As well as giving lucrative bonuses, software suppliers
offer the chance for client-facing work on the leading-edge of
technology
Recruitment by software suppliers increased by nearly 10% in
the past quarter, according to the
latest survey by Salary Services in association with jobs site
CWjobs.com.
Danny James, a divisional manager in recruiter
Volt Europe's IT and telecoms area, says this is fuelled by "a
rise in new developments and implementations as people gain
confidence in the market and want to invest again". He says this is
particularly true for developments in the banking sector, which
usually acts as a pathfinder for other sectors.
Whether this rosy picture will continue is in some doubt:
financial services companies have been through a rocky patch this
summer as a result of the problems with the US sub-prime mortgage
market, which may dent that confidence. "It is still too early to
tell if that will have an impact on IT spend and a knock-on effect
on recruitment by software suppliers," James says.
Buoyant market
In the short term, recruitment is still extremely buoyant. Grant
Morris, managing director of PW Search and Selection, says he is
seeing strong demand from software suppliers for business analysts
and project managers, as well as developers at all levels.
However, many pure coding roles have been offshored to Eastern
Europe and Asia, leading to a decline in roles for people who
purely acted as a bridge between developers and clients, with
developers increasingly expected to take on those client-facing
tasks.
"For developer roles in the UK, software suppliers are looking
for people with consultant skills as well as technical expertise: a
client focus, good presentation skills and the ability to upsell
and act as a representative on site," says Neil Price, managing
consultant at recruitment consultancy Hudson.
Sid Barnes, a director at recruitment firm Computer People,
confirms that software suppliers are changing their focus to employ
"business-oriented individuals that both develop and consult and
increasingly have MBAs". Barnes says hardcore coder roles are still
available, but mostly in small software suppliers serving the SME
market.
The buzzwords as far as technical skills are concerned are .net,
C#,
Java and
Oracle. Skills in add-ons to C# such as Spring and
Hibernate are popular, according to Morris, while
J2EE and Weblogic seem to be the current hot Java technologies.
In the enterprise software space, experience in packages such as
SAP and
Peoplesoft is in demand.
Price also sees a small but rapidly growing need for developers
with experience of languages used on handheld devices, while Barnes
says accreditations in service methodologies such as
Prince2 and
ITIL are highly sought after.
Proven track record
However, on the technical front, a proven track record is more
important than paper qualifications. "Employers want to see
training that is relevant to the stage you are at in your career,"
Price says. "They want you to have obtained commercial experience
and then demonstrated the quality of that through accreditation,
rather than having lots of training on paper."
However, experience in specific technologies is also important.
Software suppliers have traditionally been less likely than
in-house IT departments to hire and cross-train someone with sound
generic skills, but no experience in a particular technology.
"They have looked for people who could hit the ground running,
paying more to get people who could do the job from day one rather
than grow with the role," James says. "They expected you to
proactively train yourself on days when you were not working on
client projects, so you needed the discipline to study on your
own."
While this is still true for many positions, the situation is
beginning to change as software suppliers struggle to fill
permanent roles. "The only way companies can get developers to buy
into permanent places is by offering better training and career
development," says Morris. And even without much in the way of
formal training, Barnes says that, "Unlike an in-house role, anyone
working for a software supplier will always be working on
leading-edge technologies and the latest releases."
Compensation packages
Another difference is the way you are rewarded. While there is
little to choose between the basic salaries provided by software
suppliers and in-house roles, compensation packages in software
suppliers tend to be more heavily geared towards bonuses based on
factors such as the proportion of days spent on rechargeable work
for clients.
"Those bonuses can make a big difference to your final salary -
anything from 10 to 50%," says James. "But not everyone is
comfortable with the added pressure that it is not just the
quality, but also the quantity of their work that counts."
Price points out that other downsides of working for a software
supplier are the long hours, extensive travelling and high
proportion of time spent away from home working on client sites.
However, Morris believes software suppliers have recognised this
and are trying to offer a better work-life balance.
You may also find yourself feeling more isolated as the only
representative of your company on a client site, and doubly
isolated from meeting colleagues when in your own company's
offices, as fellow developers are also out at client sites much of
the time.
Finding out whether it is right for you is a relatively safe
move, as it is reasonably easy to move back to an in-house role
from a software supplier. Barnes says in-house IT directors like
the fact that people who have worked for software houses
"understand the strengths and weaknesses of the various offerings
on the market and how to work with software suppliers to get the
best out of them, as well as having experience across a broad range
of projects".