Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in career coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from this week’s session with Kristin Speer of Accelerated Search Consulting.
So what is the state of the current job market? According to Kristin, things are starting to move, although there are some differences in market conditions depending on the level of the position you are applying for. Kristin says that at the line-management level, she is seeing more “project-based” or “commoditization” hiring, where companies are looking for resources to support a specific product or project that needs to ramp quickly. The current trend is to hire fast and, if you don’t work out, fire fast, so candidates today need to adjust on the fly to adapt to fulfill the task at hand.
Kristin noted she is not seeing much of this kind of hiring at the executive level at all. Surprisingly, she also has not seen the amount of interim hiring she was expecting. The searches for senior executives are taking longer, and while many companies have decided they need to make a change, they are being extremely cautious in hiring their change agents and making sure they make the best choice. Some searches are more urgent, especially if there is a good fit and the hire makes good financial sense. Kris said she is seeing a bit of softening in hiring for the fourth quarter, but hiring is not coming to a halt, so job seekers need to be sure they have their names in the pipeline and they are actively promoting themselves.
For those trying to relocate, companies are still considering local candidates first. There are some steps you can take to level the playing field. For example, don’t put your address on your resume. Kris and others are seeing more resumes that simply list a name, cell phone number, and e-mail. And if the hiring manager sees a resume with a local area code, they feel more comfortable about the candidate.
And for those who have been unemployed for some time, be sure to have some kind of job listed on your resume after 2009.