Experis Blog

Unless you have been avoiding the internet and all media sources for the past few years, you will have heard (likely on multiple occasions) about the skills shortage affecting both Ireland and countries across the globe. And it’s impacting every industry, with organisations simply unable to find the people they need with the right blend of technical and soft skills. As ManpowerGroup’s latest Talent Shortage report highlights, Engineers, Technicians, Management, and Professionals (project managers, lawyers and researchers) are among the top 10 most in-demand skills in Ireland. But what can organisations looking to recruit this specialist talent do to ensure that they are not negatively impacted by these shortages? As the global leader in professional resourcing and workforce solutions, working with over 80% of the Fortune Global 500, we have a deep understanding of the most effective workforce strategies in the digital age. To help you build your specialist talent pipeline, here are the four key parts we believe organisations need to develop an effective talent strategy: 1. Build - Invest in learning and development to grow your talent pipeline With specialist professionals becoming increasingly difficult to source in the market, many organisations are beginning to turn to building their own talent in-house. Over half of the organisations surveyed are investing in learning platforms and development tools to build their talent pipeline, up from just 20% in 2014. 64% of employers are upskilling people in hard skills through technical certifications, apprenticeships and programming courses. And 56% are investing to develop their employees’ soft skills. But rather than selecting who goes forward for specific training based on a gut feeling, businesses must move towards making these decisions based on data: improved people analytics, psychometric assessment, predictive performance and AI can help employers to map their workforce and upskill their talent to areas where they require specialists. Most importantly, this approach can also be very positive for the employee, encouraging them to stay with the organisation longer as they develop and progress in their career. 2. Buy – Go to external market to find the best talent that cannot be built in-house in the timeframe required Sometimes the speed that you require for business critical projects to be delivered means that organisations just don’t have the time to upskill an existing member of staff into a new role. Instead, you need to deploy someone who already has the right capabilities to fill your skills gap. In specialist markets such as IT and engineering where the talent is particularly hard to find, employers need to work harder to attract talent. This includes developing and showcasing a strong employee value proposition, a clear purpose for the organisation and an attractive culture. In the absence of this, employers should expect to be prepared to pay a premium with benefits, wages or other perks. This is all the more important given how transparent workplaces are to today’s job seekers – and it’s becoming much harder to hide when your culture isn’t up to scratch. 3. Borrow – Cultivate communities of talent outside the organisation, including part-time, freelance, contract and temporary workers to complement existing skills Businesses often require talents for a short-term project, perhaps as part of an IT infrastructure implementation or to support with a large-scale engineering project. Traditionally, HR has focused on permanent employees, but with a greater number of workers choosing to work more flexibly, particularly in markets such as IT where contractors can often attract much higher salaries, total talent management solutions will be increasingly beneficial. Organisations must learn to cultivate communities of workers inside and outside of the company, tapping into the required talent in all its available forms. 4. Bridge – Help people move on and move up to new roles inside or outside the organisation The final pillar of the talent strategy is helping people to move on and up to new roles – whether they are with your organisation or elsewhere. This is particularly important for roles which are becoming redundant within the organisation, and organisations should work to identify and nurture talent with transferable skill sets. Done effectively, this approach will help the organisation to optimise the skills they have, and find alternative pathways for those whose skills no longer fit the business requirements. Unfortunately it will not always be possible to move people into a new role within their existing organisation, and employers must ensure that they treat people with respect and dignity in helping them to transition smoothly, taking their skills to new roles in other businesses. If you’d like to find out more about how Experis can help with your talent shortages, visit our Client Services section, or get in touch. The post Build, Buy, Borrow and Bridge – how to solve the talent shortage in your organisation appeared first on ManpowerGroup. Posted on: 17/07/18

