ITWire

"It's good to have a constant (cash) flow," she says.

"If you look at recurring revenue then a real solid temp book and a really solid contract book - particularly when you hold those with major clients - is definitely a good place to be in. You still need to balance that with perm because as the economy changes organisations move between temp and perm as they seek to balance their work forces.

"We also have an executive search arm who do higher level placements and they're quite busy at the moment."

As far as its IT client base is concerned, Ross does a lot of work at large IT development shops within banks, telecommunications companies and especially the federal government.

"In both the contracting and consulting spaces we're very fortunate to have a book of vetted contractors and employees'" says Ms Moon.

"We've developed a practice around supplying very secure people government agencies that require high levels of security."

While some other recruiters have noted that both the banking sector and the federal government sector have seen a drop in jobs on offer, Ms Moon sees no real evidence of this as far as the Ross business is concerned.

"Banks are large enough to accommodate a number of sectors. There is quite a difference in the economy in the marketplace in wholesale banking, retail banking and financial planning. If I look right across the banking and finance sector, including the large banks, second tier banks, mortgage institutions and overseas banks, there are specific areas where we've seen some drop off but we've also seen some pick-up in other areas. We've seen more decline in the international banks than the local banks."

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