IT contractor Mark Thomas, who found his most recent assignment on Dice, says that getting good gigs in Phoenix is "the same as anywhere else. You have to have a high skill level and be flexible on your scheduling." His sensible advice: Gravitate toward industries that are recession-proof. "I would go for something in the health care field, the food industry, or maybe education," he says. "In this area, the hospitality business is big because it's a tourist destination, but that industry may be affected by a nationwide economic downturn."

For now, hiring in Phoenix looks steady. The quarterly Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, which cuts across all industries, says that from October to December, 46 percent of the companies interviewed plan to hire more employees, according to Manpower
spokesperson Jeff Schander.

Meanwhile, IT staffing consultancy Robert Half Technology's fourth-quarter IT Hiring Index found that 13 percent of the city's CIOs plan to make new hires this quarter, slightly above the national average for all cities the firm tracks.

At Dice, job listings for Phoenix now number more than 1,700, an all-time high. They were up 9 percent during the third quarter, after an impressive 22 percent rise in the second. Meanwhile, the annual Milken Institute Best Performing Cities Index, which measures an area's ability to create and maintain jobs, ranks Phoenix at number 4 of 200 major metro areas.

What IT skills does the city need? "Though Phoenix was once an area that primarily produced positions supporting large call centers and data centers, it has gradually grown into an environment in which all aspects of the software development life cycle can be developed and maintained," says Jason Miller, the city's branch manager for IT recruiter Sapphire Technologies. "Now Java and .NET positions are prevalent, along with project management and business analysis needs. And recently the demand within the valley for SAP specialists has also increased."

According to the annual AeA Cyberstates survey, Arizona remains a critical location for the semiconductor industry, which provided 22,700 jobs in 2005, making it the fourth-ranked state nationwide. Engineering and computer systems design and related services have also been on an upswing. In 2006, $252 million in venture capital came to Arizona, up 59 percent from 2005, and the state hosts 5,900 high-tech establishments, ranking it at number 18 nationally.

"The jump in venture capital in Arizona combined with net high-tech job growth for the second year in a row sends a clear signal that Arizona's economy is booming and ripe for high-tech innovation and investment," said Bill Hinz, chief executive of BioCair and former President of Allied Signal Aerospace, in the Cyberstates report. "We are steadily increasing our national presence in sectors like defense electronics and semiconductor manufacturing as the technology industry expands."

Job hunters are advised to investigate some of Arizona's largest employers, many of which are familiar names in technology. They include Honeywell, Raytheon, Banner Health, Intel and Wells Fargo. Sapphire's Miller also points out lots of activity at the Arizona Technology Council, where IT experts can get a good sense of what's going on in Phoenix and around the state. "When you have leading companies from so many different industries band together in an effort to continually drive the local marketplace, great things are bound to happen," he says.