I was looking trough a file today and found an article from Recruiting Trends January 2, 2008 call Losing Faith in the Economy.  It said that after a volatile 2007, the job outlook for U.S. workers in 2008 is not exciting according to a survey from Dec 2007.  More than one in five (21%) workers expect their job prospects in 2008 to be even worse than in 2007 and that 30% said they would not likely at all be job searching in 2008 versus 26%  a year earlier in 2007. 46% of workers also said that their organization’s leaders expect the economy to worsen in 2008 and only 22% felt it would improve.  There were many signs pointing to a slower economy in January 2008. 

So why are we all surprised that this is happening this year?  The outlook seems still dim for the rest of 2009.  Summer is upon us and that slows down the hiring processes because the hiring decision makers are on vacation at different times and it is difficult to schedule everyone to interview a candidate at the same time. 

My advice to canidates is to first off be patient.  Secondly, make yourself available at any time, being willing to change your scehdule as needed.  Do your homework, prepare, prepare, prepare, for the interveiw.  Go in with a marketing plan of action, have excellent questions to ask to go deeper into the responsabilites of the position, giving current examples of how you can excell in the responsabilities. 

The Safety Industry over all is still doing well.  Regulations keep our industry moving forward.  I am seeing a lot of companies that will be planning on hiring in the last quarter of 2009.

This year of 2008 has been a banner year for The Charis Group!  We have seen significant growth in the industrial safety products industry (Personal Protective Equipment also known as PPE) division our of firm.  We also have received more candidates being hired from outside of the Safety, Fire Safety, Homeland Security, Law Enforcement, EMS, and Road Safety Industries.  Actually had some new positions within the Cleanroom Industry that we have not seen for a few years.

We have placed more upper management candidates in the disciplines of sales, marketing and product development this year than we have in the past three years. 

Our clients still prefer a candidate that has maybe three to four career changes in their careers, good communicators, proven experience in outside sales, high energy and high ethics. 

Candidates are looking for a new challenge in their careers and to leverage them as well.  They also are looking for security more than ever.  However I don’t know of any company that can actually guarantee that security, at least not in today’s turbulent times. 

We are starting to get good feedback from our clients for more hiring needs in 2009.  In a recession this is the time companies ramp up their new product development so that once the recession is one they are ready with new products to beat out their competition.  Also this is the time companies will hire sales people with less experience within the industry because they have more time to train and cross train their sales people. 

Nancy Sheaffer

President of The Charis Group

www.thecharisgroupllc.com