In the last couple of weeks, the Richmond market has seen a few enterprise level companies layoff a portion (or all)  of their workforce due to the struggling economy.  A lot of people have asked me how I see it affecting the .NET candidate market and the .NET job market.  My answer is two fold because I believe there are 2 answers.  

Here is the first answer.  I strongly believe that there will continue to be a shortage of .NET resources in the Richmond area.  First of all, there have really only been three (3) enterprise level companies that have had a reduction in the work force.  They are Circuit City, Land America and Quimonda.  Let's look at each one individually; but also how they pertain to the local .NET market.  First we have Circuit City.  They experienced a large layoff and a lot of it was from the IT area.  Fortunately, for the .NET market; Circuit City does NOT use the .NET framework and thus does no in house development in .NET,  So, no unemployed .NET candidates came into the Richmond market due to a Circuit City layoff.  Second is Quimonda.  They are laying off approximately 50% of their workforce, but no one in the IT department.  All of their layoffs are at the production level as they are closing one of their buildings.  Although Quimonda uses .NET; there are no unemployed .NET candidates coming into the Richmond job market.  And, lastly, we have LandAmerica.  Their IT department heavily used the .NET framework as their development platform.  It wasn't exclusively .NET, but it was substantial.  As we all know, LAndAmerica has sold 90% of their business to First Fidelity in Jacksonville, Florida and filed bankruptcy on the remainder of the company meaning that they have laid off or will be letting go of all of their technical talent.  An uninformed person would think that there would be a glutton of junior, mid level and senior level .NET talent that would be on the street; but as we look closer we find out that is not the truth at all.  We need to look into the LandAmerica model within their IT department.  LandAmerica primarily hired senior level and architect level .NET talent with salaries ranging from 90-110K.  All of LandAmerica's junior and mid level developers were outsourced to India.  This means that a fair amount of unemployed, very senior/architect level .NET talent has entered the Richmond market.  If your organization is looking for senior level talent, then over the last month you have had some outstanding candidates to look at and have probably had an opportunity to hire a very talent person.  But if your organization is looking for a junior to mid level developer, you are probably scratching your head as to why you are in the same position you were earlier this year when the .NET candidate market was empty.

And that leads me right into my second answer.  It's actually very simple - perception is reality, right?  Most people in the general public (including IT managers and directors) only get the information that is coming through the media concerning layoffs and that information is often right on the surface of what is actually happening.  They don't have the information to go inside each company and understand what their shop looks like.  They don't know that LandAm only had senior level and architect level .NET people, they don't know that Quimonda didn't lay off any IT people, they don't know that Circuit City isn't a .NET shop.  All they know is that there have been a lot of layoffs and there are a lot of unemployed people looking for work.  That's their perception right now; so that is the reality.  Of course, this "reality" will be short lived because many companies will continue to have a hard time finding top level talent for their positions. 

But here is the deal - any unemployed .NET candidate is currently an ACTIVE candidate in the market.  And they are out interviewing at every company that will see them.  These candidates who were making 90K at their last job before being laid off are now willing to take 70K to keep bringing a paycheck home.  But, guess what, as soon as the economy turns around that employee is going to be out looking for another opportunity that will pay him/her closer to the 90K they used to have.  What employers really want are the passive candidates.  Those are the people that are talented, working for your competition, but still interested in finding out about other opportunities.  These candidates aren't going to post their resume on Monster, they aren't going to respond to an ad in the newspaper and they aren't going to tell their best friend that they are looking for a job.  The only way passive candidates are found is through the recruiter. 

So, in the end, I think the .NET market will stay strong, but there may be a short term hiccup until companies realize that perception is not reality.  And the reality is that nothing has changed in Richmond and to get the top .NET talent it is important to utilize recruiters as an integral part of your search.

The market continues to improve for both IT personnel and the recruiters that help them find jobs.  Now, I'll agree we may never see the glory days of the late 90's or Y2K again.  But things are still going pretty well.

I want to talk about the three most popular hiring practices for clients.  They are, in no particular order, Contract to Hire, Permanent Placement, and straight Contract work.  Each one has its own benefits to both the employer and perspective employee.  But they also have pitfalls.  Some companies have one strategy that they use all the time.  If you are looking to get the best talent available to work for your organization, then the employer needs to be flexible and choose the hiring practice that best fits the current market conditions. 