With unemployment remaining at the lowest levels seen since 2007, organisations are chasing an increasingly elusive talent pool in order to fill their skills gaps and allow their businesses to grow. To help us understand how this is impacting organisations globally, we asked nearly 40,000 employers in 43 countries and territories: How much difficulty they are having filling roles compared to last year Which skills are the most difficult to find, and why What are they doing to solve talent shortages Have a look at the infographic above to find out more about what employers from across Ireland told us. Professional talent shortages in Ireland Technicians (quality controllers, technical staff), Engineers (chemical, electrical, civil and mechanical) and Professionals (project managers, lawyers, researchers) were all ranked in the top 10 for the hardest skills to find in Ireland. Medium sized (50 - 249 employees) organisations are experiencing the greatest difficulties in filling job vacancies. The key reasons cited for the difficulty in finding the right talent are: a lack of candidates with the right experience (28%), a lack of applicants (26%), and skills (18%), an expectation for higher pay than is offered (7%) and a lack of the required soft skills (7%). Organisations with skills shortages in these areas, and other fields struggling to find niche talent such as IT, should revisit their approach to talent, building an effective talent strategy made up of the four key elements: Build - invest in learning and development to grow your talent pipeline Buy - Go to external market to find the best talent that can't be built in-house in the timeframe required Borrow - Cultivate communities of talent outside the organisation, including part-time, freelance, contract and temporary workers to complement existing skills Bridge - Help people move on and move up to new roles inside or outside the organisation. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with all the latest industry news and trends. Click here to download the full 2018 Talent Shortage Report (Ireland) report. Posted on: 13/07/18

The recruitment industry is constantly evolving alongside technology. It wasn’t long ago when traditional paper based applications were the only way to apply for roles. Now we have the convince of digital based systems and even more recently cloud based professional networking platforms like LinkedIn. Social Talent have a great infographic on the evolution of technology in the recruitment industry you should check out. What’s the next step in the technological revolution? Blockchain technology. Blockchain is the foundation of the digital currency Bitcoin however there are far more applications that blockchain technology can be utilised to help improve many industries. To put it in simply Blockchain and Bitcoin are not the same. Bitcoin uses blockchain technology but blockchain can be used in many different contexts which have nothing to do with bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. The technology behind it all is quite complicated but the blockchain is a secure public ledger which gives participating parties a way of validating the information related to a transaction. In doing so, it speeds up the process and cuts out any middlemen. A good example is in the banking sector. If you send money to a friend, you usually have to use your bank, who then sends it to your friend's bank. The ledger of your bank will show the money being taken out. The ledger in your friend's bank will show the money being put in to his account. But without a bank, how would you send money over the internet? Instead of "trusting" the banks to do the work, you can use a public blockchain, which doesn't rely on trust of any entity except the blockchain itself. It's a distributed ledger that is made in a way so that if a fraudulent transaction is attempted, or someone tries to "spend" the same token-of-value twice, the blockchain will by public consensus reject the transaction. It's a form of "trustless trust", and does not need big institutions like banks to work. This is known as a Smart Contract which can be defined as a virtual agreement of a transaction/exchange of goods or assets that may or may not involve money. Its main role is for two parties to conduct a business transaction/trade, that can be digitally self-executed and self-enforced, acutely eliminating the need for a ‘middleman’. This would transfer power away from those who currently manage or verify transactions – a seismic change to the way the world currently operates. The traditional contract like those created by legal professionals today, rely heavily on middlemen or third parties be it for validation, review or authentication. There is also risk of loss, destruction or theft. A smart contract eliminates all that. The blockchain technology makes the same problem autonomous. Since it is based on a decentralized ledger, there is no chance of theft as several copies exist on various computers that host the blockchain. Any change induced by a party, results in the other party(s) being alerted instantaneously. A Smart contract saves time, conflict and is cheaper as the middlemen are cut out and therefore there are no commission expenses. 4 ways which Blockchain can improve the HR & recruitment industry. A blockchain is a distributed, shared digital ledger made up of a trail of validated facts. These facts can be anything from money to information. As part of this digital system of record keeping, each transaction and its details are validated and then recorded across a network of computers. Everyone who has access to the distributed ledger receives this information, and the parties agree on the accuracy before the block is replicated, shared and synchronized among the entities. A blockchain is virtually impossible to tamper with since each block of information references the block before it. In an age when trust is both elusive and held at a high premium, blockchain's appeal is soaring since it presents a way to confirm, validate and authenticate both values and events. In human resources, talent identification, selection, and processing require employers and employees to engage in a lengthy process of data verification. From verifying the candidate’s educational qualifications to work experience, including consulting referees, this can be time-consuming during staffing. As seen in another use cases: once the record is created by the source and stored in ‘a block’, an HR system could link to that record and digitally accept its authenticity. Sending out payroll payments electronically to overseas employees is costly and can take a long time to process due to intermediary third-party involvement. A recent