• 66% of IT Directors expect workloads to increase throughout 2010
• 48% of Directors have a major concern about delivering projects within budget – double the number last year

Two thirds (66%) of IT Directors expect workloads to rise throughout 2010, but less than a third (29%) expect budget increases, reveals research by ReThink Recruitment, the business and technology staffing company.

According to the research, more than double the number of IT Directors (48%) have a major concern about delivering IT projects and support within budget compared to last year (22%). This suggests that IT departments are increasingly struggling with the repercussions of two years of budgetary freezes.   

Michael Bennett, Director, ReThink Recruitment, says: “For many IT departments this will be the second consecutive year in which budgets have not kept pace with workload demands. The pressure clearly remains on IT Directors to raise the output of their departments while in many cases budgets continue to be frozen or cut.”

“Concern is growing among IT Directors that budgets simply won’t be able to cope with workload demands as projects which were shelved during the recession are revived.”

The third annual research from ReThink Recruitment quizzed IT Directors from a broad cross-section of organisations which included several global companies with IT departments in excess of 250 staff.

Michael Bennett comments: “Many organisations – from blue chip FTSE 100s to SMEs – will have put off upgrading outdated technology as the recession kicked in. As these mothballed projects are reviewed again, it is essential that realistic budgets are put in place.”

“Being asked to do more with less will mean that many IT departments are stretched too thin. Investment in IT will be essential to helping businesses grow post-recession, but placing unrealistic demands on IT departments could hamper that growth. It’s a recipe for inter-departmental strife.”

ReThink Recruitment says that despite budgetary concerns, its survey does offer hope for IT workers, with just under half of Directors surveyed (46%) expecting to increase headcount, up over a third from the 2009 figure (34%).

Michael Bennett concludes: “Recession-related cost cutting measures are coming to an end and businesses are once again looking to invest. This should feed through to IT budgets before too long.”

“From a staffing perspective the focus is already shifting from cost cutting to hiring. Demand for both contract and permanent staff increased significantly in Q1 10. This is pushing up attrition rates in IT departments. IT Directors will have to look at pay and other incentives or risk losing staff. At a time when workloads are rising and budgets still tight, retaining key personnel will be a major challenge.”

As we enter a new decade, 40% of business leaders think that a delayed recovery is one of the biggest issues they will face.  That’s according to research carried out by CBSbutler, the specialist engineering and technical recruiter through its Bulletpoint Briefing newsletter which goes out to 4,500 business leaders. Over a third (35%) are not expecting any recovery until the third quarter of 2010 and almost a quarter (23%) fear a double dip recession.

“One of the biggest eroders of confidence during this recession has been uncertainty – and judging by the results of our survey, it looks like that uncertainty is set to continue”, says David Leyshon, Managing Director of CBSbutler.  

Interestingly, the second biggest issue identified was skills retention with 30% of respondents feeling that the retention of key skill sets once the recovery gets underway would be a major issue.

“There has been a lot of research out recently citing that a large percentage of people are dissatisfied or unfulfilled in their jobs – retention is consequently going to be a key issue in any recovery”, added Leyshon.  And in the engineering sector, with news recently that the UK needs to find nearly 45,000 skilled engineering workers by 2016, employee attraction and a stellar employer brand will be crucial.”

Poll results:

As we enter a new decade – what do you see as the biggest issue on your business agenda?

·         Delayed Recovery                           40%

·         Retention of key skills                    30%

·         Succession planning                      10%

·         Change of government                  10%

·         Expensive credit                              10%

When are you expecting an economic recovery?

By Nadia Owen, 4MAT Business Communications

SAP employers and candidates should proactively look for Red.

With over 10 years experience, global independent recruitment firm Red Commerce is envied for its market stature as one of the top four IT recruiters in the UK, having appeared in Recruiter Magazine’s Hot 100 in 2009. As one of the largest Global SAP specialist recruiters, they have now further entrenched their reputation by kicking off the new decade with the launch of an innovative new website.

Adopting various shades of the corporate colour that lends itself to their name, the new site (www.redcommerce.com) presents itself as informative and professional. The content-rich site is complemented by slick, state-of-the-art video testimonials* from both clients and candidates, as well as a Flash stack gallery on the home page that presents employee testimonials on iPod-style employee album covers (complete with autograph). Harnessing these popular technologies has enabled these recruitment professionals to demonstrate personality and give them a relevant edge that their competitors lack.

