The Job Market - "Is Selling Pencils an Option"

“THE JOB MARKET – IS SELLING PENCILS AN OPTION”
11/10/08
by Bill Gaffney

Q: I have been in a job search for a little over three months but am now starting to get a little concerned because of all the bad economic news. What do you think the job market looks like and where should I be looking for opportunities?

A: First of all I don’t want to sound like Mary Poppins but all is not gloom and doom. Remember the old saying, “Make hay while the sun shines”. Well there is an interesting corollary. Make money while the economy is in the toilet. A friend of mine was recently writing about how the Great Depression created a lot of new millionaires. These were people that had some cash and bought land, houses, companies, stock, etc. Were they mad? No. They bought low and sold much higher. The lesson here is some people look at difficult times and see nothing but doom while other people see opportunities. Now I am done with my pep talk.

Remember I have said multiple times in the past the demographics are with the buyer and not the seller for the foreseeable future. The buyers are the job seekers and the sellers are the companies. You just have to know where to go look.

I would recommend to anyone they go up on the web and Google (Remember no one had ever heard that word a few years ago outside the song with Barney Google.) and look up top growth industries. Interestingly enough when I pulled up a few top 10 pages real estate and financial services were among those on the lists. Most of these lists were based on late summer early fall so we were already seeing the crash in real estate and the one coming in banking. This tells me there are still opportunities there unless you happen to run the subprime portfolio.

I have heard several times over the last couple of years people say, “Our kids are going to be working in jobs in the next five years that don’t even exist today”. There is rapid growth and new technology in energy, health care and outsourced services.

There are also many older established industries like software, IT, consulting and yes, government services, that are doing very well, with high growth. There are some like telecommunications and some specialty manufacturing that are making comebacks. When you look at the growth rate in all of these it is pretty substantial.

Some of you that know me might think I have gone bye-bye with this next comment. Look at the job boards. No I didn’t say send in resumes and fill out applications. I said look. This will also give you a very good idea of which industries are hiring and which aren’t.

If you are already inside these industries it will take, at the most, a little new knowledge. The IT readers know the jobs the companies can’t fill because of lack of people. The same goes with engineers. I think of all the so-called web designers I have dealt with. The vast majority are overpaid, glorified coders. Sorry but that is my reality. So if you know HTML (what IT person doesn’t these days?) and actually have a good eye for graphics, layout, ergonomics, etc you might just have a future in web design.

I have said this many times before. Keep yourself current in skills, technology and other areas. When I see a resume today that says skills include Microsoft Office I think, “doesn’t everyone”.

Keep your eyes open for new opportunities created by the current economic situation. I had an e-mail recently from a gentleman who had experience ten years ago in the distressed commercial real estate/loan workout area. Those services generally haven’t been needed in the last 10 years. They definitely are today.

Of course we will hear of many companies doing mass layoffs. While this market is a little more severe my experience tells me the bulk of these companies have suffered some type of mismanagement that causes these high amount of layoffs. Any company in this situation needs good management so during the layoffs they are typically doing some hiring.

You should keep in mind this situation is temporary. The economy will rebound. The smart companies plan ahead and hire for that rebound.

“Plastics!” That is the famous one word line offered by Mr. Robinson to Dustin Hoffman’s character Ben Braddock in the film “The Graduate”. The question is, “Where are today’s plastics”. They are out there.