Where Are the Jobs? | Indeed.com

Job Trends at Indeed.com:
"Rankings February 2005 -- 50 most populous metro areas ranked by job postings per capita"

Laurie's Comments:

I was recently alerted to a relatively new site called Indeed.com, which is an online employment search engine (it was still in beta test when I first visited it). I was pleased to note that this job search engine actually does what it claims to do. If you enter a search term or keyword and specify that you want only listings that contain that term in the title, it actually returns only listings meeting those specifications.

What a concept! This is in contrast to virtually every other such engine I have run across, where one is forced to wade through many hundreds if not thousands of irrelevant listings in which you are hard-pressed to find the words you specified anywhere in the listing.

I input the title "CIO" and specified that the word MUST appear in the listing title. This yielded 113 listings, some of which were not relevant (such as "Executive Assistant to the CIO"), but overall brought back far more relevant results than I have seen from any other engine. Similarly, when I input "CEO" the engine produced 589 results nationwide, with a fair number of "Executive Assistant to the CEO" and the like, but at least every returned result did actually have the word CEO in the listing title. Listings retrieved came from a variety of sources, including major and niche job boards, corporate sites, and newspapers.

The above were very simple searches. You can specify multiple keywords or keyword phrases, city, state or zip, use quotes to specify phrases, and even use "Boolean" logic to fine-tune your search. The site also features abilities to set up e-mail job alerts and RSS feeds if desired.

But I digress from what originally prompted me to write this... The link cited at the top of this blog entry is actually to Indeed's Job Trends page, where they display a map providing statistics on job postings per capita for the 50 most populous metropolitan areas in the United States. You will find this very revealing. For instance, New York City averages only 7.5 postings per capita, versus Washington D.C's 20, San Jose's 22.1, and Boston's 24!

Executives in career transition may want to take the data presented into consideration when determining how to geographically target their employment search campaigns. In any case, when sending your executive resume to that recruiter in Houston, New York, Boston, Atlanta, or any major city, you'll have something upon which to base your expectations.

Meanwhile, I am encouraging my executive resume writing clients to give the Indeed.com search engine a try. I like it, and I think you will, too.

Downsizing the CEO

Business Week: The Boss On The Sidelines

"If anybody needed proof that the new balance of power in Corporate America has shifted, Maurice R. 'Hank' Greenberg provided it on Sunday, Mar. 13. While the imperious chairman and CEO of American International Group Inc. (AIG ) was holed up aboard his yacht on the Florida coast, his company's independent directors were packed into a conference room in their lawyer's Manhattan office.

The board members faced an urgent crisis: a growing accounting scandal that seemed to lead straight to the CEO. As directors debated whether to cut Greenberg loose, the 79-year-old titan lashed out at them by telephone. 'This board is being run by a bunch of lawyers who can't spell the word 'insurance,'' he shouted. 'If you get rid of me, you will destroy this company!'

It was the kind of intimidation that had helped Greenberg consolidate unprecedented power in his four decades at the helm of the insurer. But this time, the bullying didn't work. Within a day, Greenberg, once the most powerful man in the industry, was out as CEO. Two weeks later, as the scandal widened, he was forced to resign the chairmanship, too."

Laurie's Comment

I highly recommend a thoughtful read of the full article cited above for top executives (CEOs, CFOs, etc.). We have entered a new era where boards of directors, auditors, and lawyers have taken the reins in corporate America and show no signs of letting go. Facing legal and criminal liability for their failures, they are experiencing real and well-warranted fear of severe consequences and are no longer willing to remain on the sidelines.

Whether the new legalistic, formal relationships with CEOs that have replaced traditionally informal and cooperative ones are good or bad on balance remains to be seen. But this new business environment seems to be here to stay, so senior executives had better prepare themselves to deal with it for the long haul.

Employers Finally Realizing Foolishness of Putting Executives Out to Pasture?

The Herman Trend Alert
More Employers Will Seek Older Workers
April 6, 2005

"As the labor market continues to tighten, employers will intensify their competitive search for qualified workers. They will seek competent, experienced, dependable people with a strong work ethic and proven ability to take care of business. Employers will be eager to hire skilled workers who understand the true meaning of customer service, who can communicate well with others, and who can draw on their experience to solve problems and make progress. Workers who can take initiative, follow through, and coach others will be in high demand.

Older workers meet these qualifications--and more. Employers prefer seniors' ability to initiate sales and demonstrate dependability, their varied work experience, a higher capacity to work with mature clientele, and an old-fashioned work ethic. They describe appreciation for punctuality, positive attitudes, commitment to quality, lower absenteeism, and less likelihood to change jobs."

Laurie's Comments:

I cannot tell you how many prospective clients for my executive resume writing services express pessimism, dismay, discouragement, and even fear of encountering age discrimination in their search for executive employment. The spectre of age discrimination seems to be haunting ever younger and younger candidates, to the point that it has become a concern as early as age 38-40.

The absurdity and foolishness of this trend has been demonstrated in so many ways throughout corporate America. The potential consequences of large-scale rejection of older, more experienced, and frankly wiser talent in favor of cheaper but almost inevitably less experienced and more naive up-and-comers are dire. Older executives, by and large, possess a blend of dependability, maturity, old-fashioned work ethic, and ability to draw on extensive experience to solve problems that is generally lacking in younger workers.

The good news is that employers and recruiters alike report difficulty in finding workers with the right set of skills and that growth in employment of workers 55 and older has outpaced all other sectors since 2001. This is in line with an overall trend in which employers are Feeling the Pinch of a tight labor market, where finding qualified people is steadily becoming more challenging.

What does all of this mean for the older executive in career transition? It means that you can enter the market more confidently than before. It also means that you must vividly demonstrate in your executive resume and in interviews the depth of experience, initiative, wisdom, leadership, and mentoring skills you offer that cannot be found in your younger counterparts.