The North Carolina Technology Association says IT job opportunities there increased 20.6 percent from February to March. The competition for standout tech professionals in the state is encouraging companies to be more aggressive than usual in their recruiting. At the upcoming Tech Jobs under the Big Top recruiting event in Durham, 12 up-and-coming businesses will pitch their employment opportunities. They include Argyle Social, Bandwidth, Bronto, Geomagic, inMotionNow, Netsertive, Sageworks, SciQuest, Shoeboxed, Two Toasters, WebAssign and Wireless Generation. Among the people they're looking for are QA engineers, UX designers, PHP software engineers, Java platform engineers, .NET developers and application development managers. Between them, 75 positions are available. Raleigh topped Dice's recent list of fastest-growing cities for technology jobs. The circus party, focused on job seekers interested in early-stage software development, will be April 26 in Bay 7 of American Tobacco, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. There's a $5 ticket charge, but buy early, since two previous Big Top events sold out.