D³ Special Edition: Current IT Market Conditions and Hiring Trends in 2012

On this D³: LIVE & INTERACTiVE special, the D³ crew goes on location, visiting the East of Toronto .NET User Group where Paula Rainford, Account Manager at TEKSystems in Mississauga, ON speaks about industry trends as they relate to the .NET development community. Paula shares specific networking and job hunting techniques to assist in landing that next opportunity. Plus: Paula zeros in on what employers are looking for in candidates and what should be expected out of recruitment firms.

Highlights

• [02:24] Current IT market conditions in Canada
• [04:50] The debate of going into contracting or full time permanent positions
• [05:00] Outlook for 2012
• [06:36] Top skills sets desired in 2012
• [06:57] Huge demand for mobile development
• [07:20] Developers with Microsoft skills are high in demand
• [08:00] Increase in the use of Microsoft development to convert legacy systems over Java
• [08:38] The need for user experience designers
• [09:23] #2 top skill: Security
• [09:41] #3 top skill: Data warehouse/business intelligence
• [10:19] #4 top skill: Networking
• [10:46] #5 top skill: Business analysis/project management
• [11:20] #6 top skill: IT Pro
• [11:53] What employers are looking for
• [13:26] Q: Can you elaborate on “soft skills”?
• [14:30] Bad hires are due to attitudinal reasons
• [15:26] Q: You said that one of the biggest challenges is attracting new people. Is that because the bar is set too high?
• [17:10] Q: What are employers defining “emotional intelligence” as?
• [17:49] Job hunting skills: networking
• [18:44] Importance of referrals
• [19:26] Working with recruitment firms to land an opportunity
• [20:42] Using LinkedIn as your social network
• [23:00] Job hunting using Twitter
• [23:47] Other avenues you can use to locate opportunities
• [25:10] What to expect from recruiting firms
• [27:09] Q: How do recruiting firms work with people who have experience, just not Canadian experience?
• [28:20] Q: What are you seeing happening so far in 2012?
• [28:54] Q: What’s your take on certification?
• [29:21] Q: Do employers still require college or university degrees to get jobs?
• [30:23] Q: What are companies doing to attract talent?
• [31:50] Q: Are people who move around jobs a lot more marketable than those who stick around for longer periods of time?
• [33:03] Q: What are you looking for in resumes?
• [33:35] Common employer resume frustrations
• [34:18] Q: Is it true that resumes should only be two pages?
• [34:51] Q: How many resumes do employers look at for positions?

Paula Rainford
Paula is a tenured Account Manager with TEKsystems with a background in recruiting. She manages the relationship between corporations and TEKsystems and is dedicated to spending time to develop an understanding of a company's culture, hiring practices, upcoming business priorities and IT project and resources needs. She is actively involved in networking and recruiting the top IT talent and assisting technical professionals in their career search.
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TEKSystems
TEKsystems is North America's leading technology staffing and services company. Combining a proven track record of superior performance, a quality focused approach to service delivery and the highest calibre technical professionals in the market, TEKsystems helps our clients successfully plan, build, and run their critical technology initiatives. With more than 25 years of experience, we annually deploy 70,000 technical professionals from 90 locations through North America, Europe and Asia.

East of Toronto .NET User Group

The mission of the East of Toronto .NET Users Group is to provide advanced, interesting information about the Microsoft .NET Framework. It serves the need of developers to receive the best .NET programming information, and fill their desire to be informed about developments of revolutionary importance as early as possible. The group serves the needs of programmers who are currently working with or interested in the .NET platform.

D³: LIVE & INTERACTiVE
Just in case you haven’t heard about the show, Developers, Developers, Developers: LIVE & INTERACTIVE (D³) is a monthly show hosted by yours truely. The show airs live every first Wednesday of the month at 12:00 PM ET and features the latest updates on what's new and exciting in the world of development; featured presentations; and guests. LIVE and INTERACTIVE means that you'll be part of the show – You're invited to interact with us; ask questions and get them answered; and share your thoughts and opinions.

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Special thanks to Paula and the East of Toronto .NET User Group for inviting D³ and allowing us to share this special with developers nationwide.