Friday, April 03, 2009

The Job Market: April 2009


I didn't make the time to blog about the job market last month instead making time to talk to job hunters and work on a new site (www.freejobsearchtips.info) and the re-launch of TheResumeUniverse.com.

So I have a little bit of catching up to do.

The State of The Job Market (sounds like a Presidential address) is pretty well known:

Job cuts in January were over 740000
Job cuts in February were over 640000
In March, another 633000 workers lost their jobs (ADP believes the number was over 700000; we'll see if the government revises the figures further downward in the next few months

All told, unemployment is reported at 8.5%. That does not include people who are no longer collecting benefits or small business owners who are no longer paying themselves.

Unemployment rates were higher in February than a year earlier in all 372 metropolitan areas surveyed by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics

In summary, more than 13 million people are counted as being out of work and there is little that I am seeing to indicate that the employment picture is improving. Understand that, although my office is hubbed in the Northeast, the work that our firm is doing in recruiting is national in scope. Every part of the country is being severely impacted in every almost every field except one--health care.

Clearly, the health care industry has enormous labor shortages. Positions available are not simply for physicians but nurse practitioners, people to work in hospital administration, pharmacists . . . the list is long and seemingly endless.

Professionals in the energy industry is another high demand area currently.

I think the next demand area is going to be consultants . . . temps . . . people working on a temp-to-perm basis.

You see, comes the summer, companies will be dealing with vacation schedules and work slippages (we have a project due by January and we're already behind on it. Let's get some people in to help). If we sat and one other thing, I think we will have turned the corner. If not, like Punxsutawney Phil (for my overseas readers who may not follow this uniquely American tradition--Phil is a groundhop used to predict whether winter will be short or long), we will be in for a cold winter this year and a tough year next, too.




Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2009 all rights reserved.

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posted by Unknown at 6:13 PM

Thursday, February 12, 2009

The Job Market: February, 2009


"The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin."

From "The Times They Are A-Changin" Bob Dylan

There are so many perfect lyrics for our times in this Dylan song, (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bob+dylan/the+times+they+are+achangin_20021240.html) but the point I want to make is that we have entered a new Presidency and what was clear in the past will no longer be.

You see, the rules under which we have spent the past years are over and this stimulus package, like the fast in the lyrics, will soon leave us last. Not this year. Not next but it is inevitable that when you inflate the currency, you change the way people live their lives and how employers hire.

Until the financial crisis occurred, we knew what to expect--tough talk about spending but lots of it. Business knew what to expect and could plan for it until last summer when two of our largest firms, Goldman Sachs and ATT were unable to borrow money in the markets. Since that time, we entered a deflationary period and consumers stopped spending much.

Jobs started to be cut heavily, hiring slowed down dramatically and the world economy caught the American Contagion.

The plan is for givernment to spend our way out of deflation by creating more government programs or increasing spending on existing ones. This isnot a criticism of infrastructure spending but of the lack of it in the stimuus package. As it stands now, the plan is really a jobs bill for government workers.

The next problem is that to raise the trillions necessary, the government is going to cause interest rates to rise dramatically and cripplethe housing market from a different direction. It's hard to sell your house if rates are over 10% and sovereign wealth funds will stop lending to the US unless rates are high enough to protect them from the losses in purchasing power that will occur during the life of the loan caused by hyper-inflation.

Whether you like him or not, Glen Beck lays out our future problem in this video (ignore the intro; it's garbage)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNS8IY_Td14

Where I'm going ot with this is that the stimulus may create jobs but the wages we'll be paid for them won't be worth much.

Earlier this week, someone emailed me and asked how to plan for the future. I told him that, for now, being mobile was going to be critical. No one has much of an idea of where the jobs will be and what they will be. With this administration spending money on infrastructure and green jobs, you would think civil engineering and "green tech" would boom . . . but for how long when inflaton makes it more and more difficult to plan, to pay our taxes or buy much.

Yes, the times are complicated and answers always have unintended consequences (wasn't that the lesson of communism--you plan for one conclusion and run into a new problem that requires a bandaid that leads to a new one . . . ).

