Content area
Full Text
TWO MONTHS AGO, HIGH tech recruiter Bob Molnar lost a placement for the first time in a decade to a counteroffer by the candidate's current employer. Six weeks later, he nearly lost his second.
The counteroffer scenario is one that recruiters and employers are facing more often as companies mount defensive actions to keep technology executives from fleeing. Firms are also pumping up pay packages to forestall turnover and using stock options in order to keep their technology departments intact.
Driving their anxiety is a demand for high tech managers that has created the strongest seller's market in 20 years.
"Supply and demand in information technology is the most skewed we've seen in more than two decades," says Mr. Molnar, a partner in the information technology practice at Accord Group/Johnson Smith & Knisely.
Large companies have had little problem coming up with bigger and better pay packages. But they can't match the entrepreneurial appeal--or the potential payoff--of a Silicon Alley start-up. And their best efforts seem to be falling short.
Big changes, big money
"It's the difference between making somebody very comfortable and making them a multimillionaire," says John Adams, a compensation consultant with Towers Perrin.
The snowballlng demand for technology specialists has been building for several years, fueled by the growth of the Internet, fears of disaster when computers confront the year 2000, and the breakneck pace of change.
Companies that downsized in the...