Manager SS&C Operations – Financial Services – Toronto

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Ted Nixon

Manage the day-to-day processing requirements and client and suppliers relationships for all SS&C products for this firm of Financial Advisors and Fund Managers working in the Pension and Segregated Accounts industry.

This firm manages a variety of financial accounts using SS&C software products. The list of product responsibilities includes: Pacer, Vertex, PCView, SSCNet, Recon, and SVC. Candidates MUST have previous experience working with these products.

Supervise one staff in supporting the following responsibilities:

-test and implement upgrades and new software solutions (e.g. portfolio modeling and compliance system)
-maintenance and evolution of procedures, routines and documentation associated with products
-primary contact with external providers
-liaison with all departments to resolve issues
-investigate and coordinate solutions to problems
-provide training (verbal and written) to administrators and traders regarding software
-manage and complete multiple tasks
-strong analytical and problem solving skills

Pacer, Vertex and SVC
-highly proficient in command mode for Pacer and FRED modules
-expert in corporate action processing
-oversight of security database: addition of new securities, pricing, classification, income and yield data
-escalating issues with security database provider (SVC)
-creation of new reports using the Pacer report writer
-creation and maintenance of reports using DEF graphical user interface scripts
-creation and maintenance of batch reports
-support administrators and traders with problems and provide assistance in navigating system
-updating and monitoring client guidelines
-escalating problems with software provider

SSCNet
-update, maintain and monitor database: portfolio set up, broker information, third parties, custodial data, settlement blocks and DIDB
-trade matching reporting to compliance: statistics and explanations where necessary
-assisting resolving settlement problems
-creation and maintenance of reports

Recon
-monthly production of holding reconciliation for existing custodial relationships
-implementation of new file formats and reports for new custodians
-implementation of cash and transaction reconciliation

Location: Toronto, ON, Canada

Compensation: Base salary $80,000 (potential for equity in future)

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SAP Sales Account Manager (Mississauga, ON)

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Ted Nixon

Job duties:
The account manager is responsible to develop the SAP business unit’s target market to increase revenue base and thereby contribute to growth.

Responsibilities will be to:
• Collaborate with the business unit’s marketing team and management to define and implement strategies designed to generate business opportunities in its target market;
• Participate actively in the business unit’s outreach activities;
• Carry out prospecting activities for the business unit;
• Represent the firm to its target client bases to identify and define their business needs;
• Position the appropriate business services and solutions upstream of the sales cycle;
• Collaborate with the persons responsible for the sale of business services and solutions in the sales cycle;
• Inform manager’s team of his outreach and prospecting activities.

Essentials skills /competencies
• Undergraduate University diploma;
• Have more than five (5) years’ relevant experience in ERP sales;
• Excellent knowledge of ERP industries and marketplace
• Experience in complete sales cycle and complex contract negotiation;
• Ability to identify business needs in client target and suggest appropriate service;
• Strong sales and presentation skills;
• Good command of MS Office tools;
• Good oral and written communication skills in English;
• Ability to travel as needed.

Compensation: Base salary $100,000, target income up to $275,000

Apply for this position

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Senior Product Manager – Toronto

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Ted Nixon

Our client is a growing BI software vendor with international offices. They help their clients increase sales and profitability, ease critical decision-making and reduce risk. Their clients include leading healthcare, financial services, retail, insurance, and information communication and technology firms.

Job Description
We are seeking a strong Senior Product Manager to lead their predictive analytics software roadmap. Reporting to the Director of R&D, you will be responsible for the prioritization of all development efforts, as well as defining the detailed requirements for improvements to our software. If you are a visionary who is an authority on analytics software with hands-on experience using a variety of predictive analytics and data mining tools, as well as a solid foundation in product management within a software development organization, this could be your next exciting career challenge.

