TEKSystems: Recruiter Tom Stack says Microsoft smart phones will outnumber iPhones by 2015 and wants to hire you to make it happen

Tom Stack is a little like the Jerry Maguire of Microsoft recruiting, minus the whole fish tank breakdown.
At TEKsystems, his job in Baltimore city—as well as the surrounding counties and Washington,. D.C.—is to connect companies in need of Microsoft specialists with people who are Microsoft specialists in .NET applications development, SQL server-based data warehousing and SharePoint.
You know, he wants you to help him, help you.

Stack says there are nearly 35,000 such specialists in the Maryland and D.C. area, 600 of whom now work in the Baltimore area and in the city proper at places like Videology in Locust Point and Constellation Energy downtown.
Stack’s job is a new one at TEK, itself a subsidiary of the Hanover, MD-headquartered Allegis Group, which, with 90 offices scattered throughout the U.S., boasts itself as the largest IT staffing services company in the nation. (Allegis is the umbrella firm that houses a number of staffing services focused on specific specialties. It was originally Aerotek, the company co-founded and owned by majority owner of the Baltimore Ravens Steve Bisciotti.)
“There’s a huge market for Microsoft professionals,” says Stack, 28, a native of Baltimore County who now works out of TEK’s field office in Linthicum in Anne Arundel County. “[TEK] decided they wanted to have a dedicated support service division that focuses on supporting those professionals that have a Microsoft background.”
His position, barely two months old, makes Stack a Microsoft-recruiting point person, one of six TEKsystems has in different regions nationwide. Three things in particular set TEKsystems’ recruiting program apart:

1. A global talent acquisition center in India staffs sourcing specialists who troll job boards in search of people with Microsoft skill sets who are actively looking for jobs.
2. A partnership with Populus Group, which sponsors and transfers H1-B visas for foreigners coming into the U.S. to work.
3. A Microsoft Technical Professional Referral Program, through which people can acquire up to Top Secret security clearances for jobs with defense contractors working with the federal government.

While Stack’s job is to meet clients and candidates throughout the mid-Atlantic, he says there’s “so much business in Baltimore, I haven’t even gotten out of Baltimore really.” He attends TechBreakfasts and other events to meet developers searching for work and human resources people at various companies.
In Charm City alone, Stack works with some 60 different clients—all companies presently looking or soon looking for hire-able Microsoft specialists. Reports have estimated that more than 59,000 IT jobs are available in the Baltimore area.
As Technically Baltimore reported last week in our interview with LCG Technologies’ Ed Mullin, .NET and SharePoint developers appear to be in short supply in the area. And, lest anyone think Microsoft is for fuddy-duddies in serious need of a MacBook Air, Gartner predicts that Microsoft smart phones will be more popular than Apple iPhones by 2015.
Ultimately, TEKsystems hopes to cultivate longterm relationships with .NET, SharePoint and Microsoft-savvy developers in the region and help them find jobs in Baltimore and D.C. as they become available.
“We already knew that the talent was out there and we already had the clients that needed those technologies and those skill sets,” says Stack. “But [TEKsystems] didn’t have someone that really understood what they were working with or the technologies they were getting in to. They really wanted someone to be a subject-matter expert.”