"Come gather round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
Youll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin
Then you better start swimmin
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin."

From "The Times They Are A-Changin" Bob Dylan

© 2009 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.GetYourselfHiredNOW.com

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, JobSearchUniverse.com, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “No B.S. Job Search Advice, or his staffing ezine, “No B.S. Hiring Advice”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.JeffAltman.com.

Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's employment related products

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posted by Unknown at 7:02 AM

Friday, January 02, 2009

The Job Market: January 2009


If you are looking for a job, you already know that the job market is "complicated."

There are lots of jobs available but more than 3 people for every job applying (3 million open positions and over 9 million people looking for a job).

You may not have known the exact numbers but you've got to know it's bad out there.

Companies are giving job applicants two choices when they extend job offers--leave it and take it. There is no negotiating room and "bad offers" aer the norm.

If you work in financial services in the New York area, figure out a way that your family can live without you during the week because that market will not return for quite some time (and may nor even return to the high cost New York area).

Why should it?

The two most successful firms in financial services are Bank of America and JPMorganChase and both have made huge commitments to real estate outside of the region.

What financial services firm is going to be hiring en masse and paying "major money?" Let's look who the leaders were since 9/11:

Bear Stearns: Gone
Lehman Brothers: Gone
Goldman Sachs: They finally went public with 10% job cuts but were clandestinely making cuts for a year
UBS: Alive but hemorrhaging money
Credit Suisse: 5000+ cuts announced prior to the holidays
Barclays: Come on. They couldn;t raise money in the UK two months ago
Hedge Funds: Nope
Private Equity firms: No access to credit/money means no ability to buy businesses or manage marginal businesses through the hurricane that will be 2009 (See Chrysler and Cerberus)

No one has been able to tell me who will pay "major league money"

Unemployment in California is already over 8% (I've seen 8.7% pretty frequently) and headed to double digit levels.

The most pessimistic people I have spoken to or seen quoted are business leaders who anticipate 10% plus unemployment (That means California will be close to 12% or more).

When hiring returns, it will not be in the high coast big cities but in the "B" and C" sites that are lower cost yet, because of technology, can deliver a high return on investment.

Your job is to cut your costs to the bone and survive 2009 working.

As i said to I ex-Lehman person who had severance until February 2010, "After being out of work for a year, do you think you will command the same money as you did in 2008? Of course not! Plus they will think you were incompetent for not finding work for a year."

So be smart and cut your costs proactively and fight like the Dickens to find a job.


NOW!


© 2009 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.GetYourselfHiredNOW.com

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, JobSearchUniverse.com, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “No B.S. Job Search Advice, or his staffing ezine, “No B.S. Hiring Advice”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.JeffAltman.com.

Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's employment related products

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posted by Unknown at 4:08 PM

Friday, November 28, 2008

The Job Market: December 2008


In case you haven't noticed, finding a job has become more complicated. If you're trying to find a job in financial services, you probably have little confidence in the health of your potential employer.

If you have even done a cursory scan of this blog, you'll see that the number of layoff notices has increased quite a bit over the past 18 months. Managerial layoffs have skyrocketed.

We've seen the US government rescue any number of financial institutions recently (most recently Citigroup and no one believes that we are through the worst of times yet.

It kind of reminds me of my first apartment when I was married the first time (I am married to my third wife who is definitely "a keeper"). We would come home at night and turn on the lights and find cockroaches crawling around the sink. The problem was that even if we got rid of those bugs, even if we sprayed our apartment regularly, there would always be more.

The problem with this economy is that there are lots of coackroaches and, frankly, more will keep showing up.  And, it seems, many large firms in numerous industries have their tin cup out asking for money.

Today, we are reading about the automakers; when will the credit card companies start reporting on the increase in defaults and ask for their share?

From a labor market perspective, we are now at the beginning of the downward cycle. Can you afford to ride through a hurrican that could easily last a year and more likely two or more?

When you interview, beyond the ususal questions about the job and your future reponsibilities, you need to ask a new question toward the end of the interview during the part when they ask you whether you have any questions.

