A few good agencies

Introduction
This Blog page is intended to capture and summarise a sample of data that has been interwoven into a thread of the the IT Job Board Discussion Group Discussion Group on LinkedIn entitled “Are you having trouble finding an IT job? Please join this discussion“. The intention of this page is to extract details from that thread on “a few good agencies“, and thereby enable members of that discussion group to suggest corrections to the additional data sourced about those agencies (as shown below) or include further additions to the information provided.

The Trusted IT Recruitment Agency List
Below are the beginnings of what I suggest that the IT Job Board should consider branding as their “Trusted IT Recruitment Agency List” based on which recruitment agencies active members of their Discussion Group consider to be good according to their areas of work in IT. The following are details of agencies advised by contributors to the discussion thread, along with details added by the author of this Blog page on the agency web-sites and job-search details relevant to the recommender’s perceived area of work in IT (which is based purely on their profile in LinkedIn):

Applications Project and Service Delivery Management – as recommended by Matt Miller, a leading Applications Management Consultant
Computer Futures, For jobs: click here

Investment Banking IT – as recommended by a member of the 7C Alliance Discussion Group
Church International, For jobs: click here
Hays, click here
Huxley, For jobs: click here
Penta Consulting, For jobs: click here

Oracle Jobs – as recommended by Matt Miller, an Oracle E-business suite consultant and member of the 7C Alliance
Church International, For jobs: click here
ComputerPeople, For jobs: click here
Square One – For their jobs: Click here
Vector Resourcing, For jobs, email Lindsey Palmer at: lp@vector-uk.com

SAP Jobs – recommended by Ray Andrews, a SAP analyst/programmer
James Goodman, For their jobs: Click here
Lucas Kennedy, For their jobs: Click here
MBA, For their jobs, email: enquiries@lucaskennedy.co.uk
MC Partners – For their jobs: Click here
Square One – For their jobs: Click here
Whitehall Resouces, For their jobs: Click here

UNIX and Netbackup Jobs – as recommended below:
HALIAN – For their jobs: Click here – recommended by Patrick Whelan, a UNIX and Netbackup specialist, and noted for friendliness and helpfulness by Endre Toth
Charterhouse – For their jobs: Click here – recommended by Endre Toth, a UNIX and Netbackup specialist

Purpose and Intentions of Writing this page
This page has been written to help summarise and capture key data from a very long discussion thread on LinkedIn, one of the leading business networking sites. One of the challenges with having such a long discussion thread – and one of the challenges in general with using LinkedIn and other networking sites’ discussion group tools to source contacts or knowledge needed for sourcing or doing work – is that information can be lost in the body of a thread when they get as long as the one that the base data below comes from (and see Background below for further details about the originating thread).

In regards to the thread in question, a sample of the knowledge potentially lost are details about “a few good agencies” that participants in the thread have contributed to the group through this thread. Also lost is the potential to add more details to the information advised, so that it is captured and readily able to be followed up, as well as further discussion initiated on it.

The intention is therefore that participants in this IT Job Board discussion thread, as well as the IT Job Board at large, can see potential for using a market intelligence business like 7C Alliance to help capture key knowledge that will better assist them in their search for work and so increase their opportunity for sourcing and winning work in IT that best fits with their capability. 7C Alliance believes that this should be the focus of ANY good discussion group on any networking site that is focused on helping share leads or contacts for work.

Background
This Blog page has been written in follow-up to participating in one of the longest-running and most active discussion threads on the IT Job Board Discussion Group Discussion Group on LinkedIn, where a lot of interest has been sparked with IT professionals (over 235 comments as at 5 August 2009!) under the thread title “Are you having trouble finding an IT job? Please join this discussion“.

In this thread the reader will find both many great and sad stories about the current plight of those seeking work in IT right now, and over the last 3 months (when the thread was first initiated), as well as some heartening advice and great tips for both the weary and the unwary on both how to stay motivated as well as improve search and interview techniques to win either permanent or contract work in IT.

Interestingly enough, the thread is stated to have been initiated by Teresa Sperti, who has indicated in her profile title, beside her name, that she is “Seeking New Role in Melb” but lists her current job as “Head of International Marketing” – and the latter role is stated as being for the IT Job Board itself and based in London. If response to this discussion thread is anything to go by, then we wish her all the best and look forward to hearing about the new role she secures in Melbourne – and the 7C Alliance will look to help facilitate that as part of its “pay-it-forward” principle for helping those who help others in their quest for the best fit for work as well as work/life balance.

Postscript
7C Alliance is happy to capture and help collectively manage information useful from the candidates’ perspective for seeking IT work in the UK (as well as some locations outside the UK). We are also happy to assist recruitment agencies, independent job boards and networking sites with advice and support on how to better define, structure and manage their discussion groups, and other forms of social media, for making content more readily and easily available in ways that make it fit better with the needs and desired outcomes of their discussion group and other forms of online membership.

Through it’s own Discussion Group on LinkedIn, as well as through other means (as available on enquiry through the 7C Alliance web-site), 7C Alliance’s aim is to provide support to experienced IT professionals that will better enable them to increase opportunity to get contract work as well as improve the supply chain for their services in the process. We also welcome comment on how we can increase opportunity for our membership to source and do work as well as how we can all work together, along with our recruitment agency, IT consulting and permanent IT colleagues, to improve the supply chain for engaging the services of high quality IT contractors.