Commentary on the IT/MIS Recruiting Industry
Mark Berger, President of Ramsey Fox, Inc. and co-author of our monthly Internet Recruiting column (which will return next month) says, “As most of you know … along with writing the Internet/Technology column for this publication for over five years, I have also been an IT recruiter working a desk since 1979. Not only have I heard many times how IT recruiting isn’t what it used to be, that our clients are doing their own IT recruiting now, that you can find any IT person you want on Monster, yada, yada, yada, I could also quote two sources predicting that the entire third party recruiting industry (you and me) is going to disappear. As our illustrious and often-quoted publisher, Paul Hawkinson, has said many times in the past upon hearing news of this nature … “Hoo boy.”
Admittedly, IT recruiting was probably one of the first disciplines affected by the recession, as it has always been in past recessions, and one of the last to come back. But it is coming back. IT recruiting is here to stay but some of the comments are not far from the truth. Our clients can find many IT people on the Internet these days. Of course they can. There are still thousands of quality candidates unemployed. I see resumes regularly of persons unemployed since last year. A few years ago, the clients were paying us fees for the most common of candidates. Why? Because the labor market was so tight they couldn’t find the quality people on their own. Now, they can find them on their own, usually by running an inexpensive ad. Are we going to keep getting fees for this type of person? No, I don’t think so. Our discipline is changing again, just like it has many times in the past, and will in the future. Any successful IT recruiter will have to change with it. IT recruiters will continue to bring in fees in the future for the same reason they have in the past. It is because the client cannot locate the proper candidates themselves.
Our job orders these days are much different that they had been in the past. It’s not just “find me a Java programmer” anymore. It’s always the Java PLUS three other skills, two of which I have never heard of before. Or, it’s for some obscure application experience where there may only be a handful of quality candidates in the entire country. Or, maybe it’s some high-level government security clearance requirement. All head bangers, for sure. So what … these orders are for people that my clients are unable to locate on their own. This is what I have been trained to do. With all their ads, resume databases and website recruiting efforts, they still can’t find them. I think the old adage, “you can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip,” may (but may not) apply here. You can’t locate a suitable candidate on Monster if he or she is not there. Period.
Another supposed reason for the IT recruiting industry demise is due to outsourcing development work to India and other far-away places. As attractive as it may be from a cost standpoint, I predict IT management in the USA will get sick and tired of this option just like they all are getting sick and tired of getting 400 resumes for a networking ad, even though the ad is also very attractive from a cost standpoint. There will be some permanent loss of USA programmer jobs, but a small loss overall, I think. Keep a couple of things in mind. First, this only affects development. Generally, infrastructure support has to be done here. Second, this option is typically for the largest companies. The vast majority of smaller and medium sized firms, where most of the quality job orders come from, will not be outsourcing anything. When I started in this business we only were able to do business with the largest, nationwide companies because they were the only ones that had computers. These days, we can make placements with companies with 10 employees and a few million dollars in revenue, if that.
For 2004 … nothing but up from here. It won’t take much of an employment up-tick or two to absorb most of the quality unemployed. The others, the clients won’t want anyway. Internet programming will continue to be hot. We are regularly still seeing job openings for Java and .Net developers. We are seeing better quality job orders from smaller and medium-sized firms — those that are typically in some niche market and doing very well. I think Don Wallach recently wrote an informative and timely article for TFL on making placements in the security/intelligence field. You should consider taking advantage of some of those tens of billions of dollars that are going to be flowing to the defense contractors. This applies to IT recruiters, for sure, but also almost every major recruiting discipline as well.
Like I said before. IT recruiting is here to stay. Catch me 10 years from now and you can see for yourself.