Hiring Expectations Up - and What CMOs Are Looking For Specifically

A friend of mine, in doing some research for a large software company located in Redmond, WA, found a great article indicating CMOs are looking to ramp up hiring. Originally posted in March, the numbers from the article back up the recent surge in hirings we've witnessed through OCA.

The article, from MarketingProfs.com, pulls its information from a CMO Survey conducted by Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and the AMA. It touches on hiring plans, the expected upswing in Social Marketing, and what hiring managers in the industry are looking for in candidates.

Click HERE for the full article, or HERE for the survey results. Below is just a snippet.

Hiring Plans
Nearly one-half (46.7%) of companies say they expect to hire new marketers during the next six months, while 61.4% plan to hire in the next year and 77.5% plan to hire over the next two years.
On average, companies plan to increase hiring levels 8.2% in the next six months, 12.9% in the next year, and 24.1% over the next two years.

Work experience will be emphasized: Only 27.1% of hires are expected to come from universities.

Among skill sets, Internet marketing, innovation and growth, CRM, and brand management will be the most sought after by senior marketers.

Not having a job may disqualify you..

I don't like presenting a downer, but such is life.

Interesting bit floating around the net. There are some companies that are up-front about a concept that many suspect is out there – just no one would ever admit to. What interests me is the number of companies that have this requirement but don't advertise it.

"The unemployed will not be considered"

Do you think this is real?

40 is the new 60??

Yesterday I saw two articles about how hard it is for "older" workers to land jobs. The first was from CNN and provided "job tips for older unemployed workers." A quick scan of the article, and it referenced the AARP and its free Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP). The article also provided some startling facts: "Unemployment for mature workers is up 331% over the past decade," according, again, to the AARP.

But this isn't anything I really need to worry about, right?? Well, article number two was from The Ladders and was titled, "Facing Age Discrimination As Young As 40."
Hey, wait a minute.

As it turns out, the article was written in August of 2008, shortly prior to the onset of the Great Recession - and just before many talented mid- to upper-level managers lost their jobs. It cites that "many companies have reservations about hiring older workers based on preconceived notions — namely, that they have reduced energy and higher salary expectations and are unwilling to learn new technology."
Higher salaries, sure... but reduced energy? Not willing to learn new technologies?
Define 'older.'

So, not only are many of us facing a crowded job market in general, but the article states that "the increasing pace of technological change, globalization and economic instability means age discrimination has crept into the lives of working professionals as young as 40."
Oh.

True, globalization has changed how things are being done, as off-shore resources have dramatically reduced the number of home-grown jobs. This is more prevalent, though, in the technology sector. I've seen web dev being off-shored, but you're not going to see many strategic marketing roles going to India, China, or Brazil.

But this isn't just about me. The topic of age discrimination has come up at numerous OCA meetings. "Should I 'hide' my age on my resume?" "Should I just focus on the past 10 years?"

There's no doubt our group skews older. The talent pool we have is extremely, for lack of a better word, talented. Ivy League educations, MBAs, former VP and Director-level titles, and in many cases, 15-20+ years of solid marketing experience. Sure, there are new ways of doing things and trends that affect marketing approaches and techniques - but do you think that hasn't been the case since these people first entered the workforce?

40 is supposed to be the new 30, not the new 60. If 40 means it's time to put me out to pasture, I'll go kicking and screaming. There was a time when I half-expected to be retired by 55. Now, with the way Social Security is, I'm expecting to work until I'm 70. So, I don't plan on running out of steam (or "energy" or the need to continually learn) any time soon. In fact, I'm just getting going.

Now, by even addressing this, am I setting myself up for possible discrimination? You tell me. You're reading it. It's a blog. Social Media. Wait a few, and I'll tweet about it, too.

So, why should I meet with you?

Yea you may make a good impression. It's even possible your credentials are good and your resume stands out. But they don't have a job available right now.

So, how do you "keep in touch" without being annoying? When I was first starting out as a freelancer I just asked people, "How frequently would you like me to keep in touch?" and tried to keep to that schedule of phone calls and little notes with work samples. That worked pretty well for freelance work. But I haven't done that *cough* in a few years. And I haven't done that on this job hunt.

Thanks to the internet, I found this handy guide from a Toledo printer. It's essentially how to be of value to the people whose time you are taking up. See if you can't apply some of these ideas to what you're doing.

"76 Ways to Recontact Customers and Prospects"
(pdf)

Sally Hogshead's Radical Careering (Free!)

Yep, a limited-time FREE digital version of Sally Hogshead's book "RADICAL CAREERING: 100 Truths to Jumpstart Your Job, Your Career, and Your Life." (I highly recommend this especially for those needing a rethink.)

Who's Sally? (I'm no bio writer so here's a link)

-Duane

Twitter Advice and More from Michelle Goodman

Ran across this 11/29 article in the NW Jobs section of the Seattle Times.

