The year of the job hunter

For many people, this change comes in the form of a new job, and if you’re an IT professional considering a career move, 2006 may be a banner year for you.Before the holidays, several surveys landed on my desk heralding 2006 as the year of the job hunter (see also the article on p. 18).
CNC Global, one of the country’s leading recruitment firms for IT professionals, indicates the demand for permanent IT staff has outpaced that of contract workers and now represents 30 per cent of demand across the country. The recruiter also notes hiring was up four per cent in the third quarter of 2005, the best showing for Q3 in the past three years.
Another report, this one from Mercer Human Resource Consulting, indicates employers across the IT industry are projecting average salary increases of 3.4 per cent for 2006, a welcome sign after several years of no increases for many.
You’ll notice we too have made a few changes with the premiere issue of 2006.
Firstly, we’re launching a column from veteran IT pundit Peter deJager. A familiar face to many of our longtime readers, deJager is best-known for his commentary on all matters Y2K. In his new column, deJager will provide strategies for dealing with the climate of constant change in today’s business. We look forward to hearing your responses to his commentaries.
And now that our 30th anniversary year has come and gone, we also bid farewell to the trivia challenge we ran in 2005. Congratulations to Joe Halas of Calgary, who was randomly selected from an overwhelming number of entries as the winner of the Toshiba PocketPC. Replacing IT-rivial Pursuits will be Blogged Down, a provocative quote from a leading IT authority whose full interview can be found on the Canadian IT Managers’ Blog at http://blogs.technet.com/cdnitmanagers. The interviews are conducted by Stephen Ibaraki, veteran industry analyst and Computing Canada’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in 2005.
During the course of the year, readers told us they wanted to learn more about vendors’ and service providers’ corporate vision. To that end, we’re introducing
Executive Perspectives, an indepth interview with a leading Canadian IT executive to run in every other issue. Launching the series is a conversation with Greg Davis, president and general manager of Dell Canada, who says his company has big plans for expansion in the Canadian market (see story on p. 6).
As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the new additions to CC, as well as on the reports suggesting the time has come again where IT types have their choice of jobs. Do the surveys’ finding reflect your reality, or are you feeling hemmed in and without options for progressing in your career? Write to us at [email protected].
A happy and fulfilling new year to everyone.