Remember when liberal arts degrees could fetch near-six-figure salaries?
Though Orange County technology companies still are paying big bucks for seasoned executives and promising engineers, they now are saying something unthinkable a year ago: We have our pick of people.
As struggling companies prune fat, some of OC’s biggest names have sounded a bullish horn where they once quivered.
“We’re seeing some significant responses. People are talking to us more,” said Mark Jorgenson of Tustin’s TDK Semiconductor Corp., a unit of Japan’s TDK Corp.
In fact, TDK said it doesn’t even need to use technology headhunting firms,a sharp break from a couple of years ago. Tech headhunters had been making a killing finding people, often charging as much as 25% of the new employees’ salaries as a commission.
“We’re moving away from relying on placement agencies and headhunters and are placing more ads directly in newspapers,” Jorgenson said. TDK’s ads in local newspapers are generating more responses than in recent years, sometimes as long as four months after they appeared, he said.
“And we’re seeing higher-caliber people as well,” Jorgenson added.
And some of that talent has migrated from an unlikely source.
“I’d say we’re seeing more marketing and engineering candidates from the Bay area,” said Dick Ballagh, the vice president of human resources for Irvine chip start-up 3DSP Corp.
With some of the Bay area’s largest names laying off thousands of employees, some engineers, marketers and executives have found a safe harbor in OC.
But not every candidate who applies gets a job. OC employers have refined their hiring tastes, only bringing candidates with specific skills on board.
“The person has to have a particular talent. We don’t just hire generic types of people,” Ballagh said. “Now I’m seeing more experienced people apply.”
Some OC companies,like Irvine-based Rainbow Technologies Inc.,have frozen hiring of all but the most talented people.
Conexant Systems Inc. of Newport Beach also has become more judicious.
“This would not be a good time to move around if you were thinking of looking for a job,” Conexant spokeswoman Lisa Briggs said.
The present tone among OC employers is in stark contrast to last year, when freshly funded tech hopefuls lured talent,young and old, tech and non-tech,with a potent cocktail of salaries, bonuses and stock options. Technology’s tanking in the past 12 months has all but stopped the exuberant bidding.
Technology layoffs,even among venerable OC names such as Kingston Technology Co., Gateway Inc. and Toshiba America Information Systems Inc.,have given employees a taste of reality. But that doesn’t mean that employers have free rein.
Irvine-based Broadcom Corp., Conexant and TDK,among a host of other OC companies,still are looking for engineers and salespeople. They say job seekers no longer want lucrative options packages. They want cold hard cash.
TDK Semiconductor plans a public offering later this year or early next year but still is having to offer lush salaries to interest quality candidates.
“We have not lowered our salaries just because we’re pursuing an IPO. We’re offering competitive salaries and sign-up bonuses for certain levels,” Jorgenson said.
Engineers can command starting annual salaries ranging from $85,000 to $115,000, according to Christopher Broek, OC branch manager for technology personnel search firm Pacific NetSoft. Some engineers can make as much as $150,000.
“What we could be seeing is a knee-jerk reaction to a bad market,” said Dudley Brown, managing director with Irvine executive search firm Bridgegate. “If things are getting tough, people will start to say, ‘I’ve got a job. I’ll sit tight for now.'”
“It’s a reverse trend,” Broek said. “The IPO trend doesn’t hold the same appeal as it once did. Recently, with the uncertainty in regard to the economy, employees are looking to increase their salaries, by 5% or 10%.”
Companies producing computer hardware such as chips and components have the most pressing need for engineers, Broek said.
But, he said, “From what I can see, this cycle will flip-flop in the next three to four months. A lot of work has been pending and will be moving forward when the economy comes back.”
And despite the economic slowdown, an engineer’s choice on where to work isn’t one-dimensional, say market observers. Salary only is one consideration.
“While the salary has to be in the ballpark, many engineers are much more concerned about what they’re going to work on,” said 3DSP’s Ballagh.
The decision can sometimes be a hard one. Workers who joined Broadcom or Conexant late last year have watched their hopes of flipping vested options upon maturity dwindle with the companies’ share prices. Still, many engineers regard Broadcom,along with other OC chip makers,among the premium companies to work for, intellectually speaking.
“It varies from person to person, but it’s always a combination of what a company has to offer salary-wise and technology-wise,” Broek said “Technology is still a key for most people. They don’t want to get boxed into a twilight technology,one that could become extinct.” n