The new question to ask is, "I don't have to tell you that we are all reading about a very complicated time in the US economy. How has the economic calamity affected your firm and what would you say are the prospects for its' future?"

Fist of all, you are looking for honesty-- Honesty is measured by whether their answer is consistent with what you research online using Google. The second thing you are looking for is the appearance of sincereity and reflection. You want to work for someone who was sincere with you when you asked a difficult question. After all, don't they expect the same of you during the interview?

Jeff Altman

The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
 TheBigGameHunter@cisny.com
 
 © 2008 all rights reserved.
 
Jeff Altman, The Big  Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

 

He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.GetYourselfHiredNOW.com
 
To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, JobSearchUniverse.com, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “No B.S. Job Search Advice, or his staffing ezine, “No B.S. Hiring Advice”, or to learn about his VIP program,  go to www.JeffAltman.com.

Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's employment related products

 

 


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posted by Unknown at 3:21 PM

Saturday, November 01, 2008

The Job Market: November, 2008


On Tuesday, The United States elects a President


Whether Senator Obama or Senator McCain is elected is irrelevant as far as the job market in 2009 because plans are being put into place NOW by the private sector based upon what they know NOW and not based upon what they hope will be in place in 2009.


What do we know now?


We know that unemployment is now over 6% and, in many states, approaching 7%.


We know that there was a liquidity crisis in the banking system based upon the confluence of a number of events that has resulted in massive international interventions in the banking system to keep it from collapsing globally.

We also know that this is the time of year that companies that are on a calendar year basis are working on their budgets.

We know that layoffs worldwide are increasing as firms try to ride out "the hurricane' that in the US has been the disappearance of the consumer from spending and, internationally has been a slowdown in all forms of spending.

We know that fiscal and monetary policy take " a while" to affect change and that the financial services has been intimately involved with solving the current crisis.


From here on, everything I write is speculation.


I don't see that there is a CFO or corporate executive in their right mind who is going to approve much in the way of new hiring in 2009. If you were in their shoes, you might not even approve much in the way of replacement hiring, let alone authorize any expansion.


If you are one of the almost 7% who is unemployed, I encourage you to hustle to find work or a temporary assignment or something reasonable to your career sooner, rather than later because, frankly, I suspect next year will get "ugly."


I believe that, like in the post 9/11 world New York was the center of the storm, New York, because of the importance of the financial services industry to its financial well-being, will gain be the center of the storm.


If you are someone in the New York area, I encourage you to open yourself up to jobs that involve heavy travel or even relocation. Why? All the major companies in the New York area that we associate with significant hiring and great paying jobs are in financial services and are either not thinking about hiring, laying off large numbers of people or only hiring replacements at what they describe as being "fair salaries" (interpret that as salaries like they would pay in Hartford or to someone who they would hire off-shore).


Why?


Because they can. There is no competition. Wouldn't you do the same thing?


In other parts of the country, the layoff notices are getting larger and more frequent (you can read layoff notices of 100 or more in TheJobMarketBlog.com). They are occurring in almost all sectors of the economy.


State governments are starting to plead their case to Congress for rescues


The automobile industry and airlines are asking for help


The airlines were helped in the post 9/11 world. I expect they will show up soon, too.


State and municipal government workers are starting to be cut (why do they always start with teachers? Why can't they just fire one secretary, administrative assistant and/or commissioner per building).

No matter, the first half to three quarters of next year looks tough for the economy, both in the US and abroad. While the various stimuli start to take hold, few firms will be hiring fewer people.

and here is the hard thing to say to you:

Some of you are going to lose your careers unless you make the difficult choices BEFORE your finances move to critical condition.


© 2008 all rights reserved.

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posted by Unknown at 3:21 PM

Saturday, October 11, 2008

The Job Market: October, 2008


I can't say that I exactly expected this but last August, I warned that the good times, the easy times in job hunting were going to end for a while based upon the affects of the subprime mortgage collapse and the affects of having a new American President. I did not anticipate rising gas prices or the events of the past few weeks with a credit crunch,

I have been warning that the 4th quarter of this year might be the last time you would be able to easily find work. I stand by that except in the New York area where for quite a few, it may already be too late.

