Saturday, April 16, 2011

Boston Market | April 2011

Companies are getting more aggressive at poaching talent from rival companies. This practice is more common in information technology (IT) than in other disciplines with 62% of hiring managers and recruiters agreeing that poaching in on the rise.

What industry sectors are ripe for poaching in New England?

  • industrial
  • medical
  • educational

What traits are hiring managers looking for?

  • multi-skilled
  • experienced
  • industry-specific

Details from two separate findings can be found at Dice.com: Dice Report and Local Markets.

There are no shortage of opportunities for Web professionals in the Boston area. Here are the current postings available at Dice.com:

Boston Market

Generic titles such as "web development" and "web design" can cover a wide area of technology skills. One job search strategy is to focus on an individual technology.

The Top 20 Web Technologies in Boston has been updated for April and appears in the right-hand column. The frantic pace of technology job postings has slowed over the past 30 days. None-the-less, every technology listed has seen a substantial increase in activity since the beginning of 2011.

Single-month movements do not signify a trend. However, it is worth noting that only three technologies experienced a net increase in job postings over the past 30 days. They are as follows:

Best Training Opportunity

The Boston PHP Meetup is offering a virtually FREE training opportunity to learn PHP, a popular Web programming language. This virtual self-study group is designed for PHP beginners only. The total monetary investment is the purchase of a book. Each participant commits to the following:

  • read one chapter of the book per week
  • complete the exercises associated with that chapter

An online discussion area has been created to answer questions and resolve challenges along the way. Since this training opportunity is virtual, participants are welcome from anywhere on the planet! More than 100 Boston area developers-in-training have signed up so far.

For details access Self-Study Group for PHP Beginners Begins May 1. Then click the "Join us!" button and reply to the discussion to begin the training.

[ FULL DISCLOSURE: This self-study opportunity, called PHP Percolate!, is coordinated by yours truly, the creator of Beantown Web. ]

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