Whitepapers on all things SAP will be published in Red’s Knowledge Centre, and for visitors who enjoy more of a web2.0 site experience will want to hit the blog. With blog posts written by global SAP professionals, it features blogger profiles, blog comments and people categories. These sections are fully integrated with social media websites, further exemplifying Red’s targeted industry knowledge and technological awareness.

An intelligent job search function has been built into the site, whereby a relevancy percentage will be displayed for each search, and any search term is able to be saved as an automated job alert. These elements, combined with the clean navigation and prevalent calls to action, allow the site’s visitors to have positive, straightforward and relevant journeys.

“The development of the website led us to see that we needed to be more creative than the ‘usual’ recruitment websites,” explains Richard Vercesi, CEO of Red Commerce. “This development period has allowed us – with the website – to better represent the SAP professionals we serve. We also wanted to give the wider SAP community a real opportunity to get to know us and what we stand for and with the aim of making it as interactive as possible.”

Red Commerce’s dynamic new website is the epitome of reputation, trust and long-standing relationships. Go forth and see Red.

Note: Recruitment digital marketing specialists 4MAT rolled the site out in two months and are currently operating an SEO campaign for Red Commerce.

www.redcommerce.com

*3^rd-party video integration with Brightcove.

Cummins UK provides aftermarket support and backup for the Cummins engine population in the UK and Ireland, offering both in-house and mobile service and maintenance from 8 locations.

Following a comprehensive review of their recruitment and agency processes, Entech was chosen because of its delivery track record, understanding of the market and its user-friendly e-recruitment solution.  The contract commences with immediate effect and covers the supply of technical and non-technical staff throughout the UK & Ireland.

Saul Philpot, Managing Director of Entech said “We are delighted that Cummins chose our solution above other options in the market.  This is Entech’s third UK & Ireland Master Vendor contract to be secured in the last 18 months, and proves that working collaboratively with your clients, maintaining a results-focused approach and combining it with effective software delivers the best solution”.

Already widely acknowledged as one of the UK’s leading European IT recruitment specialists, Michael Bailey Associates (MBA) decided to further entrench this reputation by embracing multilingual functionality in order to launch a brand new trans-euro website, powered by recruitment web specialists 4MAT.

Sourcing and supplying staff both in and beyond the British shores, MBA’s offices can be found in France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Holland. Each site now has its own interface, with the Swiss and Belgium sites each having two due to the prevalence of two languages in each country. Furthermore, each interface will be fully optimised in order to rank on the international search engines, thereby fully enabling candidate and client accessibility to the site that is linguistically and subjectively relevant to them. This pan-European search engine optimisation forms part of a larger digital marketing campaign that 4MAT will be undertaking as part of their ongoing service to MBA.

Conscious of the different audiences MBA are catering for, the website adopts a clean navigational style alongside a universally appealing design. This design carries through into the candidate community area to ensure continuity and ease of understanding.

“Whilst many of our competitors have had to reduce overheads in 2009, we have adopted a new website that better suits our multinational clients and candidates,” commented Mike Garlick, MD of MBA. “We have streamlined our approach to recruitment and the new website will ensure new clients and candidates can be supported. This year we have invested in our marketing function to continue our best practice approach to recruitment.”

www.mbauk.com

TheITJob.com – the specialist online IT job board which forms part of The TipTopJob Group – is now offering completely free job postings for all clients on the site, matching similar offers from its key competitors.

As part of a strategy for early 2010, TheITJob.com has decided to offer recruitment agencies and direct clients the opportunity to road-test the website free of charge for a period of three months.

The benefits of using TheITJob.com means clients receive very targeted and relevant applications from job seekers in the sector as well as a great deal of exposure for advertised positions via the main TipTopJob site. The site has grown over 105% since the beginning of 2009 and now attracts more jobseekers at all levels looking for IT roles.

Mike Dauncey, CEO comments, “We have not been offering free trials for a few years now but it will be interesting to see how this will affect the use of this specialist site. The IT sector now has over 250,000 IT jobseekers registered on the site, so it is our largest industry out of the 35 we cover.”

CV Screen, the specialist IT recruitment agency this week celebrates 10 years of successfully placing IT professionals for companies throughout the UK.

The company which was formed in January 2000 has placed over 1000 IT professionals for organisations such as Links of London, GlaxoSmithKline, and Comet Plc.

Founding Director, Matthew Iveson commented on the achievement “I’m delighted that we’ve reached ten years and it’s testament to our loyal, experienced and professional staff who have helped to build our reputation as one of the most respected IT recruitment agencies in the UK.”

