Who and what is safe in the current recession?  Are there certain industries and jobs that are recession proof?

Recession Proof Jobs

1. Healthcare - think doctors, nurses, surgeons, therapists, other healthcare workers etc…. (do more people get sick during a recession?).  Conversely though, jobs such as dentistry may not be as recession proof.  People will tend to put-off or avoid visits to the dentist in case there may be “hidden costs”!

2. Education - teachers (full and part-time), lecturers etc… people still need to send their kids to school although there is likely to be an impact on private schools as parents juggle their finances and save on school fees by sending their children back to state schools.   For higher education there will be a lot of people looking to hide from the recession by retraining.  So, anticipate an increase in demand for educators and trainers.

3. Other Public Sector - if you’re working on an infrastruture project that is government funded, the finance for the project is extremely likely to be cut.  These are the projects that the government is trying to use to kick the ailing economy (with steel toe-capped boots on) into life again.  You should be safe here! 

4. Computers and Technology - well, it’s the future and every firm (just about) relies on technology to underpin its business functions.  Good people (”Do-ers”) that are properly qualified are also hard to find.  I’m not totally convinced that all job types in computer and technology are safe as IT is still seen as a huge expense by a lot of companies.  New developments are likely to be shelved.  Whether or not you think the IT industry is safe also depends on how you are employed.  The ratio of contractors to permanent staff is important….contractors are a lot easier to shed in times of trouble than permanent staff.

5. Environmental Jobs - as concerns about global warming swell, more and more companies are turning green.  There’s scope here for employment for green engineers, scientists and consultants to help firms become much more eco-friendly, save money and comply with new government regulations.

6. Matters of Life and Death - surely all midwives and funeral directors are safe in a recession? Ditto for good cheap hairdressers!?!

 7. Despairing Urges - as we move further into recession many of us will sink into depression hence there will be a boost in chocolate manufacturers’ sales (think Eddie Murphy style logic in Trading Places). :-)  Ditto for breweries I think!

8. Accountancy - Boom or bust, the world still needs accountants.

Recession Prone Jobs

1. Foreign Travel - Due to certain weak currencies and a weak economy people are less likely to travel abroad whether on business or for a vacation.

2. Car Sales - Car prices are rock bottom at the moment (both new and used).  Maybe we’ll see the proper emergence of a “green car” soon.

3. Building and property - Any job title with the word “building” or “property” is looking extremely precarious.  House prices are falling, nobody is moving and few people are thinking of extensions.

4. Discretionary spending - Any industry that relies on discretionary spending is going to be badly affected.  Think of retail firms (how many high street firms in the UK will go bust this year?) or restaurants…. “eating in” will be the new “eating out” in 2009!

In the interests of fair play……here was the recent, positive statement from Apple….compared to Microsoft.

Best Quarterly Revenue and Earnings in Apple History, iPod Sales Set New Record

CUPERTINO, California—January 21, 2009—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 first quarter ended December 27, 2008. The Company posted record revenue of $10.17 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.61 billion, or $1.78 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $9.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion, or $1.76 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.7 percent, equal to the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 46 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone™ and Apple TV® over their economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures* for the quarter are $11.8 billion of “Adjusted Sales” and $2.3 billion of “Adjusted Net Income.”

Apple sold 2,524,000 Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing nine percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold a record 22,727,000 iPods during the quarter, representing three percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone units sold were 4,363,000, representing 88 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

“Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history—surpassing $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time ever,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. 

“Our outstanding results generated over $3.6 billion in cash during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2009, we expect revenue in the range of about $7.6 billion to $8 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $.90 to $1.00.” 

Hmmm…..not many records set here! Are we in the grip of a recession?  Mind you, what’s 5000 job losses for a company the size of Microsoft?  Bill Gates probably makes that in a lot less than the blink of an eye !

REDMOND, Wash. — Jan. 22, 2009 — Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $16.63 billion for the second quarter ended Dec. 31, 2008, a 2% increase over the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $5.94 billion, $4.17 billion and $0.47, declines of 8%, 11% and 6%, respectively, compared with the prior year.

