One of the biggest challenges facing employers in Bermuda today is the recruitment and retention of skilled young Bermudian professionals.

But it is a challenge that local company Independent Consulting Solutions (ICS) is meeting head on, by taking on young Bermudian Kian Butterfield as a support consultant and with another, Mike Simons, signing up to work alongside him in the same role only this week.

And now the technology services consulting company, which is based just off Bermudiana Road, is looking to boost its compliment of Bermudian staff even further, according to president and CEO of ICS, Robert Salmon.

"It is a big challenge for companies here," said Mr. Salmon. "We are very interested in recruiting young Bermudians into the fold."

He said the benefits of employing local talent were that it is quicker to get them in the door, there are no issues with immigration and no term limits imposed on them.

But, on the downside, Mr. Salmon admitted, there are very few of them, those that there are available are very difficult to find, and there is a lot of competition, not only between local companies, but against big international firms because the demand is so high.

Mr. Salmon, who currently has three Bermudians on his payroll or 20 percent of the company's workforce, however, declared he is happy to have Mr. Butterfield and Mr. Simons pairing up as a team, with both having the same skills and having studied together at the same college in Canada. "Being former class-mates, I think it is going to build some good camaraderie together," he said.

"As a company, we are looking to grow beyond Bermuda — we are a Microsoft partner and won an award back in July last year that gave us global exposure and the success that we had sought.

"We are delivering applications now in Spanish, French and English and we have customers globally, so it has become a home-grown success story that has gone beyond Bermuda and has gained a lot of popularity outside of the Island."

And Mr. Salmon has called on educational establishments such as Bermuda College to raise the bar for vocational courses such as IT in a bid to get more qualified and certified students into the industry.

"As an employer, I am interested to see what places like Bermuda College could do in respect to becoming more vocational in doing courses like IT," he said. "I do not see why Bermuda College cannot do what places like CompuCollege in Canada is doing."

Mr. Butterfield, who is a Microsoft Certified Professional and Certified Novell Administrator, is currently working towards his Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and Citrix certifications.

He will report directly to Mr. Salmon and the chief operating officer, as well as being responsible for all aspects of the eVolution Application Service Provider platform.

Mr. Butterfield has a Diploma as a Information System Specialist from CompuCollege in Halifax, Nova Scotia and prior to that attended CedarBridge Academy, as well as gaining work experience at RenassainceRe and Decisions. He followed in the footsteps of a member of his family who also worked at ICS.

"My suggestion to any young Bermudian out there thinking about getting into IT is to take yourself to the next level if you are interested in computers," he said.

"I believe that in Bermuda there is a lot of opportunity to get good jobs and to gain a lot of experience because it is such an international business centre with all the re/insurance companies around on the Island and technology is taking over here, let alone the world at the moment.

"If you do work here, you also have the option to travel to other parts of the business elsewhere in the world and go to other companies within companies."