Monday January 19, 2009

US stock markets are closed for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.  It is a very slow recruiter day – just 1 phone call and 1 email by 2:30pm.

Tomorrow the 44th US President will be sworn into office.  I expect it to be a pretty quiet recruiting day also.

Then on Wednesday it might pick up.  The stock market will react in ways rational or not, and company boards and executives will react to that, and hiring managers and HR recruiters and consulting companies and their recruiters will react as well.  Chain reaction with a crack-the-whip end result, that will have a counter reaction the next day, etc…  Basically, business as usual in the never-ending unpredictable cycle of authorize a project, start a project, support a project, suspend a project, kill a project; then do it again.

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Keep in mind that I am talking mainly in regards to hiring for consultants and contractors.  This type of recruiting goes on year-round with fewer peaks and valleys than for perm positions.  Regarding recruiting and hiring for perm jobs, I expect that to be low for quite a while, with a low few spikes now and then.

• I update my resume in Monster and Dice.  Now I dislike Monster even more than before.  Harder to just refresh my resume.  Very user-unfriendly (I think I mentioned this last week, but am reminded again).
• Two different guys from CatAmerica called me for different positions in the Northeast.  I quoted rates in excess of $80/hr to try to cover most of my expenses in taking a highly discounted rate.  Their clients probably won’t go for it and will need to either find someone locally or take junior-level candidates that will cost them more money in the long run.There is nothing wrong with taking on juniors as long as they represent a proper proportion of the mix.  But the mistake one of my previous clients made was to go with 6 junior BAs and none seasoned.  As such, they experienced lots of rework and budget overruns.  Then when I came on they fired some and let me do some mentoring of the newbies.  Anyway, you get what you pay for.  Wanna go cheap, then be prepared for rework and explaining it to the executive project sponsors.

Thursday January 22, 2009

The inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of the US of A took place on Tuesday.  Very slow recruiting day.

Lots of inquiries this week for various positions from various people at Cat-America.  I reply to each one, but then never hear back from them.

• Phone conversation this morning with a recruiter from Memphis regarding a PM position in Dallas that involves migrating a company’s data center to London, England.  Sent him the information he asked for, and hope to hear back.  Continuing with job hunting as usual.
• Stock market is down after the inauguration; supposedly it usually goes up.
• Microsoft announced plans to layoff 5,000.
• Eaton Corp plans to layoff 5,200.
• United Airlines plans to cut 1,000.
• Other companies everywhere, large and small, announce plans to downsize their workforces (like AngiesList.com who is trimming 50).
• Connected with a recruiter from my past.  Wrote a note discouraging him from pursuing me for a Systems Analyst position at Countrywide.  Have already done that there and it was not fun.  I try to stay with BA roles as much as I can.

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Friday January 23, 2009

Slow recruiting day.

• Received a call by a secondary recruiter doing sourcing for the consulting company I recently served.  It was a position supposedly in San Antonio.  Being that I have already talked about this with close to a dozen other recruiters in the past two months – including the consulting company itself – I called up my original secondary recruiter who placed me with them in the first place and asked him about it.  It seems that the client has not received the contract in San Antonio and that the position therefore does not exist.  However, it would seem that some speculative sourcing that started months ago continues.  So various recruiters are working to building a list of candidates for if and when a deal should be struck.  This indicates to me that reqs on the market are thin and recruiters are filling their down time with speculative activities.  This is not a good sign for us job seekers.
• News report that Texas unemployment rate is 6.something percent – up from 4.something a year ago, notwithstanding the fact that 250k new jobs have been created during that time.  That is, 250k new jobs, and unemployment is up 50% during the same time.  There was no explanation as to the mechanics of this situation.Like they say in the progression from bad to worse: “There are 1) Lies, 2) Damn Lies, and 3) Statistics”.  Let me add now, 4) “There is also News Reporting”.