeamSourcedReport.co.nzThe 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/PXGWV66Who’s in demandThis last quarter has been a very broad and very mixed bag. We are seeing really good demand for contracting resource in the .Net Development, Mobile Development and BA areas, and recruitment for permanent staffing across almost all disciplines.In the Infrastructure/Engineering area we have a small number of clients growing in quite signficant numbers, offering great opportunities in the Service Desk, Desktop & Network Engineering and Systems Engineering areas. These are client facing roles and in direct response to market growth.In the development space, clients have been in full recruitment mode for projects and growth, with a spike in demand for mobile application development expertise, which has generated a good amount of interest.Test Analysts remain in high demand with a focus change to looking at testers interested in TDD, and a much more consultative role in testing. Testing in many companies is beginning to drive development and in a growing number of companies, the face of testing is really changing!In the professional services/leadership space, we have seen a small but steady demand for Team Leaders/Programme Leaders/ Team Managers, and again across project teams. At a lower level demand for Project Managers has been low, with demand more so for BA’s in both the contract and permanent spaces and at business and technical level.We have been really encouraged to see some graduate recruitment underway this quarter in the Development area, and we continue to talk to clients about not overlooking this valuable talent. We can not continue to expect to fish from the same pool, while not being prepared to develop that pool. It just isn’t sustainable. Thankfully many of our clients agree and we’ve had some outstanding success stories.General round upAs 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.