One of the trends from the last couple of years that seems to be a favorite of employers is the Contract to Hire Model.  When the IT field is in a recession period or there is a great amount of local layoffs, the Contract to Hire Model is a great option.  The reasoning is that there is a lot of talent out on the street.  If there is a high amount of talent available, people aren't getting a paycheck, and there aren't a lot of jobs available; candidates usually jump on opportunities even if they are Contract to Hire.  The problem for the Contract to Hire model starts when the market is strong.  There are still people out on the street, but they are generally lower skilled and less desirable to many companies.  And employers generally don't want that type of person.  Employers clammor for higher quality candidates.  Well, the problem is that the higher quality candidates are either contractors (who want to stay contracting) or they are full time, permanent employees with another company.  And I pose this question to hiring managers all the time - If you were a full time employee at XYZ company and a main provider for your household; would you risk taking a 3 month or 6 month contract to hire opportunity?  Most managers understand the problem when it is presented to them in that manner.  A Contract to Hire situation is just that - its a contract for X amount of months and there are NO guarantees that you will be hired besides the managers good faith gesture.  It's a scary proposition because of the risk involved. 

The point I am trying to make is that if employers want higher level talent/employees in their organization, then they need to adjust to market conditions in their hiring practices.  Contract to Hire can be a good model at the right time.  Unfortunately, that time is not now.

Good morning!  First entry into the new LTL Consulting Blog.  This blog will be a place that all contacts (clients and candidates) can come and learn more about The Richmond IT Landscape, The .NET market in Central Virginia, exclusive openings to LTL Consulting, interview tips and techniques, sample interview questions, etc...  It will cover all things .NET related and recruiting and consulting related.

Today I just briefly want to talk about the Richmond IT landscape, what's hot and what's not from a recruiting perspective and what I think is driving these changes.

Richmond has a robust IT community with a ton of corporations calling Richmond home.  Often I find that certain geographic areas utilize one technology more than others.  It may be due to the type of industries that an area emcompasses or it may be historical.  Richmond is hands down a Microsoft area.  That doesn't mean that there aren't Java or Mainframe or Open Source technologies; because there obviously are and a lot of companies use them.  But, the overall picture suggests that most companies use Microsoft on both the infrastructure side as well as the application development areas.  For Richmond, it's both historical and its also the type of industries that are here.  The local companies are very user focused companies - retail, financial, healthcare, etc..  And because Microsoft has such user friendly hardware and software; it is a natural fit.

Currently .NET development is white hot.  Specifically, ASP.NET / C# web services are the skills most in demand right now.  There are many reasons that .NET is in demand.  First, it really is simple economics.  Supply and demand.  There just are more jobs than there are qualified people.  Another reason for the demand has to do with the release date of .NET to the public.  Visual Studio .NET was released in February of 2002 (obviously beta was out before that).  Here is the breakdown of how quickly companies use new technology.

Bleeding Edge - 5% of companies - from Release to 6 months
Cutting Edge - 10% of companies - 6 months to 2 years
Fast Followers - 25% of companies - 2 years to 4 1/2 years
Mainstream - 50% of companies - 4 1/2 years to 7 years
Unsupported - 10% of companies - 7 years +

As you can see, .NET was released 5 years 2 months ago; so we are in the middle of the mainstream cycle which accounts for 50% of the companies initiating new development in .NET.  Basically, the market has more than doubled the amount of companies using .NET and the supply is stretched beyond what is available. 

Another technology and skillset that is in high demand is being a SQL Server 2005 DBA.  This iteration of SQL Server is when SQL Server really became a powerful database that actually needed its own dedicated employee to manage and support it. 

The opportunities in IT that are not hot right now are mostly on the infrastructure and support side.  Even with Vista coming in, there is not a high need for network administrators.  Perhaps it is because Vista is so new and only the bleeding edge companies are in the process of deploying it.  But, overall, there is a low demand for network administrators, desktop support personnel and help desk people.  I encourage clients to use other means than a recruiter if they need to find these types of people.  Vista may have an impact in this area, but I think we will need to wait a couple of years until the demand catches up with the supply.

Next entry I will talk about the changes in hiring practices as the market continues to improve and unemployment continues to drop.