The exhibition is in full swing and it’s fantastic.  We’ve listened to some amazing speakers already today and the afternoon session has just got underway.

We are exhibiting at Thinking Digital next week, it’s going to be an amazing conference and we are thrilled to be associated with it!  I’m sure we’ll be networking and attending all of the evening events as well as the conference itself so if you are passing feel free to pop by our stand in the Barbour Room.

We’ll be offering career consultations as well as discussing current vacancies. We’ve got an amazing amount of work in the North East and increasingly outside of the area so don’t be shy to ask us about possible matches.

See you there!

Laura

We’ve had some great variations of our company name just recently - Attitude, Aptitude and Archery - I can kind of understand the first two, but Archery!!!!!

We are putting an ad in The Drum yearbook, it’s to promote the creative jobs at Altitude, thanks as always to Tim Murphy - here’a a snippet;

I know it’s not really design related (although we love the identity) but we were asked if we could help promote his new foundation.  Delighted is not the word - cancer affects many people and almost everyone has a story.  We are lucky in the North East to have great NHS facilities and to add to them can only be a good thing. The foundation will focus on the early detection and treatment of cancerand the clinical trials of new drugs that will eventually beat it.  To donate online, please visit - The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation or you can send a cheque to PO Box 307, Heaton, NE7 7QG.

Thanks,

Laura

Another article printed in The Journal - read it here it talks about Mum’s setting up in business.  Altitude Recruitment are quoted in there discussing how we go about recruiting people for creative jobs.

The Codeworks ‘Think and a Drink” event that Altitude Recruitment sponsored was a great success.  Secco was jam-packed and some people had to stand in the bar area as all seats were nabbed early on.  The debate was really good, and whilst the conversation leaned more towards why graduates aren’t interested in the digital media industry, some other really important issues were raised.

The panel all came from different areas of the digital media industry and together generated some great conversations.

There are lots of pictures to come, but here are a few snippets.

Laura

We had an article published yesterday in the Journal, if you’d like to read it you can click here, or simply scroll down.

Getting hold of right staff can be tricky

by Laura Maddison, The Journal

OPEN any newspaper at the moment and you can’t help but stumble upon economist X or Y saying how grim things look for the economy.

Thankfully, that’s not the case for the new media marketing and wider digital sector. It continues to grow rapidly, especially here in the North East, and there’s certainly no talk of recession in such circles.

Nevertheless, a recent report from digital careers website Chinwag Jobs said 97% of the UK digital companies find it difficult or impossible to attract suitably-qualified staff, with three-quarters struggling to retain them.

In some ways, it’s inevitable there will be fewer skilled employees to go around, given that the industry that has grown so rapidly. But there’s still plenty that employers can do to find and keep the best people.

Some companies struggle to find appropriately-skilled employees simply because they don’t look in the right places or use the services of specialists to find them.

In today’s digital world, it really is important to use your network of contacts to discover and attract people who are potentially on the move. Thanks to the increase in communities and networks on the web, it’s easier to tap into such information, though it can be very time-consuming.

Another thing more companies should do is to inject a little creativity into their recruitment strategy. If they’re really struggling, the first thing they should do is look at their existing team.

Managers know what skills their next big project needs, so they should ask their current workforce if they have any awareness in these areas.

And if it’s a case where more bodies, not just different skills, are needed, companies should think about targeting career changers with their recruitment drive.

How do you retain staff once you’ve got them? According to Marketing Week, there are three reasons people look to move on from a company: the opportunity to advance, financial rewards and challenging work.

Hardly rocket science, I know. But it’s surprising how few companies pay attention to whether they offer employees at least one – ideally all – of these things.

The companies who do so, and who also go about their recruitment in the right fashion in the first place, are the ones who will prosper.

We are sponsoring an event next week organised by codeworks connect.  we’ll be discussing the digital skills shortage and recruiting and retaining staff.  This will be focusing specifically on the digital media industry and not the creative job sector on the whole.

Some of the issues under discussion will include:

Where are the workers going?
Are North East digital companies hiding behind the North/South divide issue?
Are you accessing the right people with the right skills?
How can you resolve this increasingly crucial national issue?
How can you improve your magnetism and retain the right resource?

Join us at Secco bar on 6 March for an informal and relaxed evening, and find out how best to attract and retain digital talent. Held at a great venue with fantastic food and an opportunity to network with your peers, make sure you book your place now at next week’s Digital Magnetism.

http://www.codeworksconnect.net/events/viewevents.php?id=2e5c39c6-67e5-c5de-6cf1-47ac7ffdaa07

We’ve recently started a new Facebook Group that will keep you up to date with our latest vacancies, news and events that we are attending, it’s not going to completely mirror the blog but some info will be more relevant for Facebook than here!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=23751700784

Take a look and join up, I’m sure you’ll have an account already!