[Sigia-l] is it just me, or is it really hard to find IAs right now?

[Dave]

Hi freelancers,

I've been a hiring manager on both the agency side and now for a
software company. I have to say that freelancers to me are a waste of
my time. Why? B/c it is knowledge unretained. While I appreciate why
freelancing is useful to freelancers and it has the advantage to the
employer of being lower risk, if the person doesn't have the
possibility of staying and remaining a part of the greater whole, then
it just doesn't work for me.

Anyone who left NY in 2001, it is time to come home. Why? well there
are jobs here now and they are exploding, especially in the agency
market, from what I have seen.

Now for the IxD market which is mainly software based, this is not so
true. But good IAs and general UX designers with advert, intranet, and
e-com experience (the webbie side).

I have recently been interviewing with an agency, which uses
contract-hire policies. I have noticed that they have very high turn
over rates of employees, and thus have not been able to innovate ideas
and retain those ideas in-house. They are so focused on making the
current project, that they forget that as an agency they are
responsible for more than that. They need to have R&D, so that they
can do more than just copy or iterate (iteration is not the same as
innovation). I realize this is a bubble burst thing, but the burst has
been cleaned up and agencies need to start ramping up beyond the next
project and putting some more fore-thought into their hiring
practices.

-- dave