According to a new report mentioned on the NYTimes’s "Bits" blog:
The New York metro area tops the country in the number of high-tech jobs, according to a national study by the AeA, a technology trade group.
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Silicon Valley leads in semiconductor manufacturing, while Seattle is the software publishing capital. Computer system design is Washington, D.C.’s purview. And New York has the highest concentration of Internet services jobs.
The candidate pool has increased considerably over the past few months due to the credit crunch. As many of you may be looking for a new job, I wanted to remind you of a piece of advice I wrote about a while back. Whether you are looking to work at Lab49 or anywhere else, please keep in mind that most interviewers want you to get the job! They want you to do well in the interview and so, should, do their utmost to make you feel comfortable.
As you are no doubt aware, the so-called “credit crunch” has had a significant impact on the world’s economies. Gordon Brown says that the UK situation is “containable” but the US economy is teetering on recession due to the fall-out from the sub-prime problems.
A good deal of staff from the big banks are getting laid off in both London and New York and are no doubt finding that there are slim pickings within the financial world. It goes to show that working in a large company does not necessarily protect you from the economic turmoil that is currently being faced. Lab49 has always been conservative in its growth and expansion into other countries and quite rightly so. Sure, we’re not a huge company BUT we are run very very cleverly and with some smart thinking and careful recruitment, we will continue to grow and expand in the current climate.
So the .NET Meetup is tonight from 6:30pm at the Lab offices. We are very pleased to welcome Mike Culver from Amazon as tonights guest speaker. Please try to find the time to come along – it’s going to be a really cool event.
The best way to get a real flavour for what a company is like to work for is by speaking with its employees but ONLY if those employees feel able to say how things truly are and what they truly think. You can get a really good idea of our culture by looking at the Lab49 blogs but being able to ask open questions of an employee would, I would hope, enthuse you about our company and give you an accurate idea as to what life is like here as a technologist.
I am finding that some candidates are really focussed on contracting at present. I understand that the variety of project and great pay are a real draw but imagine working for a company that provides not only that but also offers career development, training and most importantly, a sense of camaraderie and team spirit.
We’re looking for a User Experience Consultant to join our growing team. Whilst we hope that the users of our systems do not want pink and sparkly screens, you never know! We’d like for you to have some Photoshop and Wire Framing experience and to have great communication skills so that you can talk and LISTEN to users to get an understanding of what they’re after.
If you’d like to learn more, feel free to contact our London recruiting team via email: marie.downes@lab49.com, via telephone: 020 7248 9499 or via GoogleTalk: lab49careers
Lab49 are hosting another .NET meetup for those who are using and/or are interested in .NET and peripheral technologies. We’re going to be holding the event at our offices, address as below and have arranged for Mike Culver from Amazon Web Services to present at the event on the 3rd of April. We’ll provide the beer and food.
We’ll have details of the next event and guest speaker very shortly.
Now to me, AJAX is a smelly powder-based, abrasive cleaner available in the UK. Not only that, it’s what my dad scrubbed my brother and I with when we broke into the garage and painted each other with emulsion paint when we were about 4 and 5 
So now, after 25 years of AJAX avoidance, I’m now actively seeking it out. Some of Lab49’s London team are about to start work on a first generation Silverlight project using AJAX. As you’ve no doubt seen from my colleagues blogs, Lab49 really is cutting edge and I’m sure that use of technologies such as Silverlight on high profile, innovative projects confirms our cutting edge status.
Want to meet up with other cool .NET technologists? Want to share ideas and learn more about .NET and it’s features? If so, why not join the London .NET Meetup group? Vivake just set up the London .NET Meet up group and we had our first meeting last Tuesday. It went really well and Vivake even got to meet up with someone who we have subsequently offered a job to.
The great thing about it, for .NET bods, is that this is in NO WAY a corporate thing. We are simply providing the location, the food and drink. There are no recruiters, sales people, marketing people etc invited – it’s all about .NET. Visit: http://dotnet.meetup.com/121/ to find out more. Our next meeting in in late August.
10 Top Developers
20 Challenging Projects
30 Rewarding, Collaborative Atmosphere
40 GOTO 10
I have spent 8 years as a recruiter and have had the pleasure of interviewing some amazing candidates. Interviews can certainly be nerve-wracking although I have always been aware and made candidates aware that it is a two-way process. Regardless, there have been candidates who have exhibited certain “interesting” behaviour in interviews that you should [...]
Well actually – you kind of do – everyone wants to know that they are appreciated! There is a good deal of time and effort that goes in to the preparation and conduct of an interview from at least two, possibly three parties: a) candidate b) company c) agent The time invested by a company includes that of skilled [...]
Typing that made me think of the 80’s band Aha – ahhh Morten Harket.. Anyway, back to business! Searching for candidates these days is no longer a situation of posting an ad on Jobserve or wherever and waiting for those candidates to come to you. As mentioned in a previous post, it really is a [...]
1) Getting the interviewers name wrong. Check with the agency who you are meeting (if you are going through an agency), if not, call up the company and ask to speak with HR. 2) Turning up late. Get a map, study it, perhaps do a trial journey the day before. Check the traffic on the day and leave [...]
Every single employee of Lab49 in the UK was employed due to networking. What does this mean for the company? Well, first of all, some of the staff know each other and have worked together in the past but secondly, it means that the level of engagement for the staff to the company is stronger [...]
