Portland Technical Recruiting gets tough again
Certainly we know at EnGn that recruiting for great .net, java, ruby, mobile, and
salesforce developers in Portland was never easy.
However, as a panelist for a recent Tech. America event I was pleasantly surprised to see that interest in attracting talent was top of mind once again. For an event like this to fill up generally means a tipping point as been reached where the ability to find talent to grow the business is impacting how a business can accomplish key objectives. With recent BLS statistics showing that software and application developers are running only a 3.6% unemployment it shouldn't be a surprise.
I had 10 minutes to discuss what is going on in town regarding recruiting Portland technical talent. 
Given how long-winded I generally am this was the hardest part of the morning. I picked one thing. Talent communities. Find a couple internal evangelists (especially ones in key job categories where you expect to grow). Build a plan and set goals. Arm them with any number of tools. Listen, talk, engage, and promote all things wonderful about what you are doing in your company. Do it now and do it even when things slow down. In other words, this the web 2.0 of what old school recruiters, like me, used to call recruiting for a drawyer. The difference is we have access to amazing, interactive, integrated, and cheap tools to do so. Obviously, I am truncating a much broader and very interesting conversation/program that could be had. 10 minutes is 10 minutes.
After the event I got a chance to meet with some folks from Learning for Leverage (formerly Oregon Training Network) and they are putting on what appears to be a timely training day later this month: Foster the People: How to Attract and Keep Top Tech. Talent It is being held at Stoel Rives on February 21st. Check it out. Your competition for talent could be.