|
|
 THE STAT 26Percentage of wireless customers who use their cell phones to take picturesMore Vitals
| |
FEBRUARY 4, 2004
Tech Hiring: No Longer an Oxymoron [Page 2 of 2] A REINVENTED VALLEY. Perhaps that explains why experts think the bulk of tech hiring in 2004 will occur at small and midsize businesses, which have yet to get into big-time outsourcing. Kintera, a San Diego vendor of software used by nonprofit groups to do online fund-raising, is an example. It plans to add sales and marketing executives, product developers, and customer-support people this year after expanding its workforce by 49%, to 159 employees, in 2003. "With people available locally, we feel we're very well positioned to hire excellent talent without offshoring," says Chief Executive Harry Gruber. One other indication that the hiring climate for techies may be changing comes from tech capital Silicon Valley. From the second quarter of 2002 to the same period in 2003, the region lost only 5%, or 64,500, of its jobs -- less than the 10% drop during the same time a year earlier, according to Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a regional business organization. "As a sign of how bad things were, people have treated this as good news," says Russell Hancock, the group's president and chief executive. This year, tech employment in Silicon Valley is likely to be flat, says Doug Henton, president of Collaborative Economics, an economic-strategy group in Mountain View, Calif., that tracks the region's IT job numbers. Henton says the Valley is in the throes of a painful reinvention process. Jobs are shifting out of the software and information-services industries into health care and biotech. "When we come back, we're going to be a different Valley," Henton predicts. BANGALORE BOOM. Headhunter Wheel says demand is strongest for pros who can market hardware, software, and network-security services. In semiconductors, he's seeing demand for design and applications engineers. And in biotech, quality assurance and regulatory-affairs specialists are needed, he notes. In the still-depressed telecom field, some of the hottest hiring is for work with wireless networks and VoIP (voice over Internet protocol, the technology used in Internet telephony), says Mark Jaffe, president of executive-search firm Wyatt & Jaffe in Minneapolis. Recruiters add, however, that demand remains weak for Web-design specialists, programmers, and tech-support people. Software and services are also slow, Jaffe says, "unless you're living in Bangalore [India], because that's where it's all going." To land a job, the catchwords these days remain experience and versatility. "A project manager who can also program and deal with the nitty gritty," is the kind of candidate companies are looking for, says Dice's Melland. Demonstrated success is crucial, adds David Parker, founder of executive-search firm D.P. Parker & Associates in Wellesley, Mass. "There's very little creativity in the hiring community today," Parker says. "It's a difficult market for those who want or need to make a career change." FEWER TECH MBAs. That's why Paul Poissant is encouraging students at Pennsylvania State University's Smeal College of Business Administration to set their job goals before they arrive at school. Poissant, the school's executive director of MBA career management and corporate relations, is also advising students to use their free time to bone up on key skills that employers want, such as training in Six Sigma, a popular business performance-improvement process. "If you're not focused, it's pretty much over in the employer screening interview," says Poissant. Mirroring the situation at other schools, tech hiring among MBA grads is way down at Smeal vs. the peak years. In 2001, some 45% of its class went to work for tech outfits. This year, Poissant expects that number to be a little bit better than last year, around 10% to 14%. IT stalwarts such as IBM (IBM ), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ), Dell (DELL ), and Intel (INTC ) are doing most of the recruiting these days. One encouraging sign: 40% of Smeal's 86 second-year students already have offers. "Last year, we didn't hit that number until April," Poissant says. As might be expected, salaries remain restrained compared with boom times. Wheel says he recently filled a marketing director job that pays in the $110,000 to $125,000 range. Four years ago, the same post might have fetched $30,000 more. And these days, few companies are dangling signing bonuses. But Wheel says: "I think as demand picks up, we will see them." At this point, that sounds a tad optimistic. But signs are appearing that the tech hiring slump may finally be ending. And when it does, plenty of professionals will be grateful for a job, even if it lacks many of the perks that it might have come with in the past.
 By Eric Wahlgren in New York
BW MALL
SPONSORED LINKS
Buy a link now!Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
 Copyright 2004, Bloomberg L.P.Terms of Use | Privacy Notice |
Printer-Friendly Version