Client revenue declined 8% as a result of PC market weakness and a continued shift to lower priced netbooks. However, strong annuity licensing drove Server & Tools revenue growth of 15%. Entertainment and Devices revenue grew 3% driven by strong holiday demand for Xbox 360 consoles with a record 6 million units sold in the quarter.

During the quarter, Microsoft showcased significant new product innovations by debuting Windows 7, Windows Azure, Office Web applications, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Office Communications Server 2007 R2. Microsoft also announced general availability of Silverlight 2, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Windows Small Business Server 2008, Windows Essential Business Server 2008 and a new release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

“While we are not immune to the effects of the economy, I am confident in the strength of our product portfolio and soundness of our approach,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “We will continue to manage expenses and invest in long-term opportunities to deliver value to customers and shareholders, and we will emerge an even stronger industry leader than we are today.”

In light of the further deterioration of global economic conditions, Microsoft announced additional steps to manage costs, including the reduction of headcount-related expenses, vendors and contingent staff, facilities, capital expenditures and marketing. As part of this plan, Microsoft will eliminate up to 5,000 jobs in R&D, marketing, sales, finance, legal, HR, and IT over the next 18 months, including 1,400 jobs today. These initiatives will reduce the company’s annual operating expense run rate by approximately $1.5 billion and reduce fiscal year 2009 capital expenditures by $700 million.

Business Outlook

“Economic activity and IT spend slowed beyond our expectations in the quarter, and we acted quickly to reduce our cost structure and mitigate its impact,” said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft. “We are planning for economic uncertainty to continue through the remainder of the fiscal year, almost certainly leading to lower revenue and earnings for the second half relative to the previous year. In this environment, we will focus on outperforming our competitors and addressing our cost structure.”

Due to the volatility of market conditions going forward, Microsoft is no longer able to offer quantitative revenue and EPS guidance for the balance of this fiscal year. Microsoft offers operating expense guidance of approximately $27.4 billion for the full year ending June 30, 2009. This information supercedes the fiscal year 2009 guidance that Microsoft provided on Oct. 23, 2008. Management will discuss second-quarter results, and the company’s qualitative business outlook on a conference call and webcast at 8 a.m. PST (11 a.m. EST) today.

The whole world seems to think that their job is the next to go and maybe it will, but people need to keep in mind that a company shedding 25% of its staff would be big news indeed, however 75% are still in a job.

It’s also worth noting that the headlines in the Daily Mail, what I refer to as the ‘Daily Outrage’ that xyz bank is shedding half its staff does hide the fact that a good number of those will work for business unit abc which is being spun off or sold to another bank, so strictly speaking the Daily Outrage is correct the payroll will shrink by 50% but not all those 50% will be walking away clutching a redundancy cheque and a P45.

In the ‘Great Depression’ between 1929 and 1935 things were about as bad as they could get but only 10% of business folded, when the economy recovered the 90% of businesses that survived doubtless divved up the trade from the failed 10% between them. In a similar vein Matalan, Primark and Game are seeing increased trade from the demise of dear old Woolies.

This period of non stop bad economic news will, like all things pass and we’ll move on to better times, perhaps we’ll all be better people for the experience. But everybody should get this into perspective it’s not the end of the world or even the beginning of the end of the world. Things have been far worse than this; 1974 Britain had a government enforced 3 day working week. Power cuts and shortage of commodities particularly sugar I seem to remember were the order of the day. The recession of the early 80’s when I was starting my working life wasn’t a particularly rosy time either, that soon gave way to the boom years of the mid 80’s and the rise of the yuppie. Early 90’s another biggie which gave way to the longest continuous period of economic expansion Britain had ever seen, you remember that – the one that has just come to an end.

In a world of instant this and instant that, people’s expectation of action and effect has become distorted; an interest rate cut on Thursday lunchtime will not lead to the end of the recession in the following month.  Petrol prices have plummeted in the past 3 months, mortgage costs will be following them down, remember many people have mortgages that the payment level is set on an annual basis. These will start to fall typically from the February payment. Gas and Electricity prices will start to come down in the spring.

