It’s a tough job market, but some good things are happening:
Good Hiring News: Hiring is picking up in some areas. “Executives in advertising and marketing who cut back on hiring as a result of the recession expect to add staff in this quarter (through June) and the next quarter (July to September),” according to a survey of 250 professionals by The Creative Group, a staffing service based in Menlo Park, Calif.
Of the 59 percent who did no hiring during the recent downturn, 27 percent started hiring this quarter. During the next quarter, 25 percent of the ad and marketing honchos expect to resume adding staff.
“The hiring outlook within the creative industry is one of cautious optimism,” said Tracey Turner, executive director of the organization.
And in today’s job market, “cautious optimism” counts as good news.
Good Jobs News: With dot-com jobs no longer the hot commodity they were as recently as early last year, what are some of today’s top jobs? Jeffrey Christian, chairman and CEO of Christian & Timbers, an executive search firm based in Cleveland, wanted to know in order to determine “top tier” hiring needs.
And here’s his list: sales executives; senior regulatory officers for medical devices, diagnostic, pharmaceutical and biotech companies; fiber optical engineers; managed health care executives; home health aides; chief security officers; CEOs who can turn companies around; and, domestic security officers.
“Each hot job has to do with keeping the economy or our people alive,” said Christian. ” . . . It is a new dawn where defense is the global watchword of the day.”
Good News for Unions: The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the AFL-CIO and the Coalition of Labor Union Women have launched a global campaign to double the number of women members–and, at the same time, improve their working conditions.
Worldwide, according to the unions, women make up 42 percent of their members. And in the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2001 the number of women union members reached an all time high of close to 7 million (of a total of 16.3 million). Overall, an additional 93,000 women became union members last year, and of that number, 42,000 were Hispanic women.
“Women have outpaced men as new members of unions for the last 20 years,” according to research by Kate Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University.
This good news also means unions finally are recruiting potential members they previously excluded.
Good Salary Negotiating Advice: The book is called, “The Good Girl’s Guide to Negotiating: How to get what you want at the bargaining table,” by Elizabeth Austin and Leslie Whitaker (Little, Brown, $13.95). But the reasoned approaches the authors suggest to get the salary you want apply to everyone–and are right on target.
“Don’t bring up salary until the interviewer broaches the issue,” the authors advise. “Even then, be careful what you say. If the interviewer asks what salary you are looking for, don’t commit to a figure. If your bid is less than they’d expected to pay, you’re negotiating against yourself. If you aim too high, you may yank yourself out of consideration all together.’
And that is not good, girls and boys.
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Carol Kleiman’s column also appears in Tuesday and Wednesday’s Business sections. Watch her Career Coach segments on CLTV. Send e-mail to [email protected].