Work

There are a number of good options for finding work and hiring new people locally.

Hiring

Finding people locally:

• Go fishing in our CV Database to browse through the profiles of people looking for work here. Sign up for a daily email of new profiles added
• List your job with us on our jobs database. Many local companies advertise on Seek or TradeMe. We can post a summary and link back to the original ad on our Jobs page. We send a daily email of new jobs to candidates on our site.
• Come to some of our local meetups or one-off events. A few have time specifically for matching work opportunities with people looking for work.

Finding people nationally:

• Summer of Tech have thousands of interns and graduates available now. You don't have to wait for summer. ManawaTech have anonymous access to their database, so we can search on your behalf before you sign up for a paid account.
• Student Job Search let you list a job for students and recent grads.
• NZ Uni Talent allow you to post jobs for students at 7 of the 8 universities. For an additional fee, you can email students with specific skills through its integration with each university core student management database.
• Several Wellington based tech recruiting companies visit here regularly. Contact us for details.
• Most local companies use Seek for job ads. A few use TradeMe.

Finding Work

• Upload your CV to our CV Database. List your skills and describe the kind of work you are looking for. Local employers can see you there.
• Sign up for a daily email of new local jobs or visit our jobs page regularly.
• Come to local meetups and get known. The software developers meetup and others have a special slot for employment connections.
• Intern or recent graduate? Sign up for Summer of Tech and Student Job Search

Attitude Shift

How to handle staff shortages:

For many years, we (the tech industry) have preferred hiring in the exact skills needed for a task, rather than training or building the people we already have(1). Tony Alexander did a work place survey in July 2021 and wrote an article summarising what he learned:

• Offer more flexible hours of work, not just the opportunity to work from home which is not possible in many businesses.
• Create a strong team environment with spontaneous awards to reflect employee or employee family achievements and milestones.
• Offer part-time work to retain people who are retiring.
• Outsource offshore where possible.
• Don’t low-ball initial pay offers as people facing choice will feel disrespected and you’ve lost a hiring opportunity even if you lift the offer.
• Automate processes and boost efficiency in order to reduce reliance on staff.
• Promote from within and make promotion path opportunities clear to new and existing staff.
• Train people for higher-ranking positions.
• Hire for potential, not immediate productivity.
• Provide finders fees to staff who successfully introduce a new employee.

These are general recommendations across many industries. But a lot of them are useful to tech. We need an attitude shift: from treating tech people as resources to be consumed, to taking a career length view of a person: giving them room to grow and the challenges they need to stay interested.

(1) this is a broad generalisation. Some companies are excellent at giving staff the chance to grow new skills alongside the needs of the business as it grows. But from many sources we see an overwhelming trend to hire the exact skills wanted each time. Which is why NZ has a critical skills shortage for senior IT staff, especially with borders closed to skilled immigrants.