Senitor Launches Irish Operations

2022 has started with a bang here at Senitor! A new year has brought on our official launch of our Irish operations, with Declan McNamee leading the team. We caught up with him to discuss his recruitment background, the Irish tech market, and the future of Senitor.

You joined Senitor in 2021 to head up their new Irish recruitment operations, but your journey with the company actually began twenty years before this – can you tell us a little bit about your journey with the brand?

Yes, I was delighted to re-join Senitor 20 years after I first joined the company as a Trainee, which is probably a very unusual thing to happen for most people in their careers. To keep a long story relatively short, in August 2001, I was a fairly young and ambitious sales person, who was working in B2C and doing pretty well at the time, but I wasn’t totally satisfied that I was in a job which would offer me the long term success and fulfilment that I was looking for. I had a look around and done my research on what industry sectors allowed people who worked hard, achieve direct success for the energy and passion they put in to their work, and I was lucky enough to have secured a job for myself with Senitor. This was at a time when IT recruitment was really booming and in all honesty, the first few weeks I was just a rabbit in the headlights. I got my head down though and with excellent training from my Managers there and lots of perseverance on my part, I managed to start making some positive progress and worked my way up the career ladder at Senitor.

This hard work eventually culminated in the opportunity to start up my own IT recruitment firm in conjunction with the Director’s at Senitor, which I successfully ran in Northern Ireland for almost 13 years. This ended when the covid pandemic kicked in and I decided to take a well-earned break to spend time with my young family that I was never able to fully do whilst running my own small firm as I was always very hands-on, at times maybe too much so.

After a short stint in HR SaaS sales, where I learnt plenty, I am now heading up the growth of the Senitor recruitment brand across Ireland and look forward to working with many other ambitious people who want to make their mark in a positive way in whichever industry they are operating. I am really motivated to get out there and work with as many ambitious firms as possible and am fully relishing the challenges that lie ahead.

The Irish tech market is a new area of specialism for you to offer your recruitment expertise to, what is it about the tech scene here that is so exciting?

The amazing growth that is going on across the whole Tech sector in Ireland is brilliant to be part of right now. So many companies of all sizes are evolving and planning growth for 2022 and if anything, this has been helped by the covid-19 pandemic where remote working is the new norm for so many IT people, saving them hours upon hours each week in not having to commute and opening up the talent market for many companies who may have had their growth plans held back by their location if they weren’t a city based firm. Of course, this brings many challenges in how competitive it is to secure the best people, but that’s what we are here to do for many busy people across the IT spectrum in Ireland.

With so many established technology firms setting up in locations like Dublin over the past couple of decades it’s no surprise that Ireland is home to some of the best technical candidates in Europe – what advice do you have to candidates looking for a new challenge here?

To start off with, I’d always advise any IT professional to be open-minded about the opportunities that are available, whether it’s one of the leading global bluechip firms who have their European HQ in Ireland or an exciting new start-up. We can do lots of research, and we should as we have access to lots of information and we can read so many stories online, both good and bad I may add. When it comes to weighing up the best options that suit your own career goals, it’s really important to talk to the key people in the different companies that you are applying to, get a real feel for the culture and ask the questions that are important to you, it’s a 2-way street, be open and honest about your own goals and aspirations and this should allow you to make the best choice for you when it comes to which company you decide to commit to for your next steps.

Have you noticed any positive changes following the UK’s Brexit?

Brexit hasn’t been something which has cropped up very often in conversation at all. The tech sector in Ireland is a highly resilient sector which has seen consistent growth over the last 10-12 years. According to a recent NTMA report, the ICT sector delivered 16% growth in gross value added between Q1-Q3 in 2020, quite remarkable given the pandemic that has gripped the world. There’s no signs of things slowing down and 2021 has seen the number of IT jobs being advertising at an all time high as many successful Irish companies continue to build their teams. Many of these companies working hard on offering the most appealing working environments that they can to give them a competitive edge.

Covid of course has been a huge topic of discussion in terms of the business impact for recruitment, has this affected the way that you operate as an IT recruiter at all?

The covid pandemic has opened so many different avenues to all kinds of IT professional and to the proactive companies who have embraced the remote & hybrid working models to allow their staff more flexibility around the work they do, where they do it and in some cases, when they do it. It’s refreshing to talk to people now about the “new norm” and how the work-life balance has shifted and this is also something we will be doing in our own business to allow our own staff the optimum environment for being the most productive!

The market is incredibly buoyant right now which of course brings a higher level of competition for talent, what is your best advice for clients who are looking to compete for tech talent right now?

Offer a great working culture and environment, its not all about the money when attracting new staff. Be open to ideas and suggestions from your own current staff about what will make their working lives better, allow their voices to be heard and try out new methods of working. Be open and transparent with your teams about decisions that are getting made in the business that will benefit your employees. Communicate with them as much as possible. If you can be as innovative as possible, your current staff will be happy and this really helps with attracting new people to the business as the results of your efforts will start to show.

2022 is set to be an exciting year for Senitor’s Ireland division, can you give us an insight into what to expect over the next 12 months?

Well, we have reason to celebrate already as we have our first new starter joining me in February! We are really super-motivated to grow as a first choice recruitment partner to as many good people as we can. We will find our new home with a new office planned for Dublin in Spring 2022. We want to build valuable long-term relationships with as many reputable and forward-thinking companies across Ireland as possible. We want to offer career opportunities for bright, talented and ambitious people to join us on our journey of success. We will be specialising in recruiting for IT staff over the course of 2022, so building teams to cater for different areas of specialism within the IT industry will be our main aim.

If you're looking for the opportunity to grow your career in tech, get in touch with Declan at declan.mcnamee@senitor.com today!