Can you coordinate and prioritize input from many different internal and external stakeholders with conflicting priorities, and build consensus on a product roadmap? Do you work well with all levels of the organization, from communicating your vision to the executive team, to working with the developers who will implement your designs? If so, read on…

As the Senior Product Manager, you will have the authority and accountability for defining the future of our software products. Your job will be to continue to extend and expand our robust data mining platform to increase market share.

Responsibilities:

Be the product owner for a suite of BI products, defining the feature roadmap and prioritizing the backlog of potential enhancements,
Lead product design processes, collaborating with users and internal stakeholders to design industry leading predictive analytics and data mining software
Create detailed use cases, product concepts and functional specifications
Support sales and marketing by leading the development and maintenance of technical marketing collateral as well as providing pre-sales support as necessary
Maintain current, hands-on, in-depth knowledge of competitive products and maintain technical analysis of competitive strengths and weaknesses

Desired Skills & Experience:

-MUST HAVE 5-10+ years of related experience as a data mining analyst, with experience in a software development organization.
-Strong problem solving skills along with excellent verbal and written communication skills which will be used in documenting use cases, detailed product requirements and product positioning.
-Proven ability to effectively interface with customers and internal users to build consensus on product roadmap priorities.
-Experience with various data mining, predictive analytics and statistical packages.
-Ability to work with R&D to design robust and intuitive graphical user interfaces
-Previous product management experience is a bonus but is not required

Location: Downtown Toronto
Compensation: Base salary $90-110,000 plus a 10-15% bonus based on experience

Apply for this position

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EPICOR Implementation Specialists – Contract

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Ted Nixon

Our client is an established Canadian reseller of ERP solutions, active in Southern Ontario. They are in need of seasoned experts in implementing EPICOR’s ERP solution in manufacturing and distribution companies. Contracts typically run anywhere from 1 to 6 months in duration. If consultants possess a green card, it’s possible that there may be assignments in the USA as well.

Location: Consultants will typically be working at the clients locations which may be located anywhere in Southern Ontario.

Compensation: The per diems are based on experience but can be quite lucrative.

Apply for this position

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THE #1 Resume Mistake

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Ted Nixon

Despite 20 years in the search industry, I am still regularly amazed at the frequency of occurrence of what I believe to be THE #1 resume mistake. It’s a LULU that no doubts causes people to be overlooked by employers for jobs they could very well be a fit for. I suspect that as many of a quarter of the people that read this post will quickly realize that they need to correct for this flaw on their CV. The problem seems to be seniority-agnostic, as I see it from a wide variety of individuals.

One of the most basic requirements for any resume is to clearly communicate details about the products and/or services that each of your employer’s was selling. If your resume does not provide this information, an employer or recruiter may be unable to accurately determine a fit to an open job. Clearly this information is crucial to evaluating your experience and capabilities.

Why people don’t feel this crucial info should be included on their resume, I will never understand. Were you selling hogs to farmers? Unless you were working for IBM or a well-known entity, do you expect us to guess what you were selling? Do you expect us to search the internet to find out what your employer sells? I can assure you, most resume reviewers don’t have time for that. What happens instead is, they shake their head in wonderment and take a pass on your resume, even though it’s possible you could be a terrific fit for them.

For each employer that you worked for, I recommend adding a separate heading line on your resume, just under the name of the company and before your job title, that details their focus. You could include details such as the company revenue, products and services sold, and market sector that they sell to (but it should be no more than two or three lines and can be as little as a single line). The format I recommend for each previous position looks like this:

Name of Employer, City and Dates Worked:
Nature of Business (absolutely essential info!!!)
Job Title
(Leave a space)
Responsibilities – (brief details)
Achievements – (the meat & potatoes of your resume)

If your resume needs to be modified to address this concern, take the time to add these details for each previous employer. For current job seekers, this modified resume could be your basis for re-connecting with recruiters and prospective employers anew. Who knows, this small tidbit of advice might just lead to your uncovering a new career opportunity. You will likely avoid having your resume chucked when in fact you are a solid fit. At the very least, you’ll reduce the frustration level of countless resume reviewers, like me.

