Job Hunting in December – a good idea?
Ed Pollock, January 24th, 2010 
Job Hunting in December? Yes!
A widely held belief is that Job Hunting in December is a waste of time. But, times and beliefs are changing rapidly – and that belief about Job Hunting in December now needs to get washed down the drain.
Thanks to a highly motivated staff of consultants and some hard working clients, December came in as the best month of the year for 2009 for our clients to land new jobs. We refer to the job hunt as a “Market Campaign”, and we had more Market Campaign Completion (MCC’s) in December than any other month in 2009, and it was the best December since 1999 (the era of the dot.coms).
We started to see some good movement starting in the fall of 2009. Many companies, who have trimmed their staff to the bone, were starting to hire consultants for 3-6 month contracts. Also, as noted in prior blog posts, some of the stimulus money finally made its way to Silicon Valley. And the Dice Career Fair this month had 13 hiring companies; attendance came close to 1,000 job seekers.
In the MCC’s in December, the average compensation (base pay) was $117,000, with highest being $175,000. We also saw our first sign-on bonus ($6,000) in over 6 months. The clients were fairly evenly divided, with 38% making career changes and 62% staying with their career path. The biggest gains were in IT and ‘Green Jobs’.
We got some great comments from clients this month which we’ll use to update the website at some point, like “all the effort and hard work paid off”, “had great confidence walking into the interview room”, and “improved my salary $30,000”. 100% of our December clients who completed their job hunting campaigns checked the box that they would be happy to receive referrals.
I feel confident that 2010 will be a good year for the Valley.
Good hunting!
Categories: Hiring Trends, Job Hunting green careers, Hiring Trends, SF bay area
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