Verify founder and managing director Cathal Grogan said the company had assembled a panel of IT professionals to help clients source and assess candidates. ‘‘The premise behind our expert panel is that expert skills can only really be assessed by experts.

These are independent and practising experts in their chosen field,” said Grogan.

‘‘The fact that we have people who are out there facing those challenges and resolving them, as part of our recruitment process, gives the client assurance that candidates coming through us are the best fit for the role.”

‘‘The pace of change, both in terms of technology and business acumen, is increasing all the time. If you are not out there in the middle of it every day, it is hard for you as a recruiter to identify people for a role,” he said.

‘‘Recruitment professionals do not necessarily have the skills or experiences themselves to recognise when a candidate has a suitable profile for the role they are looking to fill.

‘‘I have visited the headhunters and senior appointment divisions of other recruitment companies, but typically I was talking to people who did not have the same achievements or experience as I did. I felt that I might not be truly represented to any potential employer out there, or my experiences would not be matched correctly.”

Members of Verify’s 60strong expert panel include:

Fergus Donohoe, co-founder of Smart Telecom; Jayne McTiernan, former operations director of Merrill Lynch in Dublin; and Derek Hardiman, ex-chief executive of Zero Touch and client technology director of Smart Force.

‘‘I have a large network of people who are very successful in their own careers and who are typically high achievers in their roles, whether in technology or business delivery,” Grogan said.

‘‘We have chief information officers, managing directors, directors of IT and vice-presidents of project management.

They come from a wide range of industries – financial services, telecoms, enterprise software and public sector.”

Grogan said Verify’s panel could help companies seeking specific skill-sets to define the parameters of the role on offer and identify the best candidates.

‘‘When we come across a role that needs to be filled, we identify the people on the panel who are practising in that role today. They help us to put role definitions together that are comprehensive and meaningful for candidates,” he said.

‘‘More importantly, we use the experts in the recruitment process to do the final assessment of the candidate, so all candidates that come through us are qualified and have the credentials to do the job.”

Grogan said Verify’s unique approach could also help to guide candidates through the recruitment process.

‘‘The candidate has the opportunity to talk about the role with the expert panel member – to discuss the challenges of the role, what issues might be faced and what sorts of competencies would be important,” he said.

Grogan said employers needed expert help to recruit people for top IT roles. ‘‘It is a very candidate-rich environment.

The competition for roles is fierce. Senior people with lots of experience are finding it difficult to find a fit for their skills, as so many people are applying for roles.”

Verify employs four staff at its Dublin offices. ‘‘We are small administratively, but our expert panel gives us a large resource pool, and the flexibility to deal with expected peaks and troughs over time,” Grogan said. ‘‘We placed the IT director into a global IT company recently, and we are also working with an international finance company in Dublin filling a senior business change position.

‘‘That we can give candidates a high-calibre endorsement is certainly the differentiator for us in the success we have had so far.” Grogan said that the company would expand into other markets within the next 18 months. ‘‘We are targeting telcos, software and financial services, as well as any companies investing in new technologies and initiatives.

‘‘In terms of areas, we see opportunities in business intelligence , C RM, cloud computing, security, social media, green technology and collaboration,’’ said Grogan.