Research: Recruitment Agencies ... Was Re: [Linux-aus] Why Linux is not ready for business

[David Lloyd]

Carige,

>> Maybe we need to look at some kind of skills and availability
>> database.  
> 
> I believe that this is what OpenSkills provides.
> 
> http://www.openskills.org/

Open Skills provides part of this service.

Having been in the position where I had to find people to employ (over 
the past three years I've searched for about 5-6 employees), the Open 
Skills user interface didn't provide really provide much use to me.

 From an employer's perspective:

  * Not being able to search geographically is painful
  * Having to search for candidates at all is painful
    - if it weren't recruitment firms would go out of business

It's not yet a place where an employer can easily say:

  "I have JOB XYZ which requires these SKILLS, contact me."

To put it another way, although it costed me more to use "seek.com.au" 
or a "recruitment agency", the cost was worth it.

What I do think would be beneficial is if one of the OSIA branches 
worked with an accomadating recruitment agency to:

  a) Gain a recruitment agency's perspective on their industry and how
     new employment sectors get taken up as part of their portfolio

     - i.e. we seem to have identified that recruitment agencies miss out
       on Open Source recruitment, why don't we ask THEM why and how one
       might convince them that Open Source recruitment is a lucrative
       market

Whilst OSIA itself didn't want to become a recruitment agency, or step 
into that role, I think that the Open Source Industry Association is 
well within its charter to investigate the open source job market.

I'd propose that OSIA and Linux Australia:

"Investigate open source industry employment oppotunities and trends to:

1. Determine the market for open source jobs and opportunities in
    Australia

2. Find case studies of recruitment agencies who do find and
    place candidates with open source skills:

    * As part of their every day work
    * As part of a special "open source" focus/niche

3. Work with a number of recruitment agencies to gauge what would make a
    recruitment agency interested in servicing a particular market"

Recruitment agencies are like any other business: they generally exist 
to make a profit. They may not service the open source industry because 
they may never have considered it (innocent ignorance) or they believe 
there is no profit to be made by servicing that industry.

What do we all think?

DSL