IT employers invited to Opportunities Australia Expos

The employment, media and events company helps employers meet skilled people who want to migrate to Australia through its international recruitment expos, website and magazine.

Previously, Opportunities Australia Expos were held in South Africa and the UK, but it will be launching its first New Zealand expo in Auckland next June and needs IT companies to attend its UK event this month.

“We want to let IT industries know more about what we do. We get so many people coming through the expo doors but their skills are going to waste if the right employers are not there,” said Merrick, who is based in Sydney.

“We need to make more companies aware of the proposition. IT firms are recruiting very heavily overseas right now. Australian employers need to get smart and take advantage of looking further afield,” he added.

ICT exhibitors who have attended Workingin expos include Fujitsu, IBM, the UXC Group (Red Rock Consulting, Oxygen etc.), L7 Solutions, the Australian Tax Office and Woolworth’s IT division.

“L7 is an IT consulting business targeted at the commercial enterprise sector. We face particular challenges recruiting the right people as many of the people we are after have very specialised skills such as Vendor qualifications – Cisco, Microsoft, EMC etc,” said Matt Sullivan, managing director L7 Solutions.

“At the Opportunities Australia Expo, in Cape Town this year, we were hoping to hire people and reduce the cost of hiring staff. We just paid a recruiter $35K for 1 hire with a mere three month guarantee.

“So far it seems possible as already reducing our cost per hire. We would have spoken to 250-300 people, collected about 40 CVs and booked three interviews, which we think we will hire.

“Of the people who are suitable to us, the quality of people that came to our stand has been very high. I would encourage the expos to people in the industry to address the skills shortage in IT,” he added.

Catherine Snell is the senior account manager at Workingin. She said the expos are made up of 60 percent Australian employers and 40 percent service providers who help people who want to migrate including removal companies, NAB and the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

“The expos are like a one-stop shop to make the move to Australia. People who attend are called ‘Aussie Ready’ meaning they already know they want to migrate to Australia and come to the expos to find employment before they leave,” said Snell.

The next UK expo is in London from 25-26th October. Australian employers who have already booked their place include the Department of Education and Training WA, Energex, Western Power , and Workforce Participation (DIIRD) Victoria.

According to Tony Backshall, general manager for supermarket human resources, Woolworths, the company is facing challenges in recruiting in the Australian market at the moment because he claims there is a skill shortage in the mining boom towns of Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.

He said it was targeting a broad range of occupations and qualifications at the Opportunities Australia Expos including IT, finance, project management, construction and senior buyers.

Speaking about a recent exhibition held in South Africa, Simone Shugg, human resources business partner, corporate and business division, HBOS Australia said: “We weren’t sure what to expect but were hoping to make contact with a number of banking and IT professionals.

“We were very impressed with the quality of people with a banking background and how prepared they were with resumes as well as how they had researched HBOS.”

According to Kumar Parakala, President of the ACS (Australian Computer Society) it has been advocating for solutions to skills shortages challenges within the ICT industry for some time referring to it as a ‘real’, but complex issue.

“The ACS Quantifying Current and Forecast ICT Employment Report, which we released in August this year calculated that the skills gap will grow by 29 percent by the year 2010 to just over 14,000 jobs and an estimated 25,000 jobs by 2020 unless changes are made to ICT employment and skills policies,” said Parakala.

“We are calling for a long-term partnership approach between governments and industry for the economic benefit of all Australians. This needs to happen immediately to have any impact,” he added.

Parakala claims whilst some sectors have experienced job losses within ICT, due to financial troubles, the overall need for skilled ICT employees is still evident and strong and there are a number of factors driving this.

He said in order to close the gap on skills shortages and maintain economic prosperity, the following measures are needed: maintain 2007-2008 inward and outward migration levels, increase local graduate numbers by 12.5 percent per annum from 2007 figures and reduce the ‘brain drain’ of ICT professional migrating for overseas employment.