EMC has indicated its desire to expand the current pool of engineers for its new development laboratory in Singapore by November this year.
This comes after the company announced its plans to invest $250m in its Singapore lab over the next 5 years. The lab will conduct the IT industry’s most rigorous, end-to-end interoperability and integration testing, spanning every major server platform, infrastructure software component and networking element. According to EDB’s 2006 figures, the data storage industry comprised 14% of the entire $73b IT engineering industry.
The decision to establish the data storage and information systems lab in Singapore was a testament of the country’s “advanced R&D infrastructure and talent base which are able to undertake highly knowledge-intensive and complex activities,” managing director of the Economic Development Board, Ko Kheng Hwa, said.
To staff this lab, the company will look to hire 100 engineers for its R&D laboratory when it is scheduled for its opening on November 7th this year. It has since achieved one-third of its target, with an approximate 30 engineers now working at its temporary facility with their partner Seagate.
According to the vice president of integration and interoperability, Paul Brown, EMC’s hiring strategies were to “look for experienced engineers who work here in Singapore” In addition, EMC is working with universities to bring students on board. “EMC will have a combination of experienced engineers who come from the community as well as hire directly from the universities here.” Brown estimated that the company which currently hires 40% of experienced hires will employ up to 60% of fresh graduates.
Brown also said the company has not encountered any major challenges in terms of recruiting. “We’ve been very successful thus far. We’ve had a lot of candidates and enthusiasm about EMC – so that’s been a great draw for us.”
Brown added it was currently a hot job market for those with relevant job experience. “With regard to attracting the right talent, we’ve done that well through our own human resources team as well as a small use of headhunting firms. In addition to pairing up with universities and attracting students, our recruiting strategies have all been very effective for us.”
