The Recruiter

Why a recession won’t affect the job market

Penelope Trunk over at The Brazen Careerist put together a pretty interesting post the other day about how our currently unstable economy is affecting the job market—or not.

Penelope argues that the state of today’s job market is not so much a function of economic indicators as it is of demographic trends. This is nothing we haven’t discussed before.  Baby boomers’ mass exodus from the workforce is resulting in a major shortage of employees that Gen X and Y are incapable to fill. (Penelope attributes this to Gen X’s focus on family and Gen Y’s fascination with entrepreneurship that lead them to contribute fewer hours of work per person than the boomers.)

Whether the economy enters a recession or not, as long as boomers continue to retire, demand for younger workers will be high. This is true even for sectors such as finance, real estate and manufacturing that are often hit hardest by economic downturns.

We’d like to add another area in which we expect to see high demand: technology. As we recently reported, the Q4 Yoh Index of Technology Wages revealed all-time high wages in the tech sector before gradually slowing at the end of 2007, and showed a continuing trend of year-over-year growth. And opportunities in engineering, Java, SAP®, project management, security and customer-related projects continue to be plentiful.

So don’t let talk of a recession scare you (when it comes to jobs, at least) -   retiring baby boomers will guarantee demand. But it’s up to you to sharpen your skills, maintain your credentials and make yourself an ideal and indispensable candidate.

Posted by Christy H.

A Brazen Chat with Penelope Trunk

Passion. Moxie. Gumption. That's what brazen careerists are made of, according to Penelope Trunk.

She's living proof of her own philosophy. How else could she go from playing professional volleyball; to working at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange; to writing Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, her blog, and career columns for The Boston Globe and Yahoo Finance?

Of course, regular Recruiter readers might already know this, since we've discussed Penelope's articles in the past. But we upped the ante last week when we hosted Penelope via podcast, and got her fun, practical, unfiltered take on all things career.

Listen here to catch Penelope discussing unorthodox career development, best hiring practices for Gen Y candidates, and her newly minted “braided career” concept. Or download the chat for later, or pass along to friends.

In any event, carve out 30 minutes for this expert voice. You won't regret it.

Posted by Jim L.

Salary Outlook Good for New Grads

Following up on last week’s post on Gen Y’s upper hand in the job search, we found some interesting numbers on annual salaries for new grads. The National Association of Colleges and Employers recently released their Summer 2007 Salary Survey. The survey found that recent grads salaries are seeing a jump compared to previous years. As our friend Steven Rothberg of CollegeRecruiter.com pointed out in his recent post, hiring for the class of 2007 is up nearly 20%.

Here are a few of the numbers that might appeal to you techies:

-Computer Science grads had an average salary of $53,396. This is an increase of 4.1%.

-Information Systems graduates’ salaries rose 4.6% to an average of $50,852 annually.

-Computer Engineers had an annual salary of $56,201, an annual increase of 4.8%.

This is something all you recent grads should check out. And for all of you high-level professionals, stay tuned for next week’s post on the announcement of Yoh’s Q2 Index of Technology Wages.

Posted by Christy H.

Gen Y Has Upper Hand in Job Search

I was checking out one of my favorite recruiting blogs—Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist—and Sunday’s post on young job seekers really stood out. We’ve been saying how important it is to recruit and retain the best talent out of Gen Y, and Penelope really hits that point home in her post.

I also enjoyed the reasons she lists for Gen Y having the upper hand when seeking out and negotiating jobs. There’s the obvious impact that recent grad’s parents have on them—both financially and emotionally. With a strong safety net underneath them, grads are less likely to take just any job offered to them, because they can afford to wait. And then there’s the impending Baby Boomer Brain Drain, and Gen X workers taking more time to be with their families that we discussed last week.

What I found most interesting was that more young people are interested in starting their own companies. With younger generations having less of an interest in corporate jobs, they have found they can create an internet startup and be an entrepreneur at a young age.

With a 30% decrease in workers expected in the next few years, as reported by the BLS, recent grads will be able to negotiate very enjoyable perks, especially in the tech industry. So for all those college grads out there, be sure to keep this in mind when negotiating for salaries and perks—the ball is in your court!

Posted by Christy H.

Gen Y lagging in technology use?

A Randstad USA and Harris Interactive survey revealed this week that even though Gen Y has the reputation for being technologically savvy, they are actually the least likely to use communication tools in the workplace (defined as computers, faxes, PDAs, mobile and landline phones). The "power-users" of technology are "the Matures," the oldest generation of workers. Anyone else confused? Looking around at the Gen Y people in our offices, they may as well be glued to technology, carrying Smartphones even if they aren't required for work, constantly chatting away on their computers and their cells... and they certainly know more basics about technology than most of the older folks.

The survey also said that many Gen X and Gen Y employees aren't taking the Boomer retirement wave seriously. That's a red flag for employers who need to make sure they focus on developing these younger employees to understand their future opportunities and commit for the long haul.

Posted by Christy H.

InformationWeek Salary Survey Reports High Tech Wages

InformationWeek released its annual IT Salary Survey last week and the results were not a surprise. The Salary Survey is further justification of the trends we’re seeing in rapidly rising tech wages.

Surprisingly, a slight decline was seen in median salaries for those under the age of 25. With only 39% of staffers thinking that the tech industry is as promising it was five years ago, this is a little disturbing. However, with every cloud, there is a silver lining.

The members of Generation Y play a critical role in keeping the tech sector flourishing and will become more important as Boomers begin to retire. We anticipate the demand for hard-working, experienced Gen Y-ers to continually increase throughout the next few years. And, with technology undergrad enrollments on the decline, supply will be limited. This strong demand and shallow supply pool could potentially send average tech salaries for Gen Y-ers sky-high in the next few years. It will be interesting to see what happens.

For now, Gen Y-ers need to continue focusing on building their career plans and beginning to reach their goals. In addition to its survey, InformationWeek also put together a helpful “How To Career Guide” that can serve as a great resource no matter what age you are or where you fall in your career path.

Posted by Michele B.

Generation Technology

They’re demanding, tired of out-dated technology and bucking traditional business procedures.  Hello, Generation Y. 

This year, the group is anywhere from 29 to 16 years old, and the workforce is peppered with these young Gen Y faces (aka, the MyPod Generation or Baby Boomlets).  On eweek.com yesterday, Deborah Rothberg devoted an entire article to this group titled “Generation Y for Dummies”. 

The article points out that part of what makes Gen Y so distinct is their inclination for technology.  Deborah comments that this group has been raised with technology all around them.  This makes Baby Boomlets desire their employers to utilize only the crème de la crème of technology.   

As I fall at the older end of this faction’s spectrum, some of her comments didn’t quite resonate with me.  I do know what punch cards were all about, and I actually have used a computer with a floppy disc drive (ahh, back when floppy discs were floppy).  I also know of a time when cell phones came in bags and calculators were luxury items.  Despite all of this, Deborah is pretty accurate in her assessment of Gen Y-ers as many of my fondest childhood memories are centered around my Atari.

Posted by Christy H.