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CRM APPLICATION ARCHITECT / SENIOR DEVELOPER – Mississauga

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Ted Nixon

Join this fast-growth, Canadian financial servcies firm, uniquely based in Mississauga, Ontario and contribute to the achievement of their goals while building your skills in a highly marketable field (CRM).

Position Responsibilities:

• Investigate business requirements and identifies solution alternatives with impacts and estimates
• Develop business applications and perform appropriate testing
• Provide technical collaboration to other Developers
• Assist in the development of Software Development Strategies
• Supervise the development project staff on each project to ensure that the project dates are met and that procedures and standards are being followed
• Ensure the design documents meet the stated business requirements
• Create efficient designs, write and document code and perform code audit reviews
• Lead in the development of major initiatives for off the shelf packages as well as custom built solutions
• Lead in unit/integration testing and lead in the troubleshooting of bugs and issues

Position Requirements:• Has University degree or equivalent.
• Has at least 5 years’ experience designing and implementing large transactional systems and with service oriented architecture, component design, and distributed systems.
• Experience with source control systems such as TFS.
• Has at least 5 years of Data Modeling and developing web based .NET applications including having experience with ADO.NET Entity Framework model that contains at least 50 entities.
• Has at least 5 years of experience using Microsoft SQL Server including analysis for index creation and read SQL execution plans.
• Has at least 5 years of experience developing using C# and 2 years with LINQ.
• Has at least 2 years of experience using WPF or Silverlight.
• Experience working as Application / Technical Architect will be a strong asset.
• Experience customizing and configuring off-the shelf products especially Dynamics CRM will be an asset.
• Experience in architecting and deploying Dynamics CRM will be an asset.
• Experience with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting services will be an asset.
• Experience in integrating to an off-the-shelf financial system especially Great Plains will be an asset.
• Working knowledge and best practices of WCF, HTTP principles and caching policies, IIS and other web service technologies.
• Independently debug issues and find solutions for complex bugs including intercepting HTTP calls and debugging them and debugging of SqlTimeoutException (without any additional information).
• Have led or been a part of the development team on a large distributed application.
• Proven experience in conducting unit testing as part of development.
• Good understanding of generic single-sign-on mechanism and how Windows Integrated security works in browsers.

Location: Mississauga, ON

Compensation: Up to $85,000 annual base salary

Apply for this position

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Senior Channel Marketing Manager – Networking – Toronto

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Ted Nixon

Our client is a fast growth, award winning network solution vendor marketing to the demands of SMB enterprises, military, government, financial services, retail and manufacturing organizations worldwide.

As Channel Marketing Manager, you are passionate about working with partners. You will own
and drive all channel (reseller) marketing programs and initiatives. Responsible for making our
partners successful, you will help drive partner generated leads in the short-term and increase
channel loyalty over the long-term.
You are a savvy Channel Marketing Manager who not only knows how to build and run
traditional lead generation programs such as seminars, events and campaigns, but you also
understand the value and power of online marketing and social media.
You will collaborate and work closely with the marketing team to leverage corporate marketing
programs and build new programs that will enable our partners to successfully market and
position our client as a leading network solution vendor.

Responsibilities:

• Own and drive the development and execution of all channel programs
• Leverage corporate marketing programs and build focused channel programs
• Track and analyze the effectives of the various programs to maximize ROI
• Provide leadership, direction and guidance on how to maximize partner effectiveness
• This role requires frequent travel, up to 50%, mostly to the USA.

Required Experience:
• The ideal candidate will have strong business analysis skills as well as experience in driving long term channel strategies.
• Proven experience in developing and driving channel programs with focus on ROI
• 5+ years channel and/or technology marketing experience
• Exceptional leadership and program management skills
• A proven relationship builder with Internal Groups and Field Teams.
• Superior presentation, communication skills, written and oral, to a broad set of internal and external stakeholders. Confidence, composure and the comfort in presenting to senior executives is critical.
• Bachelor’s degree required, MBA preferred

Compensation: $120,000 plus a bonus of up to 10%

Location: Toronto, ON Canada

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Sales Manager, Business Services – Hosted PBX – Toronto

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Ted Nixon

Established over 10 years ago, our client is a growing provider of Hosted PBX and Cloud-based phone services for the SMB marketplace. They manage a Canada-wide, fully-redundant and diverse network using carrier grade equipment and they are highly experienced at running a network.

