Relocating back to Ireland - where to start ?

I've been living in the U.S. for 4 years now and have worked as a software engineer for about 10 years now. I would like to return to Ireland next year and am wondering if anyone has advice for finding a job in advance? I would also like to move to Galway (or one of the nearby counties). Do people generally set jobs up in advance or wait 'til they get home and look then ? What skills seem to be in demand - from what i can see java development. I've done some training courses in this and OO design & dev, and should be moving to project work by the end of the year. Would 3-6 months experience on projects seem sufficient to be able to obtain a job in this area back in Ireland? I'm worried that there may be an over supply. I'm considering doing the sun programmers certification.. I'm looking within the company I work for but there's not too much happening there regarding relocation back. Any ideas about agencies that specialize in this type of situation or companies that may assist with relocation expenses or are those days gone ?? ANY pointers would be great.

It would be difficult to land a confirmed job from abroad, without being present to do interviews. You might manage to line up some interviews, but I can't see how you would complete a job deal without getting face-to-face.

Anyone know of companies that do phone interviews as part of the initial round ? when I relocated to the US I did phone interivews and then video conferencing . I was staying with the same company so it was relatively easy to do that from work. How is the IT sector doing right now ? I've seen articles outlining that the number of job advertisements have greatly increased but I'm trying to get a feel for what type of skills - C programming with unix ? java ? Any ideas on how the java certificiation would be viewed - I was thinking if I don't have the actual experience on a project this may increase my chances ? Don't expect this to be a difficult transition of skills but need to get a foot in the door and I'm not sure that 3-6 months of java would suffice - I've a strong C programming back ground but I'm not sure if there's much of a demand for that at present.. Thanks for the comments Rainyday . If you think of anything else can you add to it please ?

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from what I can tell the IT market is not as good as it was 4-5 yrs ago, but not as bad as it was 2-3 years ago. If you have skills and experience you should be able to find something, though 3-6 mths of Java wouldn't really count you as an experienced Java programmer, unless maybe you could show you'd done alot of C++ or OO before hand.
From what you've said you're background is C/Unix. This has become more of a niche area, the colleges turn out Java people now, but there's still demand for these skills so companies that are looking for them find them harder to get .
I would say it's worth starting to look before moving, first round phone interviews would not be exceptional, though you might find it hard to get a relocation package.
www.monster.ie & www.irishjobs.ie/ would be 2 places to start.

Good luck!

You may or may not be able to secure a job before arriving home, you could however start the ball rolling, send your resume to some agencies, and line up some interviews before you come home.

Doing a certification will be a big plus. Depending on what type of career you are interested in, I would recommend doing the Sun SCJP or SCEA exams. With moderate Java experience you can do the SCJP with about 80 hours study/practice. If you have a broad (not necessarily deep) knowledge of J2EE, know UML, and design patterns, the SCEA is aslo achievable.

Thank you all for the advice - I think the certification would make sense all right and looking at some of the job sites should give me a better feel for what's going on . Thank You .