• 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!

The job hunting pendulum swings to...GREEN...

Many patterns in our society act like the swing of a pendulum, first one way and then the other. The highs usually go too high, and the lows sink too far. The same pattern fits hiring trends.

In the not to distant past we had the swing of the dot-coms, companies were being started almost every minute of each day. During that period, we had an office in San Francisco. When our lease expired,  the landlord looked to triple the rent. We looked at other locations in the city and the first question the building owner asked was “Are you going public” and then requested as part of the lease he would require stock option. Many of the “old companies” were forced to depart the city, and then came the swing of the pendulum, companies folded, jobs disappeared, and now ten years later many of those building remain vacant.

Then we entered the 21st century and the hot industries were bio-tech and health-care. The Bay area saw a growth of schools training people in the medical field, even the EDD started training people for entry level jobs in the medical field. Unfortunately, after a few years, the number of people looking for jobs far exceeded the needs of the industry and today many of these people are now seeking a new hot field.

The new buzzword for jobs in 2009-10…and maybe beyond…is “GREEN JOBS”.  The government has injected huge sums of capital for companies in a variety of connected fields – like energy storage, smart-grid, solar, wind.  These funds are allowing these companies to expand and also helps new companies to get a start. According to CNN Money (11/18/2009), the government stimulus money has created 110,185 jobs in California In discussions with Paul Davis, V.P. of Client Services here at AA-Careers, this year 25% of new clients are seeking career changes, and over 20% of them are taking “Green” jobs. The job openings cover the complete spectrum from accounting to software developers to administration and marketing.

According to an article done by CareerBuilder, hiring in the 2009 period in “Green”  jobs increased nationwide by 13 %, and that will increase again in 2010. Clean Edge.(October 2009) states “President Obama and Chinese President Jintao have both made clean-tech development and deployment a cornerstone of their leadership, targeting the creation of millions of new clean-tech jobs”. “Many believe we are just at the beginning of the clean-tech job creation era” It could be the largest growth area since the advent of the computer and the Internet.

The top 5 sectors for clean-tech job activity, according to CleanEdge are:

1. Solar
2. Bio fuels & Biomaterials
3. Conservation
4. Smart Grid, and
5. Wind Power.

Making career transitions has never been easy.  Many people using the old “Historical Style” resume have very limited success and tend to give up, using statements such as “they are only hiring people with prior experience”. Paul Davis and his staff at AA-Careers have been highly successful for years using targeted resumes which contain more information regarding the clients ability to make the company money or save them money, based upon past accomplishments. Think about your past accomplishments and how could they apply to the new rapidly growing clean tech (“green”) jobs.

Good hunting!