Compuways's Blog

I passed my Oracle Java certification with the help of Compuways / GetCertified !

Arnold Compuways — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:38:27 +0000

Hi Guys,

Thank you so much for all your help and advice. After scoring 71% in your test, I studied again before I took the international exam.

I got 91% in the official SCJP exam . It would not have been possible for me without GetCertified to get those marks, as I just started reading the SCJP manual 4 months ago.

Many thanks,

K.M.

http://www.getcertified.co.za/software-developer/java-developer/success-stories

Cutting recruitment costs may cost you

Arnold Compuways — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:29:38 +0000

The Internet has changed the landscape of traditional recruitment by making job boards available to everyone. Employers have started advertising on job sites themselves in order to cut recruitment costs, but they have also discovered that recruiting high-level skills is not only about advertising a job or searching through available candidates.

Why it is essential to use a specialist recruitment agency and how to engage with them when hiring top IT staff?

Finding top-quality candidates, which then result in top-class appointments, is not that trivial and requires a lot of different skills and means.

When engaging a recruitment agency that can provide these top-class candidates, an employer should look at various aspects. One should look at their candidate pool. Getting past the low hanging fruit requires active and ongoing networking into the industry.

Maintaining relationships with candidates over long periods is crucial. This is only possible with an independent recruitment agency. HR departments cannot maintain relationships with potential candidates to the same extent that an independent recruitment agency with a strong independent brand can.

Furthermore, finding candidates is an art in itself. A decent recruitment agency uses strategies to locate good candidates that go beyond job sites and print advertising and depends more and more on personal references and relationships with people in the industry. Social networking tools are nowadays more and more required to attract top candidates.

Screening should not only filter out fake qualifications, but also ensure a candidate is genuinely interested in a position, and competent enough to do the job. This can be done better by a specialist agency due to the fact that the candidate is interviewed and matched not only for one job, but as part of a relationship-building process.

The offer stage negotiations are crucial; the offer can make or break a deal. Got to this stage, it is a good fit; the candidate likes the employer and visa-versa? Beware; the deal can still break down. The recruitment agency should have the knowledge and skills to bring the parties together to result in a win-win situation for both. It is only easier for an independent person to get into detailed and delicate negotiations.

A specialist recruitment agency should understand the employer’s needs, especially considering its expertise in dealing with many companies in the industry and seeing the big picture. A recruiter should then be able to convey the employer needs properly to the candidate during the screening process. The candidate wants to compare the employer to similar companies in the industry, too.

A face-to-face meeting between employer and recruiter is crucial, as this brings the recruiter into contact with the real world of the employer and issues like culture-fit can best be experienced during such a meeting.

Specialist recruitment agencies work with the big picture and should be able to advise on trends that are applicable to an employer’s unique situation. Trends include salary trends and also shortage trends so as to be able to develop strategies over longer periods.

A specialist recruitment agency should be at home in the employer’s industry. They should understand the industry thoroughly and be able to show a track record of previous experience in working on similar positions. References of previous clients can be obtained to substantiate this.

The employer is an active participant in the process and should be available throughout the recruitment cycle. Often meetings have to be set up very quickly in order to attract a top candidate on time. Changing requirements or parameters on the employer’s side should be communicated instantly to the interested candidate pool to avoid wasting people’s time and effort.

Java Training Update

Arnold Compuways — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:47:54 +0000

To see our latest java training schedule, click here:

PHP Training Update

Arnold Compuways — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:46:26 +0000

New! PHP Developer course

For our latest PHP trainng update please click here:

New Training Course – .NET Silverlight

Arnold Compuways — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:24:11 +0000

http://www.getcertified.co.za/software-developer/-net-developer/silverlight

New Training Course – .NET Entity Framework

Arnold Compuways — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:10:53 +0000

http://www.getcertified.co.za/software-developer/-net-developer/entity-framework

New Training Course – Linq (Intermediate to Advanced)

Arnold Compuways — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:55:47 +0000

http://www.getcertified.co.za/software-developer/-net-developer/linq

New Training Course – ASP.NET MVC 3

Arnold Compuways — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:44:30 +0000

ASP.NET MVC 3

http://www.getcertified.co.za/software-developer/-net-developer/asp-net-3-5

Dire future for university graduates

Arnold Compuways — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:30:51 +0000

When an honours degree in economics and 10 years’ experience cannot guarantee a job, what dire future lies ahead for university graduates, let alone school leavers ? Unfortunately, this is the harsh reality that faces the younger generation of today. GetCertified managing director Arnold Graaff recently spoke about new opportunities in ICT.

