All over San Francisco, famously host to a cycle of boom-and-bust since the Gold Rush days, the debate continues in coffee shops and boardrooms as to whether this latest tech boom will soon turn into yet another bubble doomed to pop, dashing dreams all around.
Most people I talk with argue that the current explosion in innovative startups differs substantially from the dot.com boom of the 90s, which of course didn't turn out so well.
One of those well placed to comment on current trends around employment in the tech sector -- beyond engineers -- is Carolyn Betts, CEO of Betts Recruiting LLC in downtown San Francisco.
Betts concentrates on filling sales, marketing, and business development positions in the tech sector, and she says business is booming.
"Every single day, without fail, at least one to three new companies reach out to us," she told me during a recent telephone conversation. "These companies typically want to fill anywhere from five to 35 new positions."
Betts works with everyone from startups to small and medium sized clients, with headcounts numbering up to a few hundred full-time employees. Clients include Box, Zendesk, ClearSlide and Fuzebox.
"More and more of these companies are getting their funding from VCs and they need to hire people to generate revenue," she observes.
Most all of those getting hired these days, she says, are "Gen Y'ers, in their 20s and 30s, and they are technically savvy."
Betts maintains a good relationship with BranchOut, the professional networking service built on top of Facebook that we've covered at 7x7.com. "It is a good way to find good people who are not necessarily looking for a new job," she observes.
The recruiting startup has been hiring people itself, and now sports a staff of 16. And as far as its founder is concerned, 2012 is going to be a year of sustained growth throughout this sector.
"With the Facebook IPO coming soon, the VCs seem more and more confident that all of the lines are headed up and to the right," says Betts, envisioning a positive trajectory for our current tech boom, one (that I might add), still doesn't have a name.