Job Objective:

Reporting to the Director Marketing Business Services, the Sales Manager position is responsible for building sales to retail business customers. Initially accountabilities will be to directly sell cloud based telecommunication services to small and medium businesses in the Greater Toronto Area. The position will quickly evolve to the hiring and management of sales representatives and telemarketers. The initial sales focus will be on the Greater Toronto Area, with future plans to service the rest of Canada.

Responsibilities:

Immediate (Hunter)

• Develop a sales strategy to generate sales leads, with focus on the GTA.
• Acquire new accounts by cold calling, prospecting, networking by the phone, face-to-face, trade show, networking events and social media
• After contract signature, maintain a relationship with the customer to ensure customer satisfaction and generating referrals.
• In conjunction with the Director of Marketing, assist in the development and implementation of marketing strategies.
• Provide timely feedback regarding performance, challenges and product enhancement recommendations.
• Identify RFP and RFI opportunities and create the associated response and proposal presentations
• Manage a sales funnel to analyze and manage pipeline activity and monitor sales activity against assigned quotas.
• Adhere to all company policies, procedures and business ethics codes.
• Manage the sales cycle and forecast to prioritize and engage resources productively, meet & exceed expectations for revenue growth, account profitability and customer satisfaction.

Future (Hunter/Manager)

• Responsible for the performance and development of internal and external telemarketing sales teams.
• Prepares action plans by individuals as well as by team for effective search of sales leads and prospects.
• Initiates and coordinates development of action plans to penetrate new vertical markets.
• Provides timely, accurate, competitive pricing on all completed prospect applications submitted for pricing and approval, while striving to maintain maximum profit margin.
• Maintains accurate records of all pricings, sales, and activity reports and funnels submitted by the sales team.
• Assists the sales team in preparation of proposals and presentations.

Job Specifications:

• Willingness work in a small, entrepreneurial, privately-held company with a focus on achieving results
• 5-7 years of experience in sales/sales management.
• Experience selling telecommunication, data services and hosted PBX services to small to medium business
• Strong understanding of the local market
• Proven leadership and ability to drive sales directly as well as sales teams.

Compensation: Base salary $50-80K, target income $120K+

Location: Toronto, ON, Canada

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Sales Executive – SAP-related Professional Services – Chicago or any major USA city

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Ted Nixon

Become a key contributor to the growth of a professional services vendor offering an extensive range of IT services. Our client is already an established player in their niche but has aggressive growth plans in Canada and the USA. This opportunity is a ground floor scenario where the firm is planning to hire 400 staff over the next five years and this individual will be the first Sales Exec hired. The potential career opportunities to build a team will follow once a successful track record is established. We are looking for a strong sales candidate with an interest in building a business across North America.

Summary

Seeking an experienced outside sales professional, responsible for developing business opportunities in Canada and/or the USA. We are looking for a proven track record of success in qualifying and closing services deals for complex software solutions with North American clients.

Responsibilities

- Prospecting, qualifying and developing new customer sales opportunities

- Driving growth by identifying and closing new business and market opportunities

- Enhancing and optimizing business with current customers

- Qualifying leads and focusing on maximizing profits and revenue

- Consulting with prospective customers to develop best solution for business needs

- Prepare sales proposals and quotations to Customers.

- Leading the efforts of non-sales staff in the performance of field trials and demonstrations for customers and prospects.

- Securing necessary in-house resources to present customers with full technical detail regarding features and functionality

- Managing customers and pipeline as account base grows

- Accurately developing and managing forecasts, while properly communicating progress against those forecasts and providing input into the strategic planning process for your territory.

