For the second year running, Liquid Friday have made the Sunday Times/ Virgin FastTrack 100 - http://bit.ly/TPELiD

Great to see our clients getting this sort of recognition. Resourceful secured the founding director for the online accounting service Boox, a subsidiary of Liquid Friday – details of which are available via the link below:

http://www.thinkresourceful.com/trackrecord/boox.htm

Congratulations to all at Liquid Friday.

We recently commissioned research into the dynamics of the employment market for technology sales professionals. Accessing the data aggregated by www.innovantage.co.uk , the results deliver insight into the levels of activity and trends in a market that has proven to be one of the most competitive areas for talent in the UK.

Looking back on the advertised positions over the last three years, its no surprise to see that technology is an increasingly important component in the overall employment market in the UK. Looking deeper into the data, the level of growth in opportunities from vendors with propositions in mobile, social and SaaS is staggering.

Geographically, the strongest areas are London and the Home Counties. The North West is very much in third but ahead of any other region in the UK by far.

The strongest message in the data is that for key hires like enterprise sales professionals, there is a huge amount of competition for top performers. Looking at our track record in this market, direct approaches and headhunting is a much more successful route than depending on advertising. With the volume of jobs ads online, even if a top performer does arrive on a job board (do you or top performers in your team do this?) then it is likely to take quite a budget to ensure the individual sees your ad.

We’ll shortly be distributing the result of the research among our customers. If you’d like a copy please free to get in touch.

Research is a hugely important component in our approach here at Resourceful.

It’s the start of the process. Our expertise and approach in this key area enables us to swiftly map talent in target markets and supplement our existing network to make highly targeted approaches on behalf of our clients.

Our approach combines web based sourcing with more traditional recruitment search techniques. The combination delivers thorough coverage of the target market at a pace our clients demand.

We’re always interesting in speaking with people with background in recruitment and / or recruitment research. You’ll be comfortable working to tight deadlines and ready to talk to us about how you can make a contribution to our tight knit team.

If you’re interested in working either part time or on a project basis please email astrang ( AT ) thinkresourceful.co.uk

Sean Bowen, CEO and co-founder of Push Technology was named Developing Entrepreneur of the year at the ITC awards.

Details are on the Push Technology blog - http://bit.ly/TQ35fZ

Congratulations from all at Resourceful Mr Bowen!

I set up Resourceful in 2010. I’d worked for a FTSE250 listed recruitment firm for ten years and over the period I was lucky enough to work closely with numerous technology firms – from global market leaders to start ups. Having joined as a trainee, I had a variety of role over what felt like a pretty quick ten years, ultimately reaching Director level. One of my responsibilities prior to moving on was to look at the emerging threats and opportunities the impact of the web was having on the recruitment industry. This experience was invaluable as I set up Resourceful.

I took a year out in 2008, after which still very much with the technology ‘bug’, I had the opportunity to help a University research group market test the computational intelligence platform they had built in the open market. Having worked closely with tech firms previously this project was hugely attractive. To cut a long story short what started out as an academic project is now a business that primarily supplies the consumer credit industry – from automating lending decision to profiling consumer behaviour. It was quite a journey! Early in 2012 the business successfully completed a funding round that allowed us to bring in a CEO who in turn has strengthened the technology team.

You can see some of the detail on www.logicalglue.com

First hand experience of working in technology is something I enjoyed. I wouldn’t swap the experience for anything else, however for me once was enough! When I decided to set up Resourceful I was keen to apply my recruitment and search skills in the technology market. I felt there was a market opportunity for a firm to secure key hires in the highly competitive technology talent market. My view was, and still is, that people with the skills to really drive a technology business forward would not always be the hardest to find (do you know any Directors at tech firms without a digital footprint?) but would often be the hardest to hire. Generating interest with talent at the top end of the market needs understanding of the technology, the resulting market potential and often the nature of the opportunity within the firm. Getting this right meant Resourceful was set to be (and always will be) a boutique firm – doing important work on behalf of a group of clients. Don’t get me wrong, we’re an ambitious business and growth is high on the agenda – however what I don’t aspire to build is a like for like replica of the large recruitment firm I worked for previously.

Not everyone agrees with me on this (some argue I should position myself as search, search and more search) but I believe the experience of getting Logical Glue out of academia and into the market coupled with my search expertise positions my firm well to secure those key, highly competitive hires.

What do you think? Thoughts on a postcard to Alex Strang c/o Resourceful, or alternatively in the comments section.

Alex