New York is the eye of the storm with thousands of jobs already disappearing (Lehman Brothers plus previous Wall Street layoffs) and are going to disappear (Merrill Lynch where I would expect half of their corporate population will disappear once they are integrated with Bank of America)

Beyond New York, the rest of the country is reading about the perfect storm and gambling that the affects will pass it by. Frankly, there is little strategy for it to do than be prepared for a hurricane while gambling it will pass it by.

That's why one of my clients in professional services can speak of having more than 30 senior level positions to recruit for and that whenever he speaks with people, they are still talking about hiring.

Or just, perhaps, it is the scenario where people are hiring in 2008 while they still have headcount/budget for staff and gambling that they can keep who they hire in 2009.

Online job ads showed 200,000 fewer jobs in September. October numbers will be worse.

After all, what CFO is going to approve staffing in 2009? Who is going to sign off on major expenditures given the credit markets?

Would you?

I was shocked to read that both GE and ATT were turned down in the commercial paper markets and needed to raise money privately (that was the deal you may have read about where Warren Buffet loaned $3 Billion to GE).

So I expect 2009 to be a slower year than 2008. Your job, particularly of you are a management level professional, is to ride out the storm.

Firms will hire people who "do stuff". They will be less willing to hire people to "manage people who do stuff" or "think about how stuff could be done better (except external consultants).

And, as I always say when I make these statements, I have been right far more than I have been wrong in this blog and I hope that this time I am wrong.


Jeff Altman

The Big Game Hunter*
 Concepts in Staffing
 TheBigGameHunter@cisny.com
 
 © 2008 all rights reserved.
 
Jeff Altman, The Big  Game Hunter*, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

 

He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.GetYourselfHiredNOW.com  Register at the site and you will receive free copies of The International Job Board List and a Guide to Resume Writing.
 
To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter* is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program,  go to www.jeffaltman.com.

Explore other websites to help your search:

 

*The term, The Big Game Hunter is a registered trademark owned by The Big Game Hunter, Inc..




© 2008 all rights reserved.

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posted by Unknown at 5:07 AM

Sunday, September 07, 2008

September, 2008


Summer is over, the Presidential election is thrust upon us and, I believe, the labor recession will have a bit of a hiatus before it continues.

This week, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment had increased to 6.1% from 5.7%; labor, as a lagging indicator reflects what is further in our past, rather than what is going on right now. Interestingly, many of the cuts seem to be taking place in a sector that many of us will be surprised to hear of cuts occurring in--government. Private sector jobs also continued their downward spiral begun more than a year ago.

Yet, all told, for a few months, I believe hiring will pick up before it crashes next year around mid-year to late next year--an opinion I would be happy to be wrong about--emulating the recession that occurred when President Reagan assumed office in 1980. Whoever is President will be faced with spending that is beyond belief and a need to cut it--it will cause the floor to be cut out from under the US worker and send unemployment up to extraordinary levels.

If you are not subscribed to my ezine, No B.S. Job Search Advice, the September 9th issue will feature an article,
"What to Do Before You Need to Find A Job: 4 Steps to Take Before You Ever Need to Look for Work
." You can subscribe at www.jeffaltman.com


Jeff Altman

The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2008 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.getyourselfhiredNOW.com

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.

Explore more job search products and information

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posted by Unknown at 12:12 PM

Friday, August 01, 2008

The Job Market August, 2008


It was a year ago Sunday that the sub-prime mortgage crisis became part of our vocabulary as sub-prime residential mortgage defaults began to implode upon lenders. It was on that day, that I watched CNBC as the events were unfolding and learned that our financial institutions had no way of valuing their mortgage derivative products when all hell started to break loose.

Since January 1, 2008, approximately 500,000 jobs were lost in the United States (Many of the layoff notices of 100 or more are chronicled at www.thejobmarketblog.com) . Many thousands more occurred in the 4th quarter of last year as financial houses like Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, UBS, CS First Boston and Lehman Brothers started to melt down. If you or friends of yours work or have worked there , you have heard the tales of woe from them.