- Meeting quarterly and annual revenue targets.

- Developing reference accounts

Qualifications Needed:

- Results-driven individual with a minimum of 5 years of consultative sales experience in the IT services industry, ideally with knowledge of ERP, CRM, BI implementations, etc.

- Candidates must have sold services to large SAP accounts.

- Thorough knowledge of complex IT services selling

- Demonstrated ability to succeed at the most senior levels within organizations

- Aptitude for recognizing the customers’ pain and identifying the appropriate solutions to complex issues

- Exceptional communications, presentation, and negotiation skills

- Proven track record of delivering new business revenue against sales targets

- Willingness and drive to build new business

Compensation: Base C$100,000, target income $250K+ plus a competitive benefits package.

Location: Chicago, or any major US city (NY, NJ, GA are all top options), USA

 

Apply for this position

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How Best to Present Your Skills & Experience to a Recruiter

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Ted Nixon

Headhunters typically make a large number of contacts every day. We really appreciate it when candidates respect our time (who doesn’t?) Some candidates seem to feel the
longer they spend on the phone with a recruiter, the better the rapport they establish. Not so! The best candidates put together a concise presentation that details their abilities and career objectives in a nutshell so they can be quickly and fully understood. This should not be done off the cuff. Take time to plan out your career and skill summary in advance. Be sure to include the major accomplishments you have achieved. Practice your delivery so it gets a little better each time.

Applying to a Specific Job

If you are making contact about a specific job, the big advantage you have is that you already know in advance some details about what the hiring company is looking for. This is your chance to really show your recruiter (and later, hopefully, your prospective employer) that you clearly understand their needs (by restating them accurately), and to show how your skill set and experiences fit that position. I suggest you research the job requirements, the company, their competition and their marketplace before composing your presentation.

Once you have made some headway with convincing the recruiter that you have at least some requisite skills for the job, you should then probe for further insight that will prepare you for the employer interview. Inquire with the recruiter for details not found in the job spec. For example, what are the pain points of the hiring company with respect to this hire, deficiencies of other candidates seen to-date, key challenges to expect on the job, length of time the role has been open, key success factors for the role, etc. With this information, you can fine tune your “fit” presentation to be even more precisely what the employer is looking for. You may be able to think of some historical scenarios where you were able to overcome a similar challenge and package them for presentation in the interview.

Clearly, for candidates that have honed in on the employer’s needs and sculpted a presentation designed to address their fit to those needs, they’ll be presenting themselves
in the best possible light for each opening they vie for.

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Radical Thinking – Market Yourself to a Recruiter

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Ted Nixon

Third-party recruiters are busy, pragmatic people. They spend time developing relationships that they believe will reap benefits over the long term. Many recruiters typically make 25 to 50 connections a day, whether face-to-face, phone, email or text or social media. How does one turn a recruiter’s head enough to make an impact and achieve results? By marketing yourself to the recruiter. Done properly, you stand a much better chance to unearth that career opportunity that you’ve been waiting for.

Learn about Your Recruiter, Then Make a Connection

Firstly, realize that a head hunter is a person too. We respond to stimuli, positive or negative. We are driven by the desire to make a buck, yes, but many of us also enjoy helping people advance their careers and there is a certain thrill to consummating a good match. We prefer to work with candidates that we feel are  marketable and that we enjoy working with. Take time to learn about your recruiter. What kind of roles does he/she work on? What kind of clients are they working with? What industry knowledge do they have? How can you build a mutually beneficial relationship? Is there any way you can help them find new clients or candidates for their job openings? Could you introduce them to other professionals in your universe?  Is it possible to teach the recruiter about your experiences and skills so they will be better able to represent you & your accomplishments? Ask them how frequently you should check back with them to review their openings and be sure to follow that time-frame.

The Power of a Referral

Let me assure you, recruiter’s remember referrals and think positively of the referrer of quality candidates. If you put some serious thought into your referral and refer good matches to current openings, even better.

