Wednesday, October 19, 2005

EdgeLink Career Center Gets RSS Feed!
We are please to announce that the EdgeLink on-line career center now has RSS subscription capabilities. Now you can get real-time alerts of new jobs, hot off the press, delivered directly to your RSS reader. Check it out and subscribe today!
Posted by Mark Schacter at 5:23 PM  |  0 comment(s)

Thursday, October 06, 2005

What's up with QA?
We have noticed a recent staffing “up tick” in the area of software quality assurance. After such a long dry-spell within this area, it appears that all the technology companies in Portland have decided to get together and decide simultaneously that it’s time to start recruiting and hiring QA Engineers. Now, that’s great news if you’re a QA engineer and bad news if you’re seeking to hire a QA engineer. Unfortunately, it seems to me that QA is often one of the first things to “get the boot” when things get tough, and therefore puts more pressure on software engineers to develop “quality products.” This appears to be one of the many sacrifices that companies make when things get tough financially. Consequently does this mean that companies are beginning to make enough profits to justify pumping up their quality? The sudden surge of quality assurance engineers to be hired in the market appears to be a solid indicator in the optimism of the economy. One of the challenges (as recruiters) we face is locating available QA engineers, and due to the fact there has been minimal hiring in QA over the past 2-3 years there hasn’t been much “draw” for people to get into the field, thus resulting in our current shortage of talent. I’m excited to see things picking up in this area, but how do we keep up with the recruiting!? These are my thoughts and I’m curious to hear if anyone has any other thoughts or theories to the situation?
Posted by Jeff Miller at 3:16 PM  |  2 comment(s)

Get Connected!
We’ve all heard the saying “it’s who you know”. When you’re looking for top talent to add to you team or putting some feelers out for your next big career move, who you know can make all the difference in the world. Getting involved with your local industry networking events, special interest and user groups can be extremely valuable to help build and strengthen relationships in the local community. It’s a great way to learn more about what your peers are up to, and exchange ideas. Here are a just a few of the events that the EdgeLink staff attend on a regular basis; SAO, OEF, Portland Business Journal, PADNUG, WITI We are always looking for new events to add to our list. If you’d like to promote your favorite gathering, please send us the info and we’ll be glad to help get the word out. We’ll see you at the next event!
Posted by Mark Schacter at 2:50 PM  |  2 comment(s)