report by Deloitte highlights factors such as inefficiencies in current international payrolling and frequent changes to exchange rates which also cause problems. Knowing this, blockchain provides a way of tracking financial transactions without a central authority. Blockchain tech will disrupt payroll by facilitating the management of employee mobility through the issuing of cross-border payments via an internationally-minded solution. Settlement with blockchain is instantaneous with no requirement for reconciliation, receipt, purchase ore rot the other traditional components of a transaction. According to a PWC report, it’s estimated that the resulting reduction in back office overheads could create annual savings of US$20bn for UK financial services, US$150bn for UK plc, and US$4 trillion for business globally. Onboarding, the process where new employees acquire gain an understanding of their new organisation and attain new knowledge, skills and behaviours, is costly and convoluted. According to HR Technologist, “Oracle has applied for a new patent related to the blockchain — one that harnesses the crypto technology for bettering workflow efficiency. The patent is titled ‘managing highly scalable continuous delivery pipelines,’ and talks about leveraging ‘pipeline blockchains’ to serve as distributed information points for product delivery flows.” Subramanian Iyer, a senior director with Oracle, has commented on how blockchain-based smart contracts could simplify onboarding and help organizations get new hires up to speed in less time. It seems that the company is now ready to move at full speed in that direction. Blockchain aims to improve upon cybersecurity in human resources through how fraud prevention and data protection are handled. Blockchain’s use of consensus to establish factual data helps to eliminate fraudulent data. Due to its decentralized storage base and distributed nature, blockchain’s very presence reduces the threat of cyberattacks upon data systems. Given HR’s involvement in high-volume financial transactions and responsibility for sensitive personal data, blockchain’s support in these areas is especially important. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with all the latest industry news and trends. Posted on: 07/06/18

As covered in a recent Irish times article, graduates are facing some of the lowest unemployment rates since the last boom. Indeed, a recent survey by the Higher Education Authority shows that nearly 70% of all graduates are currently in employment and the majority of these are based here in Ireland. There hasn’t been a better time in the last 10 years, especially for STEM graduates to exit education and enter the working world. Companies in the Life Sciences sector are seeing the benefits of recent influx of STEM graduates. With an unemployment rate at 6.1%, graduates in Ireland are entering an employment environment that is unrecognisable to what is was 8 years ago. There are many benefits to hiring graduates and we have seen companies taking advantage of this in greater numbers in recent years by including them in the organisations talent strategy. Graduates – what are the benefits? Salary Cost There is an initial cost saving benefit for your talent strategy as starting salaries are often less than what is expected from more experienced staff. Graduates on average look for anywhere between €21,000 to €33,000 depending on industry. Willingness to Learn Usually the fundamental skills required for the position would have been attained in their college education. With no professional experience these graduates are your blank canvas, yours to be moulded into the best organisational fit. Often straight from the classroom and into the professional working world, graduates are able to quickly absorb information, train at a higher rate and take direction well. New Perspectives Injecting a new way of thinking both from an academic and generational stand point, graduates can bring a fresh perspective and increase team diversity. They provide an element of flexibility as bad work habits are yet to be formed which allows for graduates to quickly adapt to the established culture. As technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, graduates are usually at the forefront of strides in technology. Succession planning Providing a career path for young graduates allows for hiring managers to move new hires laterally throughout the organisation. This experience prepares future managers with a holistic understanding of the organisation. By thinking of graduates long term capabilities, investing the time and resources could ensure you have the right people in the right place when management positions arise. With the graduating class of 2018 soon to be released eagerly looking for their first opportunity, the question is, can supply meet demand? With over 8000 jobs forecasted for the next few years in the Life Sciences sector it’s time for our STEM graduates to shine and for organisations to take advantage. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with all the latest industry news and trends. Posted on: 08/05/18