All these factors will lead to people having more cash in their pockets. However, what they need is the confidence to spend it rather save it. Mervyn King and Alastair Darling cannot give people confidence it’s something that will come from within!

Remember this famous mantra from Bill Clinton’s 1992 election campaign? I was in the states during that final month of the campaign and whenever the TV was turned on this was the cry from the electorate. I dare say that if there was an election in the UK in 2009 that would be the tag line from the opposition parties. Perhaps the cry should be:

 “ It’s Confidence Stupid”.

 What’s different in the economic landscape today compared to two years ago, the missing factor is confidence and without it we are lost. Confidence is the magic ingredient in so many things, love, careers being two good examples. Let’s look at Richard Branson, arguably Britain’s leading business person. Is he as clever as a chap with two heads? Although he doubtless has an IQ that is above average, I could probably nip to the back of the office and drag up two people at random that would out score dear old beardy in any given IQ test. Does he have innovative business ideas, mmmm airlines, mobile phones and fizzy pop had rather been done to death before he came and scrawled ‘Virgin’ across them. No, what separates him from the dull but worthy Arthur Pewty chap at the back of the office with an IQ pushing 200 and a great line in trousers made from man made fabrics is confidence. The confidence that 25 years ago lead him to say,

“Let’s lease some planes and start an airline”.

In matters emotional, the guys (or girls) with all the luck are not necessarily the good looking ones, they are the ones with the confidence to ask someone out on a date, knowing that the likely outcome is that they’ll agree to the date. Our dear friend Arthur with the large IQ isn’t getting a date because he’s never asked, as in his mind they would say no in any case.

January 2007 the world was still brimming with confidence, confidence that we could make the payments on that car loan, confidence that we could extend the mortgage and cover the increased payments, confidence that we would be in gainful employment in 6 months time.

Where has all that gone? It went out of the window when in August 2007 BNP Paribas decided that so many people in the US were not making their mortgage payments that that they could not place a value on the bonds that were at the far end of BillyBob and Emma-Lou’s mortgage payments. It had all got too much as their miniscule brains could not read the smaller print on the mortgage contract that said that the 2% interest rate was just for the first 6 months.

Once you can’t put a value on something it becomes effectively worthless thus all the banks’ balance sheets were full of worthless assets. A financial instrument just like your car or house has no intrinsic value; they are worth what somebody else will pay for them. Now, the banks are arguably architects of their own misfortune. The rather splendid idea of packaging up mortgage debts into bonds that you sell on to get the debt off your balance sheet is rather negated if you then nip out and buy in the same steaming piles that have been put together by other banks. That’s just selling something you knew exactly how risky it was (you lent them the money) and buying something that you’re not sure about.

So, that’s how we got here. The banks now need to rebuild their balance sheets. This involves lending much less to businesses and Joe Public and being far pickier over who they lend it to. I once read that for every dollar a bank loses their lending is reduced by 10 dollars. With the sort of losses that banks are announcing you don’t have to have the 200 IQ of our friend Pewty at the back of the office to see that there will be a massive shortfall between cash required and cash supplied.

This, as everybody knows is leading to mass layoffs in the banking and all other industries.

The way these layoffs are undertaken by businesses doesn’t help that magic confidence ingredient that the economy requires. A business seems to perform layoffs using the following timetable of events:-

1. Make an announcement that due to prevailing economic circumstances head count will be reduced by 15%. Consultation with workers’ representatives will take place and further announcements will be made in 4 weeks.

2. 100% of the employees clamp their wallets shut for the next 4 weeks as it could be them, 85% will have done this for no good reason as it’s not going to be them but just in case the wallet stays firmly shut.

3. Four weeks later the unlucky 15% will be served with their redundancy, they are likely to have 3 months notice, 3 months of being in the office/factory clearly sucking confidence away. The 85% that are left don’t particularly feel like booking a holiday and flaunting in front of the unlucky 15%.  

