Teknovis

Amazon is starting a virtual recruitment fair right now in Second Life. I have never attended one of these virtual recruitment fairs before, but I image that it is a good compromise between no interaction with potential employees and normal interaction with potential employees at a recruitment fair. For more details about this see Amazon Second Life Job Fair.

I was discussing this event recently with a friend who works for Amazon. Actually, the discussion was more about Rufus and the dog friendly work environment. My friend said that it feels like a zoo walking around the part of the building containing the dogs and their owners!

Cool B)

Tags: Amazon, Recruitment, Second Life

I was talking with a friend of mine who is a senior computer science lecturer in one of the universities in Dublin. He was telling me that he recently advertised two new post-graduate studentships, and that the recruitment process was significantly more difficult than he expected!

Each studentship was for three years, and it included a stipend of up to 20,000€ per annum (this is tax-free) and an allowance for travel and equipment. The studentships were advertised online, and in the relevant journals.

My friend received a large double-digit number of applications. The majority of these applications were from applicants in Asia, and not a single application was from an Irish applicant!

So why are Irish graduates not interested in pursuing post-graduate research? Perhaps it is due to the falling calibre of Irish students in technical professions. Alternatively, perhaps it is because Irish students prefer to pursue lucrative jobs after graduating. I wonder will this change as the economy deteriorates.

This is not the first time that I have come across this situation. In fact, I believe that Irish students are in a minority in most of the research labs in the universities in Dublin. The worrying thing about this trend is that it will make it increasingly difficult to attract multinational companies to establish research centres in Ireland. Additionally, there is little benefit in the Irish tax-payer providing educational benefits to Asian students!

Tags: Ireland, Recruitment

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of meeting recruiters from several of the leading IT companies in Ireland. The informal message that I got from them all was that:

• There are currently as many graduate opportunities as there were last year, and in some cases there are significantly more.
• Starting salaries are roughly between 27,000€ and 33,000€ per annum. (Naturally there are other benefits associated with each job!)
• The applicants are making more of an effort in their applications compared to previous years. I am speculating that this is due to applicants being aware of the current economy downturn.
• The average calibre of applicants is decreasing. I am speculating that this is a symptom of the general reluctance of Irish students to pursue technical subjects.

So overall, it appears that there are plenty of opportunities in the IT sector for high-calibre graduates. This is consistent with both my experiences, and my colleagues experiences, of employment opportunities for experienced IT professionals.

Tags: Recruitment