Best Route to hiring person with IT background?

A

amgd28

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Hi,
I have a reasonably young software/technology company with all my development currently being done offshore. We have one major client already and within the next 3-6 months I expect to close a large number of other clients. Some will be based in Dublin, but a lot of the clients will be spread around various population centres around the country.
I now need to prepare for resourcing deployments to these potential clients, and rather than expanding the offshore team, I want to add 1-2 staff here in Ireland.
I have noticed on surfing a few of the sites a large disparity between salaries offerred to similarly specc'd roles, and I am unsure how I should approach the recruitment process.
I do not need people with much experience, because the offshore developers are very experienced and can be parachuted in for complex issues, and are always available. I have advertised with the colleges already in their graduate sections to no avail (out of 10 applications, the only one from an EU citizen was from someone still living in Poland).
Should I bite the bullet and go with an agency such as computerfutures, stelfox or similar? If so what agency would you recommend?
 
Can you give rough details of the role and salary? Salaries would vary depend on the specific skills and experience you are looking for. Job titles, and specifications are often over or under stated. You could be looking for an junior office admin or a experience business analyst its hard to know without more info.
 
Fair point

The applications are developed in .NET, C#, SQL. But a lot of the work in deployemnt is inferacing with other systems via SQL views, so one role is for an SQL DBA with some .Net development experience, responsible for applivation deployemnt and analysis of pDB performance and feedback informaiton on performance optimisation to the development team

Other resource probalby a junior .net developer that can troubleshoot client/side issues and perform some customisation as required on site. would be first point of contact for technical support

I am open to suggestion on the rates, but it will depend on the experience of the individual. I am open to taking graduates with little or no experience, but obviously the salary would reflect this. Was considering though that I'd be paying gross 45k-55k for the dba and 35-45k for the technical support. Is this about right?
 
hi amg,

just a couple of targeted places you could advertise your roles:

- .net / microsoft technologies irish developers group - there is a post job link on the main page

the open mailing list [broken link removed] - i only lurk on this but job offers do get posted on this fairly often without people giving out so i presume it's ok to do so
 
It sounds like you're looking for more than just a developer? These people will be onsite and so the "face of the company" to the customer.
Will they possibly have to function in a pre/post sales support role, customer relationship management, etc.?
Is there a possibility of them generating further work from their dealings with the customer?
 
Good point tiger, but they will be dealing mainly with the technical side. Yes their impressions on the IT departmetns of clients will have some impact (reflecting our competence) but I am fairly happy that we can cover that.
I have some people already lined up for broader business development roles, and the nature of the market is that I will be dealing with the business decision-makers while relying on the techies to liaise with the tech staff during deployment and onwards. There are only a limited number of clients in the Irish market, so it should not be too difficult to liaise with them
However if we hire a techical person who shows the ability to develop into a broader role within the company, I would certainly support that career progression, but it is not a core requirement of the positions I am hiring for.

Thanks for all responses so far, some good tips here already
 
You seem to know what you are doing. So I don't see what value an agency gives you. An ad in the national press and an advert on some of the recruitment sites, incl FAS etc would be the route I'd take. Boards also etc. Nothing to lose in trying that anyway. Salaries seem reasonable. IMO. Perhaps one thing an agency would know is the going rates for similar roles etc.

You might be interested in the following.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055161916
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055166214

I have had a few people approach me recently (I''m in IT) looking for development staff, as they can't get any. But I don't really know of anyone looking for work. Anyone I know has gone contracting for more money, or has settled into a permanent role for stability with their family etc.
 
You do need to be very careful about customer facing techies ! They are primarily there to fulfill a technical role and deployment would be part of that role. It has been my experience that if the deployment/support does not hit a required target, the decision makers get involved in micromanaging not only their own tech org but they also haul the visiting tech in to account for themselves....then the fun begins
 

Absolutely, but that's par for the course. To be honest though I would expect us to be on top of any issues before the client, but yeah a prerequisite is competence and being able to meet deadlines, but I would expect this whether the role is customer facing or not.
 

Thanks for this, there's more than one way to skin a cat I suppose....
 
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