"Twitter Patter: Tips on building your profile and tweeting your way into a job," by Michelle Goodman, provides practical tips and great advice for another way to network with potential employers:
- Start following your favorite employers and recruiters on Twitter.
- Build rapport and community by tweeting (and re-tweeting) relevant items, such as "ideas, questions, inspiring quotations, and links to articles and resources..."
- Don't mix business with your everyday life. Nobody at the company you'd like to work for needs to know what you made for dinner last night.

Michelle also has a book out that was brought to my attention:
My So-Called Freelance Life: How To Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire.
... and she has a blog on nwsource.com, called Nine to Thrive, which offers "fresh tips and trends for attaining that crazy little thing called work/life balance."

PFTA - Pertinent Posts

If I had a dollar for every time I plugged Please Feed The Animals (PFTA), I wouldn't need to be looking for work. I could easily spend my day passing along inspirational tidbits and pieces of pertinent information.

Recently, Erik Proulx, who masterminded the PFTA blog (and Lemonade movie, etc.), set about organizing a weekly schedule for his "Blog for the recently unemployed advertising professional."

On MONDAY's: Jeanne Schaad writes a column simply titled, "Monday Morning Coach," in which she advises how to survive a layoff and what steps to take to get your career back on track. Click here for a link to previous postings.

"Jeanne Schad is owner of Internal Relations Professional Coaching Resource. This former agency account service suit now works with companies to coach their people to have more fulfilling careers."

On THURSDAY's: Josh Copeland offers up advice for those of us on the account side of the business in "Account Service Thursdays." Click here for a link to previous postings.

"Josh Copeland is a 10-year digital account service veteran with experience managing Whirlpool Corporation, ExxonMobil, Frito-Lay and the Clorox Company. Josh has worked for Tribal DDB, Arc Worldwide and Elevate Studios."

Your 1st 100 Days

Things are picking up. Several people have received job offers, which is fantastic.
But, then what? The 1st couple months on a new job can be exciting, but also a bit anxiety-ridden. I ran across the following article on The Ladders, which addresses this and has a few tips for making your transition back into the work force successful.
http://marketing.theladders.com/career-advice/first-100-days-new-job

A Brave New World - further thoughts, examples

A while back, I jotted down some thoughts on how people are not sitting idly by, bemoaning the economy, but rather are getting off their keisters and doing something - anything, to keep active and to continue to drive business forward.
As a result, paradigms are shifting and people are approaching things in a new way.

One such example within the ad industry is Agency Nil, which has radically turned things on its ear. This group of talented advertising professionals (sound familiar??) has decided that it doesn't make sense for them to decide how much they're worth, but rather let the work, itself, determine the value of what they can do. "When our assignment is done, you decide what it is worth and you pay us that amount."

Interesting concept, to say the least. Although when I've mentioned it to other such talented advertising professionals, I've gotten some interesting looks. One person's reaction: "Hmmm... risky."

Is it? It's a new approach, and if anything, they're making noise - which is always a good thing. They've even taken on powerhouse agency, Crispin Porter, challenging CP+B's own publicity stunt of "selling" off its interns for the summer on eBay.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see if a lot of these types of 'new ways' of doing business and any resulting start-ups continue to keep going once the economy turns around, or if these are people simply biding their time... waiting to jump back into the old ways of doing things, like a warm blanket on a chilly day.

I hope not. I'm hoping things are just starting to heat up.

A Brave New World

As I have continued to network with friends over the past couple weeks, it's becoming increasingly clear that we aren't just waiting for jobs to open up. Rather, people are creating their own opportunities: pitching business ideas to existing companies, launching their own endeavors, consulting on a contractual basis, and in some cases, working a combination of all three.

In addition, we're also starting to see a dramatic increase in the number of jobs and connections that are being made through freelance sites, such as Elance and Odesk. One glance at these sites, and it's clear that we're also dealing on a global scale - with people offering their services from the Ukraine to India (and at hourly rates much lower that what we're used to seeing.)

All that said, it looks as though the current economy has already shaped how we will do business going forward and how we have to approach the Job Search in a whole new way.

** For anyone who missed Arik's note to the OCA group a few days ago with the Wall Street Journal article about freelancing, here is the link. **

Traditional Interactive and vice versa

For those who think your 'traditional' advertising roots could bar you from being looked at by the Interactive agencies in town... the lines between those two are continuing to blur.
An article in Monday's ADWEEK, titled RAZORFISH TRIES OUT TV, confirms that a wide variety of media experience is the best thing you can bring to the table. And for those wondering about the role of Social Media, check out the article's mention of how companies are using the social web to push product.

For more on the subject from AgencySpy, and a link to one of the 5-min 'viral' videos Razorfish produced, click here.