Month: February 2012

Job-IT Manager – Application Development

Work Location: Madison, Wisconsin

We are seeking an uncommon professional to join our team as an IT Manager in our Lending IT Services & Distribution group. This newly-created position will manage a group of 5-7 developers that support credit union technology and create software solutions – web, mobile, desktop applications that help with the credit union lending process. The area has a startup mentality and requires the IT Manager to not only manage staff, but can also interact with management and customers in an effort to bring new software solution concepts and ideas to the forefront in order to keep the company competitive within the growing business-to-business as well as direct-to-consumer marketplace. Familiarity managing software developers is needed as well as experience with the software development life cycle to include appropriate methodologies – waterfall, agile, iterative, etc. Prior hands-on experience of programming knowledge is not needed, but preferred.

Apply Online
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Inside Staffing – Sales or Client Side

Some IT staffing firms are setup where there is a dedicated recruiter and a dedicated sales person. This is usually firms that do contract work. Some firms that run direct placement/permanent placement (perm)/FTE staffing will do full cycle – recruit their own candidates and market their own candidates. The articles in the  series typically address the contract side, aka split desk arrangement.

But what is expected of the sales person?

Continue reading Inside Staffing – Sales or Client Side

Job IT Business Analyst Waverly Iowa

Work Location: Waverly, Iowa

We are seeking an uncommon professional to join our team as a IT Business Analyst.

This position is a full time employment position located at our Heritage Way office in Waverly, Iowa, in our IT area that supports our Life & Health and Annuity systems area. The IT Business Analyst will work with a team of 4 other business analysts and 6 application developers handling corporate, product, or functional based projects. Gathering requirements for these projects is part of the role. Interfacing with stake holders and management is also part of the day-to-day duties. In addition to skills found in Business Analysis work the following would be preferable: strong mathematical aptitude due to nature of the products, prior application development experience, insurance/financial industry experience and product management experience.

Apply Online!

Continue reading Job IT Business Analyst Waverly Iowa

Job Programmer I Visual Basic and Cobol Waverly Iowa

Work Location: Waverly, Iowa

We are seeking an uncommon professional to join our team as a Programmer I

This is a full time employment position located in our Waverly, Iowa, office. This is a standard 1st shift, Monday through Friday, position. The Programmer I will be working in our IT area that supports the company’s Annuity product line that consists of a few systems done in Visual Basic, VB.NET, COBOL, ASP/ASP.NET, and MS SQL Server. The aforementioned technologies is what the ideal candidate would possess along with 1-3 years of experience or programming internship.  Assignments are less support and more product driven. Scenarios include, but not limited to, functional updates and implementations, compliance changes – in order to meet the product’s approval throughout different states across the nation, and application enhancements as requested by internal client areas. The team dynamic includes 2 experienced developers, 3 business analysts and 1 manager. Late work hours may be required during testing phases of applications.

Apply online!
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CocoaConf Chicago March 16-17 2012

Chicago is host to CocoaConf 2012, to be held March 16-17. Hey, you could also partake in St Patty’s day festivities in the windy city.

Brad Larson, local to Madison, will be one of the guest speakers!

So if you’re interested in Cocao, iOS, development, head on over to the CocoaConf’s official website for more info.

From the site:

Join us in Chicago for the first CocoaConf of 2012. This March we will gather a hundred iOS and OS X developers for two days packed with cutting edge technical content. Our speakers include developers, trainers, and authors who have been there and done that. And they’re eager to pass on what they’ve learned to all of us.

Opportunities to learn from experts like this don’t come very often, so we want to help you make the most of it. From the classroom arrangement to providing all meals and snacks to keeping the attendee to speaker ratio as low as possible, this event is all about providing you with the best learning experience ever.

Inside Staffing – The Candidate Experience

Look on Linkedin, check hash tag #jobs on Twitter, or check on popular job sites and you’re bound to come across a job opportunity posted by a staffing firm. Ninety plus percent will not list the client (this is to prevent competitors going after your clients), the client being the company that needs a qualified candidate. You go ahead and apply, but never really know what happens after that. Continue reading Inside Staffing – The Candidate Experience

So You Lost Your Job

Holy crap! I just lost my job! What am I going to do?

Sometimes it comes with no surprise, but often times it hits us like a head-on automobile collision. We’re going along, just fine, when our world is suddenly turned upside down. Hundreds of questions start to flood the mind and anxiety runs through our nervous system. The shock leaves us stupefied. Deer in the headlights is certainly a good analogy. I could go on, but you may have been there or are currently going through this. Allow me to quote Douglas Adams:

DON’T PANIC!

When you lose your job, it’s important to gather your thoughts. Nothing is going to ‘un-do’ what has already been done. It’s what to do now and tomorrow. The building burned down. You can’t un-do the fire.  You have to clear your mind and re-build. Continue reading So You Lost Your Job

WordCamp June 2012 Milwaukee Wisconsin

From the official site:

WordCamp is a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other. WordCamps are open to WordPress.com and WordPress.org users alike.

The 2012 Milwaukee WordCamp will be held at Bucketworks on 706 S 5th St, Milwaukee, WI 53204 on June 2-3, 2012.

Visit the official website for more details and tickets.

Interviewing Candidates with Multiple Managers

I’m a recruiter. I not only work with candidates/applicants, but I also work with hiring managers in order to determine their needs. Part of gathering details is to establish a screening process. Part of that process is the job interview. How many people do you want to be involved in the interview process? How do you want organize the interview teams? How long should they last? Who are those individuals that you want involved? Good questions, right? Here is one that really needs to be driven home… Continue reading Interviewing Candidates with Multiple Managers

IT Staffing – Becoming an IT Recruiter

A series that provides some insight on how the IT staffing industry operates. The series is used to help educate IT professionals – candidates, as well as hiring managers, so they better understand the processes and methods of how an IT staffing firm functions. These are my experiences and I reserve the right to say that your experience may vary.

I was in between jobs when I decided to apply for a job in information technology. The ad was posted on the internet and it wasn’t until later that I realized it was a staffing firm. Seriously, I thought the job I applied to was at the company that called me. It was not. The ad was a job posting put up by the staffing firm on behalf of a recruitment plan for their client. Looking back now, I guess you could say I was a bit on the naive side. Continue reading IT Staffing – Becoming an IT Recruiter