Online advice: professional company seeks IT director

An online recruitment service to help law firms find IT directors is to launch in November.

John Irving, independent IT consultant and founder of Professional IT Staff.com, said the site was aimed at helping professions, such as accounting and law, fill the IT gap.

Irving insists: "Law firms find it extremely difficult to find IT staff. The legal market is highly specialised and to recruit good IT staff is hard. Most IT people like stepping stones in their careers and the legal IT market is not known to fit this remit. It is seen as niche."

But not all the blame can be attributed to IT staff. As Irving explained: "It is only in the last few years that law firms have seen IT as a strategic area and recognised the need to pay good money to get good staff. It is also only recently that law firms' offices have been big and complex enough to whet IT professionals appetites."

The site will offer employees career advice and a place to post CVs as well as allowing prospective employers the chance to browse amongst candidates.