Although official numbers suggest we are not in recession, unemployment in the US is now at 5% but the more telling statistic is that more than 9% of workers are now either unemployed or working part time, rather than full time as they wish. It is, as I suggested, the beginning of a complicated time in the US as the economy is choked by lack of credit.

It is also the beginning of complicated times for the world economy--China's China National Petroleum Corporation, will layoff 80,000 workers in the next 3 years. Siemens announced cuts of almost 17,000. Ericsson announced 4,000. Alcatel-Lucent is chopping 4,000 of its own.

For older, more expensive workers, in particular, the goal is to find a job and live to another day. In a little while, I will have a product available for you called, "How to Survive a Layoff Like A Pro" to help you avoid layoffs, if possible, and manage yourself and your expectations until you find your next job.

In the mean time, I encourage you not to have unreasonable expectations of salary offers because, frankly, companies have choices again these days and they don't have to pay you big increases or sign on bonuses.

Someone else will accept the job offer for less.

You might also order a copy of my ebooks, Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter's Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That!" and "Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!" Both are available by clicking here

You need every tool you can get your hands on because in this market talented people are going to find themselves out of work for long periods of time.

Don't wait until your family finances are in shambles. Learn what you need to and get help wherever you can so you can get to work as fast as possible.

Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2008 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.
He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.getyourselfhiredNOW.com

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.
Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's products in "The Universe" series
Plus

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posted by Unknown at 9:01 PM

Sunday, July 06, 2008

The Job Market: July 2008


It has been almost a year since the world heard the term "sub-prime loan" on the news for the first time and the financial world has been shaken to the core since.

Leading financial institutions have been turned on their head in the wake of the crisis and hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in those firms.

Now we have the impact of the increase in gas prices in the US and the beginning of the labor recession in the US that seems to have begun in May of this year starting.

Until this point, jobs cuts were isolated to manufacturing jobs and Wall Street jobs; manufacturing has been in constant decline in the US for some time; Wall Street was added in the aftermath of the sub-prime mess where firms like Citi, Merill, UBS, really everyone, cleaned some of their house up.

Now with gas prices roaring, job are being cut in larger numbers and across industries. As I chronicle some of them, in The Job Market Blog, the cuts are now across industries and include government workers--one of the largest sectors for job creation in the Bush Presidency (along with healthcare).

It doesn't seem to matter what the person does professionally, jobs are disappearing in large numbers (A long time ago, I learned not to believe the US government statistics on job loss or job creation--one look at June's numbers that show 66000 jobs lost nationally but another set from California showing 100000 lost in that state alone in another survey make me scratch my head in wonderment).

And many of them are jobs held by Baby Boomers--which means middle management jobs are disappearing and, for now, not being replaced so fast.

Yet firms are continuing to recruit for staff, including many of the financial firms that we have been reading about regularly in the press.

What's hot?

Nothing if you are a 55 year old middle level manager. To be clear, I am not suggesting bias here (for once). I am pointing to how organizations in down cycles look for staff level professionals--"doers", rather than people who manage how things are done or how things can be done better.

The exception is in consulting--senior professionals who are willing to travel, who have done consulting at some point in their past, and are willing to accept travel as part of their diet are finding that there are a host of firms competing aggressively for their services.

For firms that are hiring, you have choices at some levels of your hiring and clearly few qualified candidates in others.

I expect the labor slowdown to continue into 2009--after all, the third leg of the economic/political problems will occur with a new President assuming office. No disrespect to Senators Obama or McCain, but business hates change and that is what we have ahead of us--change no matter who is elected.

It will get messier.



Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2008 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.getyourselfhiredNOW.com Register at the site and you will receive free copies of The International Job Board List and a Guide to Resume Writing.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.

Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's products in "The Universe" series

Plus

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posted by Unknown at 6:27 AM

Monday, June 09, 2008

June, 2008


Posted on August 3, 2007, on the afternoon when we all learned the meaning of the term "sub-prime mortgage, " I wrote a blog post called Game, Set and Match. In it, I wrote the following:

If you have read my blog at all for the past few years, I have been extremely optimistic about the direction of the labor market and had seen some data recently that caused me concern. Today, I believe I saw what I can best be described as the beginning of what, I believe, will be a repetition of the Reagan recession from 1980--a media inflicted recession if I ever saw one.

My advice for you is very simple--if you are out of work, find work as fast as you can. If you need to take "a hair cut" (a salary reduction) in order to find something, do it NOW.

I believe next year will be a tough year-- and I would be extremely happy if I am wrong on this call.
My description of this as a media induced recession was inaccurate but what I wrote was accurate. We are now at the point where we can say with certainty that the US economy has slowed down and that hiring has slowed as well.

I hope you landed in a new job quickly but, if you haven't, the advice of finding something quickly remains critical. The average job search takes 18 weeks. For "older workers" (those in their 50's, it takes approximately half a year.

And that was the statistic in 2004 when the economy was fairly strong. What happens now when we are in recession?

If you are an employer, you are seeing your requirements reduced and you are probably being more particular with your staffing. Have you started to look at pay-per-click as part of your recruiting strategy?

Pay per click advertising can be extremely targeted to a specific job or used to promote your firm's brand and bring people to your website and career page.

Have you started to consider re-hiring former employees who become available or having manager send out "feelers" to former subordinates whose firms are experiencing financial hardships?

Oh, I also wrote,
" . . . we will have layoffs in 2008, with older politically savvy workers being extremely vocal just as we come up on a US Presidential campaign (Reagan and Bush II at least had the advantage of having a crisis in the first year of their Presidency. Bush II, like Bush I, will have his in the last year.

The result will be candidate pandering to the unemployed offering solutions that run counter to what our needs are-- dramatically increasing H-1b immigration to the US to provide the skilled labor pool that we will need during the next up tick.

Without that new labor pool, who will be paying for Social Security? Who will replace the Boomers in the work force? Where will new hires come from when the Boomers leave?

Unless Congress operates in a counterintuitive manner, we will look back at the last two weeks as the end of the American Dream and the beginning of the replacement of America in the forefront of the world economy."

Personally, I don't believe there is a chance of Congress increasing H-1b visas this year; instead they will be rushing off for summer vacation and adjourning in early September to campaign for re-election.
Tell me something the Democrats have done for the economy since taking office except complain and criticize? The Republicans at least cut taxes when they needed to be cut. The Democrats want to let these tax cuts end creating a de facto increase just as Americans are experiencing increased gas prices, financial pressures from sub-prime and how their financial piggy bank (their homes) have been cut off.
Not too smart.
Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2008 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.
He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.getyourselfhiredNOW.com Register at the site and you will receive free copies of The International Job Board List and a Guide to Resume Writing.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.
Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's products in "The Universe" series
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posted by Unknown at 9:00 PM

Saturday, April 05, 2008

The Job Market --April, 2008


I love the US government and how they compile statistics. Every month, before releasing their jobs report, they use a formula to adjust the numbers upward or downward -- twice. Once at the time of release. The second time may come a few months later.

January often has the most severe job cuts of the year because the government assumptions are that businesses close after Christmas. April is often a good month because the assumptions are that business is expanding.

It reminds me of the old Politburo process in the former Soviet Union. The system makes up numbers based on fantasy.

So, for example after the subprime mess hit last August, US business continued to expand. Suddenly, this year, the numbers stink . . . all based upon the adjustments that the Bureau of Labor Statistics makes to change things . . . and the media eats this junk up and politicians speak like there is some reality to it.

All I know, is that last year, firms that were impacted by subprime cuts tens of thousands of jobs and they didn't show up in the statistics; this year, with many of the cuts behind us, they are.

It is kind of evening things out.

Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2008 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.getyourselfhiredNOW.com Register at the site and you will receive free copies of The International Job Board List and a Guide to Resume Writing.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.

Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's products in "The Universe" series

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posted by Unknown at 11:20 AM