Recovery: Step 3? of 10?

The media led the recession, and the media will probably lead the recovery. A number of reports recently including stabilization of unemployment numbers, stock market climb, higher real estate sales numbers in several markets, have tipped the media buzz towards 'we're in the beginning of the recovery'.

I tend to believe this is true. Recoveries tend to be in fits and starts however, and uneven.

In HIT, things have gone from very slow, to a slight trickle, to a slightly larger trickle. We're seeing more activity, although client urgency is lacking in most cases, and many requirements are for proposed projects, that may or may not be firm. I'd say we're at about step 3 of 10. Candidates are saying regularly that they are getting more calls, more activity, but things are moving slowly, stalling, or no decision is being made. Clients' mindset is that things are slow, there are plenty of candidates, so sense of urgency is lacking. And they may or may not be committed to filling positions. In the next few weeks and months, I expect the volume to steadily increase, more positions to get filled, and the mindset to gradually change.

There are a number of predictions out there of a looming talent shortage (again) in HIT, to come sometime in 2010. Question is: how soon?

My guess is things are likely to start getting busy after Jan. 1. We'll see.

Recession? Where?

Business is really booming at the moment, but if you listen to the media, doom and gloom is everywhere. There are certainly pockets, the stock market, the real estate market, mortgages (I guess that's a good size chunk isn't it?), but the tech sector seems to me to be still motoring along.

I am getting occasional comments recently from tech people that things are "slow". Seems they aren't feeling the love from recruiters and hiring firms like they have been the last couple years.

ROI currently has more openings than ever, so it almost seems like a bit of a disconnect.

It's funny; people have a love/hate relationship with the recruiting industry sometimes - they want to be called and sought after, but can get annoyed sometimes, and particularly by the wrong recruiters.

On the other hand, when things slow down, they start to wonder why the calls aren't coming in any more.

I get questions from people sometimes about how things are going, what I see happening in the industry as a whole. I pick up a lot of intel talking to people, but I always caveat my responses this way: ROI is small. Our piece of the universe is not that large, and what we see may or may not be representative of the whole. Recruiting is like real estate, where they say "all real estate markets are local"; recruiting tends to be ""local"" in the sense that a particular firm or recruiter's business (which may not be geographically focused) will represent just a small slice of what's going on.

It's not unusual at all for two more or less similar firms in a region to be seeing different results, or even 2 comparable recruiters in the same firm.

Things haven't tanked yet, but there are some signs around.