The search for talent is a core part of every businesses strategy and the candidate experience is paramount. As the talent market becomes more candidate driven we know that the interview process is very much a two-way street. By interview stage a candidate will already at some level be attracted to the company and role. They are then using the interview to decide is this the best next step for them. We frequently see the positive and negative impact of the interviewer on a candidate’s decision accept an offer with a company. So how can your business ensure that your interviewers attract the best? From our candidates feedback we have put together some insights and ideas Talent attracts talent – are you looking for someone who is motivated, innovative, driven - make sure that you are embodying these traits in the interview process and when you are discussing the role and the company Be prepared for the interview – make sure you have read the CV thoroughly, identify the areas you want to probe in more detail but also areas where you can find common ground and build a relationship Put yourself in the candidate’s shoes - Most candidates have the same basic questions, but you would be surprised how many come out of the interview without these being fully answered - What will be expected of me in this role? Who are the people I will be working with closely like? What is the team culture like? What is the management style? Know your candidates - Work with your recruitment partner to gain an insight into the motivations of the candidates before the interview, so that you know what to highlight about the company and the role. An hour interview can go by very fast! Success stories - be realistic, if you oversell a role you can be back in the same position looking for someone new in six months’ time Write your notes after – or make simple notes and fill in later. Spending time writing notes and not making eye contact with the interviewee can be off putting Be the person that you would like to have an interview with. We spend a lot of lives with the people we work closely with an interview is a snapshot for the candidate on what that might be like. Being friendly, collaborate and open can go a long way to getting a candidate say yes. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with all the latest industry news and trends. Posted on: 19/02/18

To celebrate Science week 2017 we wanted to share with you our top 5 Irish scientists that have made their influence known, not just in Ireland but throughout the world. Science week is part of Science Foundation Ireland’s work to promote the potential that science and discovery offer Ireland, today and in tomorrow’s world. Robert Boyle (1627 –1691) born in Waterford Widely known as the Father of Modern Chemistry and also considered a big influencer to physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton. Robert Boyle, in the 17th century created Boyles law which has become the basis of modern scientific calculations. Boyle was also a natural philosopher, chemist, physicist and inventor. Boyle’s law describes how the pressure of a gas tends to decrease as the volume increases, and this inversely proportional relationship is still learned by heart in science classrooms. Boyle discovered that air has weight and exerts pressure which led him to believe that it is made up of minute particles which helped identify some of the properties of air. An interesting fact about Robert Boyle is that he had a fascination for alchemy and would worked to discover the secret of transmuting base metals into gold. William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1864), born in Dublin Educated by his uncle James Hamilton, William Rowan Hamilton by the age of 12 knew 13 languages. Hamilton entered Trinity College Dublin in 1823 where he studied mathematics, physics and also classics. While still an undergrad, Hamilton was appointed professor of astronomy at TCD. In 1835 Hamilton was knighted by the lord lieutenant of Ireland in the course of a meeting in Dublin of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Hamilton served as president of the Royal Irish Academy from 1837 to 1846. Hamilton also had an interest in the fundamental principles of algebra. For many years Hamilton sought to construct a theory of triplets, analogous to the couplets of complex numbers that would be applicable to the study of three-dimensional geometry. On the 16th of October 1843, while walking with his wife beside the Royal Canal on his way to Dublin, Hamilton suddenly realized that the solution lay not in triplets but in quadruplets, which could produce a noncommutative four-dimensional algebra. Quaternions became the first significant number system that did not obey the laws of ordinary arithmetic. Their application to three-dimensional rotations proved extremely useful in physics and was also included in Erwin Schrodinger’s construction of the mathematics of quantum mechanics. Relating to our everyday lives, quaternions are also widely used to model three-dimensional graphics and systems in sat-navs and computer games. Ellen Hutchins (1785–1815), born in Cork Hutchins was an early Irish botanist. She is known for her botanical illustrations in contemporary publications as well as collecting and identifying hundreds of specimens. She focused on botany and spent much time out of doors accompanied by the indoor occupations of identifying, recording and drawing the plants she collected. Nearly all of her collecting was undertaken in the Banty area and County Cork. Her ability to find new plants, and the quality of her drawings and specimens drew admiration from the leading botanists of the day, and her work was featured in many publications. Although she never published under her own name, she was a major contributor to the new and developing plant sciences of her era. Her specimens are in the most significant collections in the UK, Ireland and the USA. She bequeathed her collection of plant specimens to Dawson Turner and many are now in the Natural History Museum, London. George Johnstone Stoney (1826 – 1911), born in Offaly Offaly’s George Johnstone Stoney was one of a group of Irish scientists who made significant contributions to the study of spectra, that is the light of various colours emitted or absorbed by different substances. Stoney’s most significant scientific work involves the conception and calculation of the magnitude of the atom or particle of electricity, for which he coined the term "electron". He also estimated the number of molecules in a cubic millimetre of gas, at room temperature and pressure, from data obtained from the kinetic theory of gases. Stoney also established ‘Stoney units’, which were the fundamental measurements of mass, length and time, as well as measuring the energy behind bicycle propulsion. Stoney's work set the ball rolling for other great scientists such as Larmor and Thomas Preston who investigated the splitting of spectral lines in a magnetic field. Stoney partially anticipated Balmer's law on the hydrogen spectral series of lines and he discovered a relationship between three of the four lines in the visible spectrum of hydrogen. George Johnstone Stoney was an educationalist and a physicist, whose ideas and conceptions were far ahead of his time. Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (1903 – 1995), born in Waterford Walton is most famous for the first disintegration of an atomic nucleus by artificially accelerated protons which is more popularly known as “splitting the atom”. In his youth Walton won scholarships to TCD for the study of mathematics and science and later moved to Cambridge as a researcher. It was in Cambridge that Walton and John Cockcroft split the atom. They were recipients of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on the transmutation of the atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles. They are credited with being the first to disintegrate the lithium nucleus by bombardment with accelerated protons (or hydrogen nuclei) and identifying helium nuclei in the products in 1930. More generally, they had built an apparatus which showed that nuclei of various lightweight elements (such as lithium) could be split by fast-moving protons. Walton and Cockcroft received the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1938. In much later years – and predominantly after his retirement in 1974 – Walton received honorary degrees or conferrals from numerous Irish, British, and North American institutions. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with all the latest industry news and trends. Posted on: 15/11/17

These days, people are choosing to work differently. Instead of opting for traditional, full-time, permanent jobs, a growing number of people are looking for alternative ways of working – such as contingent, contract, temporary, freelance, on-demand and platform roles. The ‘Monday-Friday 9-5 job for life’ has moved on, and much of the jobs growth over the last decade has occurred in non-traditional ways of working. With this trend set to continue, it’s clear that the Next Generation of work will look very different to the past. A New Way Of Working: NextGen Work In a world of accelerating change, leaders must enable – not prevent – new ways of working. Both businesses and workers alike want choice, flexibility and alternative ways of working that build resilience for less predictable futures – and that’s exactly what NextGen work can deliver. To understand more, ManpowerGroup surveyed 9,500+ workers in 12 countries to find out how they want to work in the years to ahead. With 87% of people saying they are open to NextGen work in the future; it’s clear that businesses need to align their workforce strategies to the changing demands of the people they wish to attract. We invite you to download the full whitepaper to find out more. DOWNLOAD The Human Age Newspaper – Seventh Edition 14/09/2017 Navigating the changing dynamics of today’s workforce can be unpredictable. Faced with growing economic and [...] Read More 0 A Skills Revolution: Consumers of Work to Builders of Talent 13/02/2017 Business models are being disrupted. From the rise of robots, globalisation and mass migration, to the shock Brexit [...] Read More 0 The Skills Revolution 17/01/2017 Rarely a day goes by without news of digitisation, artificial intelligence and virtual reality impacting the [...] Read More 0 The post #GigResponsibly – The Rise of NextGen Work appeared first on ManpowerGroup. Author: ManpowerGroup .findoutmorediv { color: #FFF; font-weight: bold; border-radius: 3px; width: 150px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 5px; } Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with all the latest industry news and trends. (function () { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.type = 'text/javascript'; e.async = true; e.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https' : 'http') + '://btn.createsend1.com/js/sb.min.js?v=3'; e.className = 'createsend-script'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); })(); Posted on: 12/10/17

With the Tech sector in Ireland currently going from strength to strength it’s a great time to have career in technology. Ireland is recognised internationally as a leading location for companies in the software sector and is also known as the second largest software exporter in the world. As a result some of the world’s best tech companies have established an operation in Ireland. In fact Ireland is home to 9 of the top 10 global software companies including Microsoft, Google, Apple and Facebook. That said, these top organisations require the best talent available to add value to their strategies and goals. One of the first big barriers to the job of your dreams is the interview. We all know Interviews can be stressful at the very least, so here’s some tips for you to consider before you go to the interview. Preparation Make sure you know history of the organisation and do some homework on recent news on the organisation, take a look at their products, what’s new, old and also take a look at the industry. Find out what are the latest developments and how are they relevant to the organisation. When going for highly technical roles like in IT, on top of the standard interview questions the hiring manager will ask you will also be required to answer more focused and specific technical questions regarding you skills, certifications, your languages and what tolls you have expertise in. The hiring manager will be examining you to see how competent you would be at executing the role on