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December 2011

Firstly can I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! A time for reflection and also for looking forward, not least with regard to one's career position.

As a reminder, we handle six-figure packages for Site Leads / CTOs down to graduate development positions and everything in-between - business analysts, PMs, architects, unix / wintel admin, DBAs, application support, infrastructure support etc.

We will be leading further searches in 2012 for Java, C++ and .NET resources in the digital media, embedded development and mobile sectors. If you're a contractor, or want to start contracting, we manage .NET and Java 3-6 month contracts for various financial services clients and UK-wide ICT service providers.

Online you can connect with me via LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/stuartmillar, follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/altmorestuart and we have recently started contributing to www.syncni.com which is an excellent resource for the N. Ireland IT community.

2011 has been a great year for us as we continue to work on projects for established IT and user companies as well as those aimied at developing our knowledge-based economy. Through Invest NI we are regularly asked to meet potential investors and provide small groups of talent at the early stages - typically at the senior level. If that sounds like something you would be interested in, please get in touch to see how you could get involved.

Stuart

November 2011

As we draw closer to the festive season, more candidates seem to be dipping their toes into the water for a career move. Maybe this applies to you - either you are looking to advance your career in the first quarter of next year, or you'd like to have something finalised or in process before Christmas. If so, we'd love to hear from you. By getting in touch with us first, before "live" roles become advertised, you could hear about opportunities sooner than others, giving you the edge in your job search.

Our most significant projects this month include helping set up a Managed Enterprise / Professional Services group for a client specialising in FX trading solutions, searching for several inspired senior software engineers to lead product development in the PayTV space, on the UI side, middleware, and server side, and also meeting with multiple companies interested in N. Ireland as a European base. Technical writing, authoring and illustration skills will be in demand shortly as well.

Last but not least the new AWR legislation comes into force in N. Ireland in the first week of December, so we are working on pro-actively adapting our process so that we can lead from the front when working on assigments for temporary workers.

Stuart

October 2011

For our graduate pool - coming back after a summer break or year out? Time to focus on your career. The choices you make now will affect the rest of your working lives. We're here to help - send Stuart (stuart.millar@altmore.co.uk) or Lynsey (lynsey.bailie@altmore.co.uk) an email to let us know you are home and we can see what your options are.

Finally we are handling an exciting assignment to hire half a dozen software developers for the a global leader in the world of VOIP solutions in Belfast. Our most recent placement with this company triggered this further investment. Traditionally telecoms has played a large part in the Northern Ireland IT economy and this will continue in future, albeit with new cutting edge technology. If this is of interest, please see our jobs section.

Stuart

September 2011

We've seen a rise in the number of electronic trading technology and financial services companies visiting Northern Ireland with a view to setting up a base here. This won't happen overnight, but these are exciting times for Belfast and we are proud to be involved in contributing to employment in this demanding yet highly rewarded sector.

In other news, we are continuing to supply three of the world's most established IT services companies with staff in the areas of software development, network infrastructure and support. One in particular is planning to grow to over one hundred staff from their current crop of fifty, of which we have placed a significant amount.

Stuart