3)      How is the consultant market for consultants?  On October 30, 2009 in MTA’s news release, we said that there were a large number of IT consultants who desired more challenging and better compensated projects.  Those consultants, like MTA's clients, were now willing to take the risk and enter the market again.   MTA was seeing an increased number of opportunities for consultants; however, the pool of candidates was large and competitive!

What has changed?  The pool of candidates which was perceived to be large and competitive, wound up being small and not of the quality clients were expecting.  As a result, 2010 for “quality” consultants has been a year in which they were in short supply and one where multiple opportunities and offers have again become available for them.  If you were a good consultant, with in demand skills, it was a consultant’s market.  Clients needed to act fast and entice those consultants to join them.

4)      What skills and business domain are in the biggest demand at our clients?  MTA is a customer, intimate company and supports technology used by our client base. There is an industry wide focus on the web and ecommerce development for which Web 2.0 is currently being used and Web 3.0 (cloud computing) will be the next generation web technology. The future lies in making the business web enabled and integrating it with mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones.

At the Presentation layer, there is a strong need for developers with front end skills such as GWT, Ajax HTML, PHPs etc. At the server level, it requires Security experts to assure the security of systems, create storage capacity and enhance system performance as well as the network experts who will provide productive infrastructure management. At the database level, the data architect, data modeler and the database developers are the backbone of the entire IT industry where the technologies integrate with business information. Our clients work mainly with Sybase, Oracle and DB2. Another aspect of the database management is the data warehouse that feeds business intelligence reports and dashboards for effective management decision making. On the development side, the programmer and application developers will design and develop the enterprise wide applications using object oriented language such as Java, C++ and C#.

Our primary focus has been to assist our financial clients to achieve their business objectives in the domains of clearing & settlement of loans, trading & market technology, low latency /co-location architecture, financial regulatory and compliance, credit and risk management.

5)      How are the new immigration rules affecting us?  U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued updated guidance to adjudication officers to clarify what constitutes a valid employer-employee relationship to qualify for the H-1B ‘specialty occupation’ classification.  The memorandum clarifies such relationships, particularly as it pertains to independent contractors, self-employed beneficiaries, and beneficiaries placed at third-party worksites. The memorandum is titled: “Determining Employer-Employee Relationship for Adjudication of H-1B Petitions, Including Third-Party Site Placements:  Additions to Officer’s Field Manual (AFM) Chapter 31.3(g)(15)(AFM Update AD 10-24).”  In addition to clarifying the requirements for a valid employer-employee relationship, the memorandum also discusses the types of evidence petitioners may provide to establish that an employer-employee relationship exists and will continue to exist with the beneficiary throughout the duration of the requested H-1B validity period.  The Memo was dated January 8, 2010

A copy of the Memo and Questions & Answers: USCIS Issues Guidance Memorandum on Establishing the "Employee-Employer Relationship" in H-1B Petitions can be found by click link below:

USCIS Memo and Questions & Answers link

We have been frequently asked: How has MTA been affected by the updated guidance issued by the USCIS?  MTA has not been negatively affected by the guidance.  MTA only works with large, direct clients in the financial service industry sector.  We do not provide consultants to other consulting firms for them to place at their clients.

The guidance update has actually led to more consultants wanting to transfer their H-1B status to MTA directly. In instances were MTA has used H-1B subcontracted labor from secondary preferred suppliers and those vendors have needed to renew those workers H-1B status; we have experienced no difficulties navigating through the process of getting those individuals renewed.

6)      What going on with rates?  As stated in our answer to question number 3, if you are a good consultant with in demand skills it has become a consultant’s market.  As a result, we have been seeing the upward rise of rates due to the market.  Some candidates have finally been willing to leave their current positions due to the job market and what they perceive as a more stable market that is short on quality.  But, it is taking money to entice them to take the risk.   Within our client base we have seen a 15 to 20 percent increase in compensation and rates when they are looking to move from their current assignments.  However, clients have been much less willing to give increases to consultants already on billing.  Is it worth the risk to move? 

Our experience has not been unique, earlier this year Accenture reported improved outlook for consultant billing rates, and that they expect 2010 margins to improve slightly over 2009. Also earlier this year, Janco Associates Inc.’s salary survey states “The Mid-Year 2010 IT Salary Survey is good news for IT Professionals.  The survey shows that hiring is picking up in some sectors of the IT job market, salaries have stopped falling, and for selected positions there has been an increase in compensation”.  

7)      What is new at Merritt Technical Associates, Inc.?  New at Merritt Technical Associates, Inc. is the return of Alpona Nanda.  She has returned after a short absence to MTA after working for MTAfor 7 years.  She brings back a very strong background within the financial industry as a technical recruiter and very strong foundation relationships.  We have been busy with recruitment at MTA, creating new relationships and maintaining existing relationships as well as upgrading technology.  We are in the process of expanding our team and feel the next few quarters will be exciting at MTA.   MTA is constantly evaluating new processes and procedures to keep up with the ever changing business conditions.  We feel that our ability to adjust with the market keeps us ahead of our competition.

8)      What do we see as future activities with clients in our focus (financial clients)?  With a client base that includes financial institutions and capital market participants, we feel that there is a solid potential for growth in the future. It has been confirmed by the human resource departments of various banking and financial institutes that they anticipate growth with future hiring.

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. had been very actively hiring in 2009 and continued the same in the first 3 quarters of 2010. The same hiring activity was witnessed within Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley’s retail brokerage joint venture (JV) with Citigroup Inc..  Latest reports show that as of June 30, 2010, the Morgan Stanley’s headcount stood at 62,926, which is up 2.8% from the prior year. Similarly, Barclays Plc has added 3,600 people in the last 12 months and Credit Suisse Group has hired 1,300 new staff in the same period.

All these activities support the fact that there has been a strong growth in the hiring activities within the financial sector.  However at this time, the fourth quarter is looking to be slower in 2010 as many of the financial sector firms are beginning to slow their hiring and reduce their workforces. Again the layoffs are not to be in technology.  But... 

9)      What technology skills do we see as the being in the biggest demand in the future?  The 3 Tier Architecture

Any piece of software can be subdivided into the following areas:

Presentation logic = User Interface, displaying data to the user, accepting input from the user.

Business logic = Business Rules, handles data validation and task-specific behavior.

Data Access logic = Database Communication, constructing SQL queries and executing them via the relevant API.

Note that there is no direct communication between the presentation and data access layers - everything must go through the business layer in the middle.  When this architecture is implemented the benefits will become apparent as more code can be shared instead of being duplicated. Several components in the presentation layer can share the same component in the business layer, and all components in the business layer share the same component in the data access layer. This architecture allows the code within any one of the layers to be changed without affecting any of the other layers.

10)     How does Merritt Technical Associates, Inc. differentiate itself from its competitors? MTA’s clients are Fortune 500 firms in the financial services industry. They are some of the biggest and best users of our industries services.  We say that MTA’s Differentiators are Quality, Automation, Client Relationships and Technology Knowledge.  But, how do we do it?  How does MTA differentiate ourselves? 

MTA’s differentiators start at the very root of what we do and continues all the way through to the end.  At the beginning our website with its black background and white text has rich content, permitting you to scroll through various text and pages to find details. Information is available right from the homepage. A simple mouse over will link you to what you are looking for. Whether it is MTA’s Current Opportunities, MTA’s Interviewing Tips, the MTA Forum, or an email address for one of MTA’s Recruiters; they can all be found right there. The core components of the site are front and center. At the center of MTA’s focus are its clients and consultants. This can be seen with its key icons or site anchors - MTA’s help wanted sign – a complete listing of MTA’s and its clients’ current requirements and opportunities, MTA’s Uncle Sam poster-asking consultants to provide and update their contact details and resumes, money raining from our referral plan and our News Boy distributing MTA's latest news.

MTA’s staff is some of the most experienced in the industry. It is that experience, which allows us to have built a recruiting process that starts with a business model of “client intimacy”; we have aligned our business to support a small number of major clients with a single industry focus.  If you want to do something well, with quality you need to have focus.  MTA focuses on the financial industry "Biggest and Best" users of Information Technology that use consultants and spend 40% of their IT budgets on staffing, development and maintenance.  We stand committed to Customer intimacy, superior quality, state of the art automation and empowerment of our people at point of Customer contact.

MTA’s differentiators really become apparent to our candidates, clients and vendors when we begin to work with them and finally engage with them. At the beginning, it starts with every candidate needing to respond to a submittal authorization; a document that confirms details about who, what, when and where they will be submitted to.  It continues on to the resume, in which MTA reformats into a standard document that again focus on providing quality about the candidates into a quality document that address the needs of our clients.

Our differentiation continues throughout the interview process, by providing interview tips and in-person interview preparation.  We create an open partnership policy that includes both technical and financial transparency. The partnership continues all the way through the hiring process and finally, through the most important, the compensation process.