Big Names Backing IT-Employment Marketplace

Key execs from customer-relationship management and enterpriseresource planning powerhouses such as Oracle and PeopleSoft Inc. are investing $3.5 million in IQ4hire Inc., a specialty IT- employment marketplace. IQ4hire is still pulling together its exchange, which will focus on CRM and ERP professional services.

Among the investors are Ray Lane, president and chief operating officer of Oracle; Dave Duffield, chairman of PeopleSoft; Ken Ross, founder of Extricity Software; and Anthony Abbattista, a partner at Diamond Technology Partners Inc., an E-commerce consulting firm.

IQ4hire's exchange is expected to go live May 1 with the resources needed to hire teams of people proficient in technology from Oracle and Siebel Systems Inc. technology, according to Vinnie Mirchandani, president of IQ4hire.

Despite the increasing number of online exchanges that offer access to IT talent and services providers, IQ4hire is the only one at this point specifically for staffing CRM projects, according to John Hagerty, a VP with AMR Research. People with skills in a specific kind of software "are a commodity, and the market for contracted personnel in these areas is very strong," Hagerty says.

At IQ4hire's site, customers will be able to get information about particular products as well as pricing and billing rates for current implementation projects. The company also is building a planning piece that lets customers calculate costs based upon the size of their company, number of users, number of locations that will be running a particular application, and the number of interfaces plugging into that software. As the marketplace matures, IQ4hire says, it plans to add opportunities for buying the talents of IT professionals experienced with E-procurement and other much-in-demand disciplines.