The latest annual Salary Guide from Robert Half Technology is out and looks at compensation trends across the tech industry for Canada and the US. The salaries in the guide reflect starting pay only and do not include bonuses and other forms of compensation.

The guide mentions that a demand and supply imbalance that has affected the IT hiring market for years will likely continue in 2016. So many IT-related positions are being created that employers throughout North America and across industries often must wait months to staff key roles. What’s new is that tech jobs are remaining open because candidates aren’t even applying.

Firms are now looking to grow their own talent, upping their investment in developing high-potential internal employees and making more entry-level hires. Employers are also more willing to "stretch," helping a candidate to fit into a role versus waiting to find someone who meets all of their hiring criteria.

The guide predicts that hot industries for hiring in the months ahead will be financial services, healthcare, managed services, telecommunications and hospitality. Mobile technology, big data and security will continue to be major drivers for IT hiring throughout 2016.

Tech roles in demand will be developers, business analysts and quality assurance professionals, systems engineers and systems administrators, database administrators and business intelligence analysts and help desk and desktop support.

The full guide -- including a ton of salary ranges -- is available here.

John.

At a client meeting this past Wednesday I made the comment, "Love technology, just don't trust it."

Maybe it's the Mercury Retrogade, but of course my computer crashed when I got home that afternoon, had to have a new video card installed yesterday ... and I've been up since 6 this morning coaxing it back to life. (Windows updates take HOURS from scratch!)

As the updates chug along -- still need to install all my programs and software back on, what a joyful Friday task -- my trusty back-up laptop is handling this blog post just fine. (Herb Communications is now #1 on Google for the name. I believe the regular fresh content helps big time. Next step is to now get found for phrases and certain keywords that I want to encompass and be discovered for. That's more tricky, but not impossible. Done it before.)

Sorry, digressed there. I tend to go off on a tangent when discussing digital communications. One idea seems to flow into another, and then there's the Aha! moment. I had a few of those yesterday in a telephone conversation with a journalist. All will be revealed soon on that front.

I'm pretty old school. Colleagues know I write my meetings in a book on my desk, take a notepad and pen around the place. Why not just use Microsoft Outlook or tap notes on my mobile device?

Well, I find it quicker to jot shorthand down (journalism training!) and glance at my meetings book every morning to get a 5-second glance of what's lined up. It's just habit, but works for me.

Of course I have the tech back-up, the cloud storage, the external hard drive blah blah. Love all that, but don't trust it. One wrong piece of code, a bad update, a power cut ... and ... arrgghhh, I have no idea what's going on today!

OK, just making an exaggerated dramatic point there. Everyone has their preferences, and there's no right or wrong way to do business. At the end of the day it's about coming up with the correct solutions for clients, getting them the results they want and then, hopefully, the referrals will start.

I need to add carrier pigeon to the Contact page.

Have a great weekend ... and take the time to switch off.

John.