Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from the most recent session with Kim Batson, The CIO’s Coach, and Deb Dib, head of Executive Power Group.
The economy was top-of-mind with callers during this week’s Ask the Coach session. The looming question, what impact is the current state of the stock market having on corporate hiring.
Deb and Kim’s response, “It depends.” Some companies will put a freeze on hiring or start laying off workers, while others will certainly continue hiring. Mid-tier firms particularly may recognize the current economic climate as presenting an ideal opportunity to snatch up some prime talent that they could never attract before the economic downturn. And even those firms that are firing are also hiring for different positions to deal with specific pain points.
Which sectors are being most adversely affected? Construction and automotive are the two sectors that are probably being hardest hit. If you are concerned about which sectors are hot, and which are not, check out Mark Hovind’s service, www.jobbait.com, which offers industry reports. Mark offers information about specific employment sectors as well as which states are going to be the hardest hit. You can find the information in the NETSHARE resources section. Also check out the NETSHARE executive forums to see what other executives are experiencing in the marketplace – there’s nothing like first-hand insight to give context to market research.
The upside of this down market is that the rules have changed. With the economy in such turmoil, recruiters are abandoning the hunt for the passive candidate. Client companies are telling recruiters that, with the glut of talent on the market, they want the best star players available. Companies also seem to be more open to finding candidates that fall outside the parameters of their conventional job search. They are much more open to hiring fresh talent with transferrable skills that can jump start their business. So if you build your personal brand and present a strong value proposition that shows transferrable skills, you have a better chance of getting hired.
