Southern lifestyle attracts IT employees

Aucklanders and people from overseas are being lured south by IT jobs and a desire to enjoy the benefits of living in the lower South Island.
 
Since being established in Dunedin in August 2015, IT recruiting company Crew Consulting says half of the all roles they have filled in Christchurch, Dunedin, Invercargill and Queenstown went to people from overseas. 
 
Crew Consulting Founding Director, Tom Sweeney says “there is a shortage of local of senior and mid level IT employees across the lower South Island. “
 
“However, we’re in regular contact with people who are looking to move south. We talk to people almost daily who have decided to make a lifestyle choice to live in the south.”
 
“Aucklanders have filled 60% of the roles we have recruited in Dunedin. While further south, we have just helped a couple of people who were working in Auckland return to Invercargill to live and take up good IT jobs. We have recruited South Africans, English and Chilean people to the region as well.”
 
Tom Sweeney says attracting talent south isn’t difficult when businesses have good roles and pay market salaries. Online networking tools such as LinkedIn and Facebook help Crew Consulting find candidates for local roles that are hard to fill.
 
“We meet candidates who have either lived here before or visited and have made a commitment to move here for lifestyle.  We only work with people who have been to the region and show an understanding of and commitment to the lifestyle.” 
 
Tom and his business partner Cory Richards both have firsthand experience of moving to Dunedin. Cory was born in Invercargill, grew up in Clyde then lived in Sydney working in recruitment before moving to Dunedin to bring up his family. 
Tom was born in the UK and worked in IT recruitment there and in Sydney before settling in Dunedin. “Having moved here for lifestyle we understand peoples’ motivation for wanting to live here. It’s a great city and we love being able to help the city grow by attracting great talent.”
 
Crew Consulting assists businesses across the lower South Island to fill specialist IT roles. They specialise in helping businesses fill roles in Development Teams, App Development, Cloud Services, Business Intelligence, Systems and Network Engineering and Project Management.  

Photo: Cory Richards.