KEY POINTS:
While other parts of the labour market may be slowing, the drive by government to create access to its services over the web is helping maintain demand for IT professionals.
Linda Sollitt, New Zealand general manager of IT recruitment specialists Sapphire Technologies, says the war for talent has pushed up salaries 3 to 5 per cent over the past year.
"In some specialist areas with hard-to-find skills, the increase has been up to 8 per cent.
In demand are experienced test and business analysts, and C#, . Net, Java, J2EE and VOIP developers.
"In Wellington, we are seeing a lot of government departments start to share resources and take older systems into the new technology platforms like . Net," Sollit says.
In the private sector, the professional services, telecommunications and financial sectors have all been hiring IT professionals. Data warehousing and business intelligence projects and the drive by business applications vendor SAP into the mid-market is also influencing demand.
Sollit says to keep large projects on deadline and budget, some businesses have had to bring in specialists from around the globe, especially when the job was costed out more than 12 months ago.
"One organisation we know of is bringing in contractors from Asia and paying accommodation and travel just to get projects done on budget."
New Zealand's tendency to adopt technology early can pose challenges when there are limited skills available on the domestic market.
Sollitt says about a third of Sapphire's placements are coming from overseas, the majority from the United Kingdom.
Employers looking to attract talent from overseas need to take into account the fact people make the move for lifestyle as much as career reasons, so they are looking for flexible working conditions and work-life balance.
IT professionals should look beyond salary alone when negotiating with their employer and see how open employers are to incentives such as bonus structures, further training and other opportunities.
"A lot of organisations are looking at flexible work hours, working from home and attracting IT professionals by offering training to move them through from the old technologies they may be skilled in," Sollitt says.
Organisations are also becoming more conscious of the need to be seen as a good place to work.
"We're even seeing organisations that build a brand by use of things such as corporate responsibility programmes to bring in staff."
Older hands may be a bit cynical, but "generation Y is all about corporate responsibility".
Sollitt says the trend is away from hiring contractors, with employers wanting to attract the best people for the job and keep them.
"Contractors demand big dollars and, when they leave, they take away the knowledge they have built up."
Sollitt says job seekers should think of their long-term career strategy, because salary increases will eventually slow.
They will benefit from pushing for other package options like training and development, and the chance to work on a variety of projects.
Getting those gen Y job seekers is also forcing firms and recruitment agencies to take different approaches.
Sapphire uses social networking tools like Second Life, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn to identify and communicate with candidates.
"People may not apply through Second Life, but we can talk to them through the site," Sollitt says.
"It's a richer way to communicate, particularly if we are talking to a person on the other side of the world who is looking to come home or to relocate to New Zealand."
LinkedIn is also proving useful, particularly for short-term contract positions.
"We are able to build a network of contacts so that our organisation can send out a call for business analysts of . Net developers and immediately reach thousands of people."
Sapphire has also created an on-line salary tool at http://www.sapphireasiapac.com/page/salary.
