Tech City companies including Moo.com, Songkick, Moshi Monsters and Last.fm are coming together for the third Silicon Milkroundabout jobs fair.
The event, which is being run for the third time, offers start-up technology businesses the opportunity to recruit software engineers and designers.
Its maiden event was held in May 2011 when Songkick founders Pete Smith and Ian Hogarth hired a bar in East London. Since then the East London-based music alerts business has closed its third round fundraising of £6.3 million, attracting interest from Silicon Valley venture firm Sequoia Capital.
Taking place on 26/27 May the event is hoping to attract 100 start-ups, with 800 jobs on offer, in a bid to provide smaller companies with access to the talent that often ends up at investment banks and global tech firms.
Smith comments, ‘The real message here is that start-ups represent a category of job choice that many haven’t considered.
‘They may be thinking about working for a bank or big corporate, but rarely will people automatically think about what start-ups are in their area.’
The fair’s two preceding meet-ups have resulted in 185 new job hires, with May’s coming together now offering the added dimension of an extra day dedicated to the areas of product management, visual design and intelligence/analytics.
Smith points out that the event is not about fighting a war with big corporates such as Google and Facebook, but is about taking advantage of the ‘huge pool of talent’ that currently exists in the UK.
Hogarth adds, ‘Because all the start-ups are working together on this, we’re able to present a career category to people – “working for a start-up” – and having one voice means that when great people are figuring out their next career move, we are considered alongside established options.’
Speaking at the launch of the initiative in 2011, Hogarth said, ‘Britain is getting its entrepreneurial mojo back – just look at all the great tech companies that have come out of London in the past few years.’
Details of the event can be found at the website Silicon Milkroundabout.
