For a career changer, landing that first job in technology can be a challenge. That having been acknowledged, career changers may have some assets that they don’t realize they can capitalize on. Industry or Line of Business Expertise For many people who have been doing the same thing career-wise for a long time, they’re just […]

Which of these descriptions best fits your software development team? (1) The team is highly integrated with the rest of the company and its customers. (2) The team is shoved off in a corner. If your circumstances more closely match the first scenario, well done you. By design or by accident, your structure is helping […]

The DICE Tech Salary Survey was released late in March. I've been behind on my reading, so it wasn't until recently that I got a chance to dig into it. One of the most surprising data points in it was: "Overall technology salaries in the U.S. were essentially flat year-over-year (-1%), at $92,081 annually from […]

Lately, when we talk with our clients, we hear the same story. Attracting great development talent has become quite a chore. And because of that, companies have a heightened interest in making sure that they are doing the right things to retain the talent they already have. As a software development manager myself, I'm keenly […]

Stout recently hired a Silicon Valley software developer. A rock star developer featured in a documentary about one of the seminal moments in the history of the Internet, he found himself struggling to find employment in the Midwest. (Lucky for us.) The reason? His resume doesn't look at all like the conventional Midwestern software developer […]

Remember the line "You can't handle the truth!" from A Few Good Men? I'll put it as a question: "Can you handle the truth?" and then explain. Over and over, we hear about the shortage of technical employees and candidates for new jobs, be they software developers, IT people, or engineers of all kinds. At […]

One piece of feedback that we hear from candidates is that they find portions of the screening, interviewing and decision-making process to be confusing, illogical and frustrating. Questions that we hear are: Why such lengthy and complex interview processes involving some combination of 1-on-1 interviews, panel interviews, technical skills assessments, personality tests, role plays, etc.? […]

It is an interesting quirk of human behavior that you can tell your boss something and be ignored...

At Stout, about 50% of our business activity is attracting and qualifying new technical talent. I know that finding...

Beyond the consulting work we do at Stout, about 50% of our activity is, because of the staffing side of the business...