offer. Make sure you know your CV inside out and are confident that you can talk through your CV and your career history. Don’t forget that an interview is not a place for modesty and you won’t come across arrogant when talking about your previous achievements. Make sure you tell the hiring managers what you have worked on and what outcomes you are proud of. Behavioural Questions Before we talk about the STAR technique, we need to understand the concept of behavioural interviewing. Hiring managers use this technique to assess a potential candidates previous experiences and how they have reacted to past problems and issues in previous jobs. The main reason for these type of questions is because past performance in comparable circumstances is the best predictor of future performance. Before the interview the hiring manager will have a list of behavioural traits that they believe are essential for the job and will then form behavioural interview questions based on the traits. Some examples include: “Describe a time when you had to …. What did you do?” “Give me an example of a time when you had to …” “Tell me about a situation in the past …” The interviewer might go into to further detail: “What was the outcome?” “Did you consider …?” “How did the other person react?” The interviewer will expect you to go into much more detail than a one or two word answer. The questions are set up for you to describe specific examples of you executing the desired behaviours from previous experiences. When answering these questions you should answer through four steps. (1) What the situation was, (2) what the challenges were, (3) how the interviewee dealt with the situation, and (4) what the outcome was. STAR technique to guide answers When answering behavioural questions every answer should reflect the skill in question. It is vital that your response should relate to a previous experience, then describe the challenge you faced, how come dealt with the issue and what results came of you solving the issue. When the interviewer asks you the question, make sure to evaluate it in your head and try to figure out its purpose and what specific skill or competence is the question addressing. The next step is to think about a previous experience that could help demonstrate your ability to execute that skill and make sure to structure the answer using the four steps of the ‘STAR’ technique: ‘S’ for Situation: Start by giving some context to the interviewer. Describe a situation, be it from previous work experience, volunteer or any other relevant event in which you can demonstrate the competency at questions. ‘T’ for Task: Move on to describing your responsibility in that particular situation. What challenges occurred and give the expected outcome and any conditions or prerequisites that needed to be satisfied in order to complete the task at hand. ‘A’ for Action: Next, describe how you completed the task at hand. Specify analytical work, team effort or project coordination. Make sure to use ‘I’ and ‘we’ statements when possible. ‘R’ for Results: Finally, explain the outcomes or results generate by the action you have under taken. Make sure you emphasize what you accomplished and what you have learned. Wherever possible, try quantify your achievements and improvements. Soft Skills Technical skills are essential in any IT position, however soft skills are becoming increasingly desired by hiring managers. Interpersonal skills or soft skills are required for IT professionals to successfully communicate with colleagues, clients and everyone in-between. It’s not just being a really good communicator, you must make sure you practise the following soft skills and emphases them in your job application and interview to get a step ahead of your competitors. Listening, Teamwork, Leadership, Mentoring, Flexibility, Creativity, Negotiation, Presentation, Determination. A recent Harris poll of hiring managers revealed that 77% of employers value soft skills as much as hard skills. According to Harvard and Burning Glass Technologies an analysis was undertaken of over 25 million online job postings. Among IT listings, one in four of the most sought-after skills were soft skills. Importance of Networking Studies have shown that over 70% of all jobs are found through personal relationships. This means if you want to dramatically improve your chances of getting a job you must put effort into networking. Networking doesn’t have to be a difficult, but it can be seen as crucial for developing your career. The good news is that networking is becoming increasingly more common online. Obviously this has its advantages and disadvantages but at the end of the day, tools like LinkedIn have made networking a lot easier that the old days. Be sure to take full advantage of this and have your LinkedIn completed 100% and also get everyone in your network to endorse you for certain skills you have. When building your network make sure to understand that networking isn’t about trying to make as much connections as possible, but rather about meeting a few people who are well connected and can couch for your ability and are willing to refer you to a few other well connected people. So, how can you start growing your network? One great way can be to attend events hosted by companies you are potentially interested in working for or industry-specific events in your area. Scouring Eventbrite can be a great place to start, meetup.com has a robust “Events Discovery” section where you can browse events by date and location. When trying to break into the tech industry in particular, it is important that you showcase everything that you write and create, regardless of the size of the project, getting your work out there is the first steps to getting noticed. Sharing your work can help you connect with other likeminded individuals who are working on similar projects. If you want to be a designer, start sharing your work to Behance or Dribbble; if you want to be a developer, push everything to either GitHub or CodePen; and if you want to do content creation, publish a LinkedIn Pulse post or create your own Medium account. You’ll never know who you’ll meet or how their network may help you continue to grow yours. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with all the latest industry news and trends. Posted on: 29/08/17