When asked about what major changes have taken place in the recruitment market over the 10 years, CV Screen’s Matthew Iveson commented “The biggest change has undoubtedly been that online recruitment has evolved and has lowered the barriers of entry to the sector and indeed lowered the cost of recruiting.  Key to success continues to be a recruiters ability to fully understand their clients’, the roles they are recruiting for and to have the tools and ability to source suitable candidates.”

Iveson also commented on the changes to the type of IT Jobs in demand over the decade “there has certainly been a shift towards open source technologies over the decade with PHP and Linux skills gaining market share. We have also seen continual high demand for IT Support professionals with Microsoft certifications and in 2009 Web 2.0 was one area which grew in a challenging economic climate with the number of Web Development and SEO Jobs rising significantly.” 

Having moved 18 months ago to new Head Offices in Amersham, Buckinghamshire CV Screen looks well set to benefit from any potential upturn in 2010 with Iveson adding “Our new divisions which focus on marketing recruitment and accountancy recruitment have been exciting additions alongside our already highly successful IT division. With the UK economy showing signs of recovering from the depths of 2009, we are confident that we are well placed to take advantage of the recovering jobs market.”

It’s no surprise that the way we communicate with people is changing. Some call it the Communication Revolution and it’s characterised largely by the use of Web 2.0 technology and websites such as LinkedIn and Facebook, otherwise known as Social Networking & Media.



With this in mind, Michelle Fischer of Creative Leadership, and Linda Parkinson-Hardman of Grow a Better Business, invite you to contribute to their research into the trends that are taking place within the context of Social Media and Recruitment. by completing the following questionnaire at Survey Monkey before Friday 18th December.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=9m00FDmhA781rOYugN7hnw_3d_3d

You’ll be asked questions about YOUR business use of Social Media, and particularly when recruiting new staff.

The questionnaire is completely anonymous, although you’ll need to leave your name if you’d like to receive a copy of the White Paper and be eligible to win the thank you prize of a bottle of France’s Finest Champagne. This will be given to a lucky participant chosen at random at the end of the research project. The interim report will be out before Christmas.

If you’ve any questions about any element of this research, please get in touch with Michelle at Creative Leadership on 01202 853647 or Linda Parkinson-Hardman on 01305 755607.

Redrock are thrilled to announce the launch of 2 new recruitment websites.

Redrock Consulting are specialists in the IT and Telecommunications industry, attracting and retaining the best talent for their clients is of the utmost importance, especially in an area where technology is forever moving forward. Their services are based on sound business principles within this technology sector, developing the right solution and understanding through long term relationships.

As highly experienced recruitment practitioners, Redrock Sales are also leaders in the field of sales and marketing. Clients are provided with an efficient service together with value for money. Skills and experience are matched to the correct sales position, saving time and effort in locating key personnel. Their loyal experienced staff finds the right person for the best organisations, which in turn assists in developing the sales careers of new recruits, through all levels, up to sales director.

Redrock felt it time to give their brand a boost and as such chose Optimal Internet to deliver their online solution and ongoing marketing and SEO campaign.

Dean Harte, Managing Director of Redrock commented, “Effective online candidate attraction must go beyond simply using job boards and as Recruiters we must go much further to find the best. These are exiting times at Redrock and we’re delighted to be working with Optimal Internet in building a long term campaign that will help us source the very best talent for our clients.

Pay a visit to their new websites at – www.redrockconsulting.co.uk, and www.redrocksales.co.uk.

Developing all the intricate information required for a smooth running, user friendly website has
been the work of leading recruitment web development company, Optimal Internet.

Bruce Stander, CEO of Optimal Internet said – “The recent work carried with Redrock has seen a vast improvement in their online presence. Not only have we been selected to enhance their brand, but an opportunity to develop some advanced online tools to ensure their marketing success.”

For more information on how you can update your recruitment website design, recruitment process software and online brand call Optimal Internet today!

W4A, a market leader in job board design and technology, are pleased to announce the release of the new version of their Group’s market leading job board software product Jobweb.

Jobweb is now in its 4′th revision: Jobweb V4.

The release 3 version incorporating the narrowing search functionality with sites such as www.icaewjobs.co.uk and www.yorkshirejobs.net has been very successful in helping customers achieve an increased number of jobs views, candidate applications and improved candidate usability.
Jobweb V4 builds on this and adds an abundance of new features with a key focus on advanced Search Engine Optimisation and advanced security.

To further enhance Jobweb V4, the database, search functionality and layouts have all been redesigned to provide it with an up to the minute look and faster performance.

Should you wish to find out more about the specific functionally of Jobweb V4 and how it can benefit your business please contact W4A directly on 01302 822 225 or visit their website to view recent projects.

www.websites4agencies.com