Veredus Corp. to open Raleigh office

An IT staffing company based in Tampa, Fla., is opening an office in Raleigh and looking to place 30 workers within the next year.

Veredus Corp., which has offices in Tampa, Atlanta and Maitland, Fla., will open its office off Six Forks Road on March 2. The privately held company says the Raleigh office is the first of 10 new offices it hopes to open around the country, with the ultimate goal of growing to $100 million in revenue.

“We really look at Raleigh as just a wonderful opportunity,” says David Hull, one of the partners in the company.

This is not a good time for the North Carolina IT job market, according to the North Carolina Technology Association. NCTA released a report this week saying that North Carolina’s tech job market is “collapsing,” with the number of open positions falling more than 50 percent in the 12 months ending in January, to 1,390.

Raleigh is faring slightly better than the rest of the state, however. Job opportunities in the area were down only 14.3 percent between December and January, compared to about 20 percent across the state.

“Where a lot of people see concern, we see opportunity,” Hull says of the recession. “Yeah, there’s chaos – everything we read in the newspaper is doom and gloom – but we really feel there’s an opportunity to grow and compete.”

Veredus’ four partners founded the company in January 2001. Nine months later were the terror attacks of Sept. 11. Hull says economic downturns are “sort of in our DNA.”

For Veredus' sake, competition should be, too. Triangle Business Journal research lists more than two dozen technology staffing firms in the region, many of which place dozens or even hundreds of workers every year.

But Hull says he’s confident about his company’s ability to, as he puts it, “go out and take market share.”

“We’re the number one player in Tampa, we’re the number one player in Orlando, and we hope, in a couple years, we’ll be the same in Raleigh,” he says.

Veredus, which Hull says brought in $38 million in 2008 revenue on the placement of about 720 workers, touts its “high-value” business. The company prescreens its job candidates, giving them technical assessments in core skills. It also puts potential employers in touch with candidates’ professional references.

Hull claims those service differentiate Veredus from many IT staffing firms, which he says “shop paper” and aren’t hands-on with their job candidates.

The Veredus office will be located at The Forum office park in north Raleigh. The address is 8601 Six Forks Road, suite 400.

Triangle Business Journal, February 20, 2009.