​ Tips on how to get your IT career back on track Working in the IT industry in Ireland can be very rewarding. Your skills are in demand and the Irish tech sector is at the forefront of new, innovative technologies. However sometimes you can end up becoming stagnant or lost in your own career. Don’t worry as this is more common than you think. Here are some tips to help you get back on track with your career. Measure Your Progress: As you move along in your career, assess your progress periodically. It is important to be honest with yourself and highlight the bad along with the good. This is the first step to improvement, development and understanding where your strengths and weaknesses lie. No one is perfect but having the self-awareness to understand where you can improve can be vital. It’s not just strengths and weakness that you should measure, different job titles require different performance measures so there can be a wide array of variables. Here are some examples of what you can keep track of: Attendance, Time Management, Employee performance goals and objectives, quality of work and productivity. Take Over Your Professional Development: Many organisations help facilitate their employees growth by offering things such as training or tuition reimbursement for a college degree or certification. Employers can also provide in-house technical or professional training courses and internal job openings. Take advantage of available opportunities and maintain your momentum and commit to continuous skill building and improvement. By planning your career strategy, you will be on track to achieving your long-term career goals. Think of yourself as your own brand, you have to stay up to date with the latest technologies or you will get left behind. Work With Mentors: Mentoring is a powerful personal development and empowerment tool. It is an effective way of helping people to progress in their careers. It is a partnership between two people (mentor and mentee) normally working in a similar field or sharing similar experiences. It is a helpful relationship based upon mutual trust and respect. Mentors offer career advice, help you improve your current workload by offering feedback in key areas such as communications interpersonal relationships, technical abilities, change management, and leadership skills. Other benefits include helping you develop a sharper focus on what you need to grow professionally within your organisation and learning new skills and gaining knowledge that are relevant to professional and personal goals. Ask your organisation if they have a Mentorship programme in place and if they do, make sure to take advantage of it. Know When to Move On: Don’t stick with a company that lacks the opportunities or culture to empower your career progression. Make sure you are happy with the level of responsibility you are given and if you don’t feel it’s enough, have a conversation with your mentor or manager if you feel you have the capabilities and bandwidth to take on more responsibility. Ensure that you are happy in your current position and you feel valued there. The IT industry has a skills deficit and highly skilled candidates are in demand. You must understand that you don’t owe your organisation anything if you have reached your ceiling there and be prepared to seek other opportunities which will help develop your career. Join Online Communities: There are loads of communities online where you can chat to like-minded individuals from all over the world. These are great places to up-skill, network, stay up to date with the latest technologies and foster new relationships with people who you can bounce ideas off. Platforms such Stack Overflow, Coderwall and Hashnode all provide helpful communities for questions, discussions and advice for IT professionals at all levels. Improve Your Soft Skills: Soft skills are of the utmost importance in a modern day working environment. They can help you progress through your career and play an essential role progressing you through your career. Soft skills are a combination of interpersonal people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attributes, social intelligence and emotional intelligence quotients among others that enable people to effectively navigate their environment, work well with others, perform well, and achieve their goals with complementing hard skills. The Collins English Dictionary defines the term "soft skills" as "desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge: they include common sense, the ability to deal with people, and a positive flexible attitude." To improve your soft skills you need to understand the basics, there are countless resources online to help you get a better understanding of where to start and what skills you need to improve. You get out of this as much as you put in, so it’s recommended that you make sure you don’t overlook these building blocks to success. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with all the latest industry news and trends. Posted on: 10/08/17

Governments of developed nations across the globe have put great emphasis on the importance of the education of its citizens in the subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). STEM subjects are of major importance to a modern economy and help a country continue to progress and be competitive as a nation. For Ireland to remain competitive in a world which is becoming increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, Ireland needs to focus on providing STEM education of the highest quality. The Irish economy relies heavily on FDI which creates thousands of jobs for people living in Ireland which are all closely related to STEM subjects. As a result of this FDI, Ireland is now currently home to 10 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies and there is a presence of over 75 pharmaceutical companies established in Ireland. The Biopharmaceutical industry has made a capital investment of approximately $8 billion in new facilities, all in recent years. It's not just the Life-sciences sector continuing to evolve as Ireland’s ICT sector is world-renowned and continues to flourish too. Nine of the world’s top 10 ICT companies are located here and the IDA supports over 200 firms. The industry employs over 37,000 people and generates €35 billion in exports annually. Ireland is already experiencing a shortage of talent in STEM. ‘Innovation 2020’, Ireland’s strategy for Research and Development, Science and Technology, highlights the critical importance of excellence in STEM Education to ensure the continuous development of a pipeline of talent to support both Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and an active ecosystem for indigenous start-ups. While women account for 47% of the workforce, they are severely underrepresented in STEM and if you look back, things don’t seem to be getting any better. Ten years ago 46% of new entrants into STEM subjects in universities and Institute of Technologies were women and in 2013 that number dropped to 40%. In the same year there were just 436 female entrants into computer science at university level out of a total of 2,613, or 16% . Engineering, manufacturing and construction courses fare no better, with male entrants outnumbering females by four to one in. According to the CSO, out of almost 120,000 people working in STEM in Ireland, just a quarter are women. The phenomenon is not just an Irish one. Less than 7% of tech positions in Europe are filled by women. There are many different causes to the underlying issue of a lack of gender diversity in STEM, however it is clear that a major factor of contribution is the selection of subjects and Third Level courses chosen by young women at secondary level. Parents, who are major influencers when guiding their daughters to STEM subjects generally lack information about career opportunities. Other factors, according to the Accenture report: Powering economic growth: Attracting more young women into science and technology (Accenture, 2014) include: Negative stereotypes exist that STEM subjects and careers are more suitable for boys. Although parents are the main influencers when it comes to advising their daughters on how to define educational and career paths, they lack information about career options. There is fragmented information available about STEM careers, making it difficult for students and their parents to evaluate options. A disconnect exists between industry’s skills needs and students’ subject choices for their Leaving Certificate Examinations. There has been some clubs such as CoderDojo, Girls Hack Ireland and other initiatives that attract younger people which will have a significant impact later when those children are making choices. Not only do we need to change attitudes and perception for the future, an equal gender balance in today’s workforce is required, from junior to board level which can result in multiple benefits for an organisation. Looking at the current workplace, here are our favourite 4 benefits of gender diversity. Increase in productivity Diversity and an inclusive workforce have a positive impact on satisfaction levels and in turn this raises employee engagement and increased performance. When people with different skills start working together, it can foster an environment of innovation and productivity. All of us have different talents, skillsets and attributes which help to widen your talent pool and help you gain access to new ideas and information. Less diversity = less financial returns According to McKinsey’s recent study on diversity in the workplace, companies who are in the bottom quartile for both gender and ethnicity diversity are statistically less likely to achieve above average monetary returns compared to other companies in their data set. In the UK greater gender diversity on the senior-executive team corresponded to the highest performance uplift in their data set: for every 10 percent increase in gender diversity, EBIT rose by 3.5 percent. Source: McKinsey & Company. (2007). Women matter: Gender diversity, a corporate business driver, 12–14. Gender diverse teams prodcue suprerior team dynamics, communication and productivity: Lehman Brothers have conducted a study which examined 1,400 team members from 100 teams at 21 companies in 17 countries. The study found that gender-balanced teams were the most likely to experiment, be creative, share knowledge, and fulfill tasks. The report also discovered that the most confident teams has a majority of women (60%). Source: Lehman Brothers Centre for Woman in Business (2008). Innovative Potential: Men and women in teams. Attracting the best talent Millennials, the generation born between 1980 and 2000 will play a major role in shaping the wold of work. They will soon be the majority in the workforce and will account for 75% of the global workforce by 2025. As a result, organisations must be adaptive and have the ability to attract and retain the best talent. Technology, diversity and collaboration are big values to the Millennials and organisations that want to attract top talent must adhere to the same values. Millennials understand that gender diversity can help prevent companies from becoming too insular and out of touch with their varied customer base. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with all the latest industry news and trends. Posted on: 02/08/17