This is the latest in the month I have ever done this column and it reflects the many holidays that have occurred (remember the Republicans were in town? And Labor Day?) It was just too hard to reflect on what had occurred during the previous month and share it with you.
The Republican convention resulted in a brief lull; commuter trains were empty. the streets of Manhattan were full of police and not workers. That Monday, I arrived in Pen n Station on a LIRR train that had 10% of its usual ridership in my car and I spread out to sleep. Then, when we arrived in Penn Station, we were greeted by the shopw of force--what looked like several hundred police and other law enforcement personnel from differnt agencies.
Even if you went to the office, few interviews occurred.
Now we have the new month--consulting firms are hiring staff and consultants, financial firms are hiring, almost every sector is back in play.
Who's still hurting in this market? The older worker. Older workers who have evolved into managerial positions where they led people who did "stuff" are in less demand than their staff. This is pretty common in recoveries and is not attributal to offshoring (in my opinion). Why? The greatest value to off-shoring is in lower priced staff labor of differing technical skills; these people are back to being hired in the US but their managers are not. The consulting firms want people who can help rainmake (sell) business and then manage delivery. These people are (generally) not salesmen.
Large financial firms are doing their vendor evaluations for 2005 and that suggests a ramp up. I wonder what would happen if Kerry actually won? Would staffing be held back while firms figured out what his economic policy was going to yield (or rescind from Bush)?
For senior professionals, I have counseled networking and getting yourself back to work in any way you can because 2005 will be better (barring terrorism and a Kerry win).