Sasfin Bank IT application specialist Nicola Rushin is a good example of what lies ahead for university graduates. She had been trying to find employment for six months and despite having ten years’ experience in stock broking administration and an honours degree in economics, she could not even get to the interview stages.

With the financial services crisis looking unlikely to resolve itself any time soon, Rushin decided to make a career change to ICT. However, she was once again facing the standard questions from employment agents whether she has any IT experience or an IT degree. She was not in a position to do another degree and she was starting to lose heart about her decision to change to ICT.

Graaff says, unlike many other industries, there is a bright future in ICT. “There is a huge demand for ICT skills in all industries, especially software developers. Research shows that, with the enormous adoption of cloud computing, there is a massive growth in demand for Web developers.”

“GetCertified was confident that doing an SQL Beginners course with would open all the doors for me to become a Business Analyst, my dream job. I had serious doubts, but I was sold on doing the course anyway because I always wanted to learn SQL. I felt I had nothing to lose,” says Rushin.

“Within a few weeks of attending the SQL course at Get Certified and adding it onto my CV, I was the proud recipient of two job offers from reputable financial services companies – to work in their IT department, as a Business Analyst. It was so easy, it was ridiculous.” “Over and above that, they have excellent teachers and they managed to cater for my needs as well as those students who were more advanced,” she adds.

GetCertified offers a weekly open support evening, at no extra cost to its students, where they can ask questions about their specific course and project. Furthermore, GetCertified is part of a Group of companies that also owns a recruitment agency, Compuways. Unlike other training companies, GetCertified strives to find a job for all its unemployed students.

Graaff encourages students to follow GetCertified’s methodology which results in an international certification and a proper project to show to potential employers. “Our mission is to assist students to pass their international exams. We achieve this by delivering our courses with a strong practical flair, instead of focusing only on exam questions and answers.”

He says the benefit of practicality is twofold, the student can immediately use these practical skills in the workplace and secondly, they can prepare easier for exams. “Many unemployed people come to us to better themselves for the job market and we have successfully placed many such at our clients from our recruitment company Compuways.”

GetCertified recommends that complete beginners should start at the ‘Complete Introduction to Programming’, this can be done over 5 days full-time. Alternatively, one can do part-time training courses which run over five Saturdays (6 hour sessions) or two nights per week five weeks (3 hour evening classes) because there is more time to take the knowledge in and process it with exercises.

“No knowledge of programming or not sure what steps to follow or the cost thereof. Firstly, a bare necessity is a matric certificate with at least a pass in mathematics. We always recommend you should do an aptitude test like the one on www.3smartcubes.com and send us the results,” he concludes.

For more information visit www.compuways.com or www.getcertified.co.za

ENDS

More about Compuways (www.compuways.com)

Compuways was founded in 1990 by the owner Arnold Graaff. The company supplies IT skills across the spectrum of skills from technical to managerial, permanent or contracting staff. Compuways is BEE Level 4 compliant which means 100% of a clients’ procurement spend will count towards their BEE qualification.

Compuways has established alliances with various IT recruiters on a national and international basis and networks with other agencies and also has partners in India, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to supply the most sought-after skills. This enables it to share its resources using the power of the Internet. Compuways is a member of APSO and abides by its ethics and guidelines in all its procedures. The company also promotes the use of its successful database and recruitment procedures within its client companies as an in-house recruitment system.

Compuways has re-engineered its processes to incorporate Internet and automation technology in the changing roles of the recruiter, employer and job seeker in the recruitment process. Its success is attributed to nurturing loyal clients and candidates, using the Internet to complement the recruitment process. It is able to asses and supply the right level of skill at the right time.

Clients include Fujitsu, IBM, Integrated Business Consultancy, SAP Consulting, EDS ERP, Oracle, Toyota, Caltex Oil, United Pharmaceutical, Standard Bank, Standard Merchant Bank, First National Bank and Rand Merchant Bank.