You MUST Follow-up with the Recruiter

Whether you have someone to refer you to the recruiter or not, send them your resume and cover letter and follow-up with a phone call. Recruiters typically get so many resumes, it’s conceivable that your email/resume may not be opened and digested properly by the person you need to reach. The follow-up call is crucial. It takes the contact to another level. If you don’t get a  return call immediately, have patience. Recruiters have trouble returning all of the calls they get. It’s not for lack of interest; there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Wait a few days and send a second, gentle reminder that you’d like to chat, with the resume enclosed a second time.

Presenting Yourself (Realistically)

Assuming you are now in contact, you need to present your skills, experience and search objectives to the recruiter. These should be carefully thought out in advance and they should be realistic. If you have been a Manager for only a year or two and ask for a VP role, you’ll be wasting everyone’s time and your recruiter will be unlikely to help you. If your current job pays $100K and you apply for a job that pays double that, ditto. If you are applying for a job in an industry that you have no experience, you’ll need to explain how your skills are transferable. You might consider asking the recruiter’s opinion as to the feasibility of your goals.

Clearly, the best way to make an impression is to do a face-to-face interview with the recruiter. Many recruiters will only make time for candidates who fit a current opening so you may have to wait for that to happen to meet the recruiter. Most recruiters have “opportunity” pages on their websites. Keep an eye on those pages (set up an RSS job feed if possible) and, in the interest in building a relationship, if there’s no job for you, think about referring for one of the current openings.

Maintain the Connection

If you do get a call from a recruiter that you believe could be of assistance in your career development, but the job they were calling about is not a fit, take the initiative to stay in touch. Call them every few weeks (or months depending on whether you are actively or passively looking) to remind them of your interests. Send them an interesting article, a contact or a website to review. Re-market yourself by positioning your name and your career plan in the front of their minds.

You would be surprised how few candidates are working their recruiter  relationships in this manner. I believe you can greatly enhance your chance of success with recruiters with these marketing concepts.

Stay tuned for some great ideas on presenting your skills, experience and career goals to the recruiter…

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Selecting a Recruiter Specialist

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Ted Nixon

There are different types of recruiters and many positions on which type of recruiter is better for particular candidate levels and the various industries. For definitions of types of recruiters, visit http://www.recruitersdirectory.com/definitions.htm.

How does a candidate decide which recruiters are best for them?

Firstly, make an effort to discover who the top headhunters are that are active in your field and market yourself to them. A good recruiter should essentially be easy to find “out there” in all of the regular social media and job posting sites. You can Google phrases like “tech vendor recruiter” or Toronto tech vendor”, “sales recruiter”, “technical consultant positions” to get an idea who’s active. A blog is a good way to get-acquainted with a recruiter. Search engines do site rankings based on their complicated algorithms that may not be relevant for you so don’t just look at the top names of the list. You can also find numerous sites listing recruiters in Canada & the USA. Some examples include:

http://www.directoryofrecruiters.com

http://www.headhuntersdirectory.com

http://i-recruit.com

http://www.recruitersdirectory.com

You can also ask your peers for the names of recruiters that have
a) longevity (i.e., they’ve been around for more than a year or two),
b) have in the past and are currently able to present quality openings with top employers or even had success in placing them into a solid career position and
c) operate with a high degree of integrity and professionalism.

Most recruiter profiles are well-documented on either their web site of LinkedIn. If not, you have to ask wonder what they are hiding. In the event you’d like more details on their experience, you may wish to take a unique approach and comprise a list of relevant interview questions to pose to the recruiter. Inquire as to their backgrounds, strong client relationships, and their industry specialization. In the technology world, the better choices are recruiters with some real life tech industry experience, with enough years in the search business to have established their own networks and client base. You might also consider recruiters who have achieved a higher education (a lot of the same qualities recruiters are looking for in their applicants). It says something when a person has taken the time to complete an advanced degree at a recognized university. It speaks of more than their intellectual capacity. That type of person is generally less likely to take shortcuts and bend the rules, and take chances with your career, areas where the search industry’s reputation has been soiled numerous times in the past.

How many recruiters should you work with? There is no golden rule but one or two recruiters is probably not enough. No matter how the size or how well-networked the recruiter, there are way too many prospective employers for the coverage offered by such a small group to suffice. As long as they are reputable and have a track record of professionalism (and here’s where your referrals will give you comfort), there is little downside to working with as many as three more recruiters. Top recruiters are solidly aligned with certain employers. If you are looking to target a particular employer, get creative. See if you can find out who does their recruiting and work towards developing a relationship with that recruiter or firm.

My next blog will offer some great ideas on how to market yourself to a recruiter.

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The State of the Tech Vendor Market Today

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Ted Nixon

Welcome to the first instalment of the TechNix blog offering useful and poignant insight into today’s tech vendor world and helpful advice for employers and job seekers alike. How to select and motivate a recruiter to help you to land that dream job you’ve been coveting will be covered. Advice for employers on best practices with third-party recruiters and candidate interviewing is coming up too. There will also be discussions about interesting tech industry people, technologies and other products that may impact us or grab our attention. This blog is a centralized resource for recruiting tips, product reviews and industry news for the tech vendor professional. I hope you find it a worthwhile read.

Where are we now?
The good news is that the tech vendor industry is on a solid uptick and consequently, the current hiring marketplace for tech vendor professionals is quite robust!  The dilemma facing the high tech professional today is all about unrealistic expectations. After the whack the economy took in 2008 and early 2009, tech professionals need to review their standards for job excitement, challenge, career advancement, and salaries. Due to the recent economic downturn, expectations need to be kept in line with reality, somewhat lower than they were several years ago. The reality is, yes, we have undergone a major change that affects business opportunity in these areas and it’s going to take time to get back to the way it was. The tech market, while less damaged than the financial marketplace, was also rocked by the downturn. Tech professionals must now understand the state of the nation and lower their expectations accordingly.

Another reality we face today is that there are many IT sales and technical professionals who would like to move onwards and upwards but are stifled by the lack of solid opportunities and too much competition for the available jobs. Many professionals have suffered “career wounds” as their employers were forced to downsize and the survivors were asked to carry extra loads with no extra pay. People took on the jobs of two or three others and morale suffered. There is a lot of pent-up demand for job opportunities out there at present which means good jobs will be highly competed for and more challenging to land.

The good news is that there are a few more economic optimists emerging of late and the prognosis is for further recovery, albeit a slow one. There are loads of good positions coming available from employers who’ve survived this downturn are all the stronger for it. The tide is beginning to turn and I see the North American marketplace becoming quite active again.

Undoubtedly, the recruitment landscape has changed since the rise of the Internet and the proliferation of job boards. In fact, volumes of applicants have made web-based job applications an exercise in frustration, both for candidates and employers. Studies have shown that employers fill about 10% of their openings via Internet postings. It’s tough to get noticed in a sea of email candidates. What generally happens is that one gets lost in the black hole and is unable to verify even the status of their application.

As an alternative, independent recruiters are still a very good bet. Why recruiters? Because the top headhunters got that way through a combination of professionalism, solid networking, and getting results for their clients. Top recruiters usually work for the best employers and will present you in the best light possible, providing you with the highest leverage available. Independent recruiters still generate a large percentage of tech job placements. With their extensive networks, they can be your best possibility for getting your particulars in front of the right hiring authority at the right time. One of the big challenges, with all of the active job seekers, is to grab and focus the attention of the most effective recruiters, specialized in your industry.

How does one grab the attention of the recruiters? As recruiters seem to be in hyper-drive, burdened with details & candidate applications and too few hours in a day, this can also be a challenge. There are no guarantees that a recruiter will find your next dream job but there are ways to improve your chances of that happening. My next few blogs will offer advice on how to select a recruiter and how to effectively market yourself to a recruiter.

Ted Nixon

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