Another jobs boost as HP confirms 50 high-tech posts

Date Published: 13-Apr-2011

Computer giant Hewlett Packard is to create 50 new jobs at its European Software Centre in Ballybrit – this is on top of the 105 positions announced last December.

The company was so impressed with the quality of applicants and the speed in which the positions were filled just four months ago that it decided to launch a new recruitment drive to work on the same programme, explained the managing director of HP Galway, Mark Gantley.

For the 105 jobs, over 400 top-end resumés were logged.

“When you advertise for positions in Galway you are not just drawing from the Galway career pool, but also from the national and international pool. Galway is seen as a very attractive place to locate to. Last time we also hit the Christmas market and attracted people who were here on holidays and would consider moving home,” he explained.

“This sends out a very strong message to HP Corporate – on the map Galway doesn’t look that big but we can attract the highest quality people in a very short space of time. When they come here they see the lifestyle arguments at first hand so Galway is in a very, very strong place on the global front.”

The world’s largest technology company is looking for recent engineering graduates, senior engineers, business analysts and data architects and the recruits will work on a large complex corporate engineering programme.

Mr Gantley explained that the programme involves developing HP’s cloud platform, which enables the company to provide remote support for thousands of enterprise customers using its computing technology.

The 50 people are being sought immediately in order to meet what HP describes as “fairly aggressive targets” set by the company to develop the programme.

The investment is being supported by the Government through IDA Ireland.

There are 550 people working in the Ballybrit plant, including those on contracts. Mr Gantley said the percentage of its workforce being made permanent was increasing.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.