This entry was posted on 4/20/2007 9:38 AM and is filed under uncategorized.
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.
