Scott Hardy is the business development manager for Boston-based IT recruiting company AVID Technical Resources.
He headed the opening of AVID’s first Providence branch on Weybosset Street nearly a year ago.
PBN: When we spoke last year, you were just opening up the office on Weybosset Street. What has come of it?
HARDY: Opening our Providence branch was a top priority after over five years of business development in the state. Having a local presence has paid dividends by allowing us the ability to continue to meet local talent, clients and strengthen these relationships. My goal has and continues to be to position myself and AVID as a trusted adviser and partner to our clients rather simply a staffing provider.
Being in Providence has increased our capability to network within the technology community and gain credibility with growing pool of talented IT professionals. We hired three recruiters to assist with supporting our client base and already see the need to hire additional staff based on pipeline business and client demand for qualified IT and digital media talent.
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PBN: What trends have you been seeing in the IT recruiting business in the past year?
HARDY: Finding qualified IT professionals in Rhode Island continues to be a challenge with the growing demand for this talent throughout New England, especially Boston and Massachusetts.
AVID regularly participates and sponsors technology seminars, networking events, user groups and other gatherings to help gain credibility within the technology community and position us a recruiting resource to candidates and clients.
Companies are becoming more selective with who they hire and with their job requirements. Some of this is due to the fact that hiring managers still feel there should be plenty of people looking for work which is not the case with the types of positions we recruit for.
The competitive landscape for finding and hiring in the technology sector is still as competitive as ever and increasing. In fact, the unemployment rate in the tech sector is half of the national average, under four percent. We have seen a huge increase in demand for programmers, especially with building mobile applications (iPad, iPhone, Android, mobile content, etc). For qualified professionals in this space, there is zero unemployment; the talent that is available cannot support the demand in the marketplace.
PBN: Last year, you said PHP and Ruby On Rails were extremely popular in smaller startups. Do you see this trend holding on much longer? What languages are you seeing starting to pick up some traction?
HARDY: Open-source technology is still in growth mode and the next iteration of open source provides a framework to use the web in a way people have not really even thought of at this point. From our experience at a recent PHP developer event, how people know the web now will change dramatically in the next three to five years.
The users’ future Web experience will be completely customizable based on an internet dash-board that they can set up based on their own personal preferences and how they want to view this information. As far as languages we see starting to pick up, the landscape is still dominated with C, C++, PHP, Java and .Net for the most part. How these languages are being integrated and used with and on specific platforms is where the major changes are happening.
PBN: Many local business owners complain about the lack of IT talent in Providence. How do you view the market? Is this accurate?
HARDY: It’s obvious that the Providence IT community still lives in the shadow of the Boston market.
However, some of the tax incentives the state is offering has started to attract more businesses to the state (38 Studios the most publicized example) and therefore create more of a buzz to attract talent to Rhode Island throughout New England and beyond.
In order to be more competitive and attract qualified technologists, organizations throughout the state are matching and sometimes offering higher salaries than in Boston. As a staffing provider to the state, the companies that have and are successful at attracting IT talent are aggressive in providing more than just money and also offer an enhanced benefits package, lower cost of living, quality of work/life balance and attractive corporate culture. These factors are bringing more candidates to the state.
The state has done a good job of offering training for experienced and entry-level technologist that may be looking to update their skills or learn a new skill.
PBN: Are you seeing a pick up in IT recruiting in the last year, now that many businesses are creeping out of the “worst of it” recession blues?
HARDY: Over the last year, businesses have certainly started to hire more IT professionals on both a contract/temporary and permanent basis.
The most obvious sign of a better economy in the tech space is the increase in permanent hiring, especially in Rhode Island. The majority of hiring is temp-to-perm and direct-hire rather than purely consulting engagements.
However, even requests for consulting engagements have increased across the board. One factor to mention is that many of the companies in Rhode Island are competing for the same resources, particularly .NET and open-source programmers.
We are constantly getting requests for these skill sets and have to get very creative to find new talent on the market. This includes often having to exit the Rhode Island market to find candidates that we can sell on moving and/or commuting to Rhode Island.
The demand for IT talent should only grow stronger as more and more companies find incentives to set up shop in Rhode Island with the ability to pull talent from New York and Boston. There are plenty of jobs out there for qualified IT professionals in Rhode Island
Unemployment is still way above where it should be and anything the state can do to offer technical training and education to the unemployed will be a huge assist to the community and tax payers.