You can see from the above sequence of events that 100% of the people in a company reduce their spending dramatically for a 4 month period thus causing a ripple effect throughout the economy. 

Wouldn’t it be better to tap the unfortunate 15% on the shoulder one Monday morning give them a cheque and wish them all the best for the future rather than the protracted 4 month process outlined above ? It’s going to be horrible for them but it’s not going to be less horrible in 4 months time.

It’s quick, clean and all over in a day and the 85% can breathe a sigh of relief and get down to Currys for that flat screen telly, thus keeping the staff at Currys nipping round to Starbucks for a 3 quid cup of coffee flavoured froth and the economy slowly starts to get up off its knees!

Seems like this lull in the recruitment industry is even taking the wind out of Google’s sails a tiny bit…..

The following entry was posted in Google’s blog a couple of days ago by their VP of People Operations…….

1/14/2009 03:01:00 PM

As we made clear during our last quarterly earnings call in October, Google is still hiring but at a reduced rate. Given the state of the economy, we recognized that we needed fewer people focused on hiring.

Our first step to address this was to wind down almost all our contracts with external contractors and vendors providing recruiting services for Google. However, after much consideration, we have with great regret decided that we need to go further and reduce the overall size of our recruiting organization by approximately 100 positions.

We know this change will be very difficult for the people concerned, and we hope that many of them will be able to find new roles at Google. They helped build this company, new hire by new hire, and we are enormously grateful for everything they have done.

Posted by Laszlo Bock, Vice President, People Operations

Maybe they’ll be cutting back on Dodgeball time in the corridors next!

Here are a few simple things that I believe job seekers really want from the Internet:

1) Maximum exposure of their CV or resume - not hiding in someone elses pay per view CV database!
2) Total control of what career and job information is displayed about them and when.
3) Ability to see metrics about who views their resume or CV and how often.
4) Display when they are available or looking for work (and update it easily).
5) Control over the keywords that describe who they are or what they do (not some kind of intelligent? robot that reads the resume or CV)

Any thoughts?

If you’ve been reading the press lately you’ll know that Monster have rebuilt their website.  I found a marketing brochure describing their great undertaking.  Here are a few quotes from the Monster literature:

When you invented the game, it’s okay to change the rules.

Today, we are reinventing the Monster Seeker and Employer experience, using patent-pending technologies to create new, never-before-seen products and services. In short, Monster is revolutionizing the way you recruit. Again.

That’s pretty big words from a pretty big company.  So the BIG question is “How much of this is hype, how much is bells and whistles and how much is blind panic by the Monster money making machine?”

I’ll do an in-depth review of the new features in a later post, but at first glance their site is still very busy to they eye.  There’s a lot of stuff that either has no relevance to me (the usual “career advice” and “how to write that perfect CV”) or, well just a lot of “job noise” that I’m never going to click on.

In their advance search, for example, they still stick to the rather dull splitting of industries into vertical segments and an old-fashioned list of click and select career checkboxes.  That’s not innovation surely?

At first glance, this isn’t anything like a full body makeover but more of a facelift.  Monster still looks ugly to me!

I thought that this was going to be a difficult post to write especially when the recruitment industry and hiring and firing in general is in turmoil right now, but when I got down to it my Top 10 predictions just fell out!

1. Recruiters stop using job boards to attract candidates and only use web apps in conjunction with revamping the job tab on their own website.  The real (if difficult) birth of cloud recruiting begins.

2. Recruitment agencies halve (or more) their percentage fee.  Tons of these guys will go out of business in 2009 (except for the ones that have a monopoly or add value).

3. Google comes up with an imaginitive way of finding and recruiting people.

4. Less and Less “career advice”, and more and more “how to keep a job advice” appears on those job boards that think we actually read that stuff!

5. The big job boards (Monster, Jobserve et al) begin to stagger around a little punch drunk.  They’re being hit from a lot of different directions these days (Facebook, LinkedIn et al) and no matter how much they try and change the colour of their spots they’re still the same old dinosaur and can’t adapt to the planet’s changing economic conditions.  They’re in the wrong game now and this year they may