RECRUITMENT: All sectors are showing growth and expansion

“We are seeing requirements across all sectors including medical device, pharmaceutical, finance, food production and electronics sectors for qualified IT graduates,” says CareerWise Recruitment director, Ken Murphy.

“The IT skillset is transferable and in demand across all sectors and not just the traditional ICT area. Roles such as System Administrators, developers across multiple languages, Business Systems Analysts and Software Implementation Consultants are always in demand.”

The opportunities within IT continue to grow at a significant rate as technology becomes a growing part of our daily lives.

“There continues to be a skills shortage of experience IT graduates in Ireland to support the growing multinational sector,” he said.

“Much of the growth in the Cork/Munster area has been in the global shared service sector which is heavy on requirements for IT skills across software development, systems analysis and project management.”

Having graduated from University College Cork in 1987, Mr Murphy moved to the US as a Network Design Engineer with BellSouth Corporation.

His return to Ireland in 1989 heralded a career which concentrated on the multinational sector, and involved working with companies such as Apple Computer, Cabletron, FMC Automotive, Moog, General Semiconductor and Technicolor. Irish chief executives are considerably more confident about their business prospects and the wider economy than they were last year, according to a survey by PwC.

More than 85% of CEOs surveyed had a positive outlook on the Irish economy, almost triple the number recorded in 2013.

Meanwhile, 75%were positive about the future prospects of their respective businesses, compared to 44% last year. Almost 70% expect profits to grow, while more than three quarters expect revenue to rise, and, as a result, almost 60% of the 256 CEOs surveyed said they planned to increase their workforce, while the vast majority of those asked said they expected to increase or maintain their investment in the country.

“We would expect that the overall demand will continue to grow and the IT skills will offer opportunities in Ireland and globally. The population demographic in Europe means less graduates are qualifying annually, so that the graduate who has a mix of IT and a European language will have a big advantage. This skills mix also will be very attractive for global players like Dell, Apple and EMC who have built up global support centres in the Cork area.”

Given that many students during the recession opted for more secure employment areas like law and accountancy, IT was overlooked resulting in a huge demand for graduates today.

“It is true that many of our talented school leavers moved towards the financial, law and construction sectors and some face a reengineering of their base skills to allow them to retain to become more marketable in the current market. As the IT recruitment slowed in 2008, this would have influenced many not to have seen the technical and engineering routes as attractive.”

The lower intake, increased demand and growth of the cloud computing areas augur well for the technology graduates for the next few years, he believes.

“Manufacturing is very diverse in its geography. You have Allergan in Mayo, Lilly in Kinsale, Astellas in Kerry; they’re all very busy. Stryker, in Cork, is a huge success story. They bought out the neuro-vascular business of Boston Scientific, and brought 600 staff across with them, and have also had further growth. Boston themselves are also busy.”

From 2008 to mid-2009, recruitment activity fell by 50%, with only the life sciences and agri-food maintaining a steady growth.

“We have seen a gradual recovery for the last three years, and now things are definitely improving again.”

Ireland was also recently named by Forbes Magazine as the world’s No1 country in which to do business. Mr Murphy said this publicity has had a global resonance.

A key part of recruitment activity is primarily in the multinationals, across medical devices, pharma, ICT and engineering companies, while the food and agri sector also remains buoyant.

Mr Murphy said the key for the manufacturing sector was to stay cost-competitive.

“The recession highlighted the need for manufacturing in Ireland to become more competitive within the global scheme of things,” he said. “We had become very uncompetitive in most sectors. There is now a focus on Lean manufacturing, and continuous improvement across all industries, both international and Irish, and this is an ongoing process.”

Given the explosion of social media, the CareerWise website does caution jobseekers to pay attention to the downside of having too much of the wrong information.

“With the Internet at our personal disposal, it is now easier than ever to put yourself out there and create an image of yourself that you can distribute across a wide audience. Search for yourself on Google and Facebook. Don’t bother going more than a few pages deep, and make note of what you see. At least one of the top five search results for your name should relate to your professional interests.”

Third-level graduates in Munster continue to be well served with multinationals and other companies constantly in need of new staff.

“Ireland continues to attract significant foreign direct investment and Munster has been successful in attracting some big investments such as Tyco in Cork and Regeneron in Limerick over the past 12 months,” says Mr Murphy.

“In addition to the large scale announcements, Munster has secured some medium scale companies like Itron and AlienVault, NuVasive and viagogo. The on-going inward investment, a thriving Irish technology start-up scene and a growing food and ingredients sector bodes well for the future of technology graduates. This will complement the already established ICT, medical device and pharmaceutical businesses that continue to grow and reshape in Ireland supporting global product and services demands.