At least the patient has a heartbeat!

As we previously mentioned, the job market in the Bay area has definitely improved, but with a slight glitch:  salaries (on an average) have either gone down or not kept up with inflation, as reported by a Dice.com salary survey of 1,260 Silicon Valley based technology professionals.

A key example is the IT field, where salaries were down 1%.  With inflation running about 3%, that’s a loss of 4% in buying power.

The good news is that here in the Silicon Valley we still lead the nation in average IT salaries at $96,299, with the average national salary being $78,845.  The major area for salary growth was in Washington, DC (that figures), which had a jump of 4.3% to an average of $89,014.

Another interesting number was the increase in compensation for consultants, with an increase in Silicon Valley to $106,366 (nationwide average $98,964), and at an hourly rate of $67.67 (national average $61.56).  This correlates well with what we’re seeing at AA-Careers.  We’ve seen an increase in job offers for consultants, with companies being cautious about adding regular employees with the economic situation being as it is at present.

The article also quotes Tom Silver, Senior VP, North America at Dice, “Today, Silicon Valley has more available jobs than at this time last year”.  We agree, this is an improved market for technology job hunters.  The report went on to say, that in the survey, 46% stated they were satisfied with their compensation and only 37% were dissatisfied.  The Conference Board estimates a 2.8 wage increase in 2010, headlining “wage increases will barely cover inflation“.  At least covering inflation is better than losing ground, so that’s progress.

I think also we have to take in consideration that in some cases people have seen a reduction in rent, and for those who had the opportunity to re-fi their homes, that monthly payment has been reduced… that should also help to get thru these times.

Copies of both these reports can be found in the Client’s lounge at AA-Careers.

As always,
Good Hunting!

• Edward Jones
• Google
• Qualcomm
• Cisco
• Genentech, and
• Intel

Some other companies hiring (with a lesser presence in the Bay Area) include:  PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, and Accenture.

The article doesn’t detail exactly where the openings are – but sometimes companies are flexible on this, anyway.

-Good hunting!

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!

This makes the future at Lawrence Lab look bright for 2010, and an interesting place for job seekers who are interested in making the switch to “Green” jobs.  The push on the government funding now appears to be for applied science rather than pure research as it has done in the past. Lawrence Labs says it will receive about $240 million for research in alternative energy sources, computing, energy efficiency and other areas.

-Good hunting!

Searching for a job in the Great Recession...

In a recent article by Dan Burrows in Daily Finance, the lead on the story is “Bernanke between the lines: We’re in for the mother of all jobless recoveries”.  The government’s “bail out” and “stimulus” programs seem to be working.   The “too large to allow to fail” mantra and policies have saved many companies, which now – after huge layoffs – are beginning to show a profit and the stock market is on its way to complete recovery.

But, what happened to the second part of the government program to develop new jobs?  So far, that is a failure.   Unemployment has risen nationally to 10.2%, and it’s more like 17.5% if you count the people who have given up looking for a job. Over the last two years, 8 million people have seen their jobs in the private sector just disappear and in some cases they re-appeared in some distant country.

A few weeks ago, AA-Careers ran a job ad on Craigslist.  When we ran the same ad 3 years ago, we received 48 resumes in a 30 day period.  The November, 2009 result?  This time, we received over 650 resumes in less than a week.  We learned a few things from that ad – and these are the most commonly made mistakes:

1. Over 70 resumes could not be recovered, the attachments would not open.  Suggestion:  Send your resume to a few friends and see if they can open it up, before you send it to companies.
2. Over 15% of the cover letters had statements that eliminated them from consideration, and we never looked for the resume. 
   Suggestion:  Keep the cover letter simple and short, don’t put in statements such as, “although it may seem that I am over qualified for this job, I really need a job”, or “I don’t have any real experience in that area, but I am a quick learner” and a sad one said, “since my husband is sick, and I don’t know when he will get better, I have to return to the job market after not having worked for many years”. Suggestion: don’t provide too much information. The ONLY purpose of the cover letter is to get them to read the resume. Keep it short and to the point.
3. Far too many spelling and grammar mistakes in both the cover letter and resume.   If a person is having problems with a prepared letter and document, how can they answer the phone and carry on a conversation with someone?  How will they write while on the job? Suggestion: Use spell check on your resume and cover letter.
4. If the ratio of resumes to jobs, 650 to 1 continues in the job market, then maybe answering job listings is the hard way to go in Job Hunting.  Government figures show 100,000 new people per month trying to find a job. Based on those numbers, plus the unemployed, and the expected GDP growth for 2010 of 2.9% (Wall Street Journal’s economic  forecasting survey) then it isn’t going to get much better in 2010.  Suggestion:  Do not base your job search on job postings.  Read on…

The majority of job hunters, for at least the next 18 months, must learn and use, the method of “contacts and networking” if they want to increase their odds of finding a job.  There are several good articles on CareerBuilder on how to develop and use a network.  Learn them, practice them with a friend and then apply them. Always keep in mind that about 90% of the labor force is working.  Join the majority, don’t stay with the minority.   Looking for a job is a full time job, and it takes a lot of effort and time.

Good hunting!