Prepared by: Company: IT Public Relations

Contact: Ivor van Rensburg

Cell: 082 652 8050

Email: ivor@itpr.co.za

On behalf of: Company: Compuways

Contact: Arnold Graaff

Title: Managing Director

Tel: (011) 803-4079

Cell: (083) 700-2858

Email: Arnold@compuways.com

IT Resourcing – Permanent or Contracting?

Arnold Compuways — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 05:24:58 +0000

Permanent or Contracting? – a place for both.

With the latest trends in the IT industry moving towards the Cloud, IT departments have been gearing up to look at using more external service providers for their infrastructure, software and staffing needs. The roles of in-house IT staff has and is also changing to include more management of external providers in their portfolio.

Cloud computing has enabled CIO’s to let the IT department focus better on the needs of the business, enabling business and IT to work closer together to support critical business processes, resulting in a more competitive advantage for the business.

With regards to staffing, IT departments should look always look at a blend between permanent and contracting staff to enable smooth service delivery to business. In-house staff often has to include more general functions as well as management skills, whereas contractors should be applied to the more specialist functions.

There is a bit of confusion about the future of labour broking, especially in the blue collar industries, but in the IT Industry there is a clear distinction between general labour vs. specialist consulting services. I do elaborate on this topic in another article.

We offer the supply of both these type of staff to companies.

Permanent placement services

Every client has their specific needs with regards to build and maintaining a permanent staff complement
We are able to advise on short-term and long-term strategies with regards to permanent staffing
We are able to provide you with the right candidate at the right level, alternatively to supply temporary employees until you find the right permanent employee.
We cover the whole IT spectrum, from technician to CIO and IT Director – have a look at our skill spectrum (categories) on the home page.
We are a member of APSO and our processes comply with the APSO code of ethics.
Our strong brand in the IT Skills Industry for over 20 years, draw candidates to us via personal references. In this way we have been building up a database of top IT professionals across the skills spectrum.
“Compuways’s in-depth knowledge about the IT industry is evident when they send CV’s to us for our permanent positions. Their CV’s are accurately matched to the job specification in terms of skill level, salary bracket and culture fit. If they do not have the skill on hand they provide us with constructive advice, rather than swamping us with wrong CV’s” . References available on request.

Contracting staff supply services

Contractors might be more “expensive” than permanent staff, but they are highly skilled, competent, solution-oriented and focused.
By employing skilled IT Contractors, you can focus on your company’s key business and be sure the IT systems are maintained to support your business processes.
Contractors are able to hit the ground running. There is normally no or little need to train them as they are senior and have experience of working on different projects with different tool sets. They have proved themselves to be successful and have technical references available to confirm that.
Contractors are easy to get on and off-board. They do not fall under the normal BCEA employees – if they do not perform, they can be taken off-board with ease.
We offer a loyalty fee structure to keep the rates reasonable. By employing more contractors, our commissions drop to a lower level, for example on the first contractor we might have a mark-up of Rx per hour. If you have 2 of our contractors, we drop the total markup, etc. down to our minimum fee.
Contractors are independent of your BEE head-count and does not need to be associated with any Employment Equity group.
Contractors fall under your services procurement budget, making it possible to claim it from your expenses and BEE scorecard where we are a level 4 BEE contributor (100% can be claimed).
Our strong brand in the IT Skills Industry for over 20 years, draw candidates to us via personal references. In this way we have been building up a database of top IT professionals across the skills spectrum.
Our contracts comply with latest legislation and are annually reviewed by top legal experts in this field. We take care of the contractor’s needs in terms of compensation and taxation and have experts available to advise them on these issues.
There is a big difference between labour broking and consulting broking. The independent IT Contractor is here to stay and is a totally different animal to the blue collar labour-broking worker that has been in the news recently.
We have been supplying contractors over the past 20 years to companies like Standard Bank, Nedbank, UPD, Toyota, BankServ.
“Compuways has always been able to supply the right contractor at the right time, thereby allowing us to focus on our core business and not worry about resourcing and having key IT skills in our team. Their rates are very competitive compared to their competitors”. (Client references are available on request).