The Insider eyes jobs in OC’s still-hot tech sector

The Insider hears that Orange’s Bill Campbell has the inside track on becoming the next GOP Assembly leader, right after this week’s election The dot-com demise hasn’t cooled off OC’s red-hot market for tech talent. The B2B, systems and software sectors all remain strong. Signing and retention bonuses, recruitment incentives and creative perks remain the norm. “People are just stealing from other people,” said Laura Cross, of tech-temp firm Zebra Net Technical Solutions Network in Irvine. “Recruiters call up and say, ‘What are you making? I can pay you $10,000 more.'” Signing bonuses of $5,000 are commonplace, and seldom lock up a hire for more than six months. Cross said one company gave a technical project manager a bonus equal to his low-six-figure salary just to get him to stay. Employees typically get $500 to $2,500 for referring a hire; some companies sweeten the deal with car raffles. Cross said most competent senior Web developers, systems architects, project managers and analysts are making at least $100,000 a year, but still there aren’t enough of them: “I have a client who has four contract recruiters and 31 vendors and subscribes to 15 boards, and even then they’re not getting the resumes they need.” What’s “the heart of downtown Irvine, Calif.”? According to a press release out of Chicago on SEI Information Technology’s new OC office, it’s 19000 MacArthur Blvd. Young at heart: Pioneering OC doc Milo Tedstrom, first chief of staff at Hoag Hospital and the first doctor at St. Joseph Hospital, turns 100 this month. “I have trouble keeping up with him,” marvels Jim Doti, prez of Chapman U., a beneficiary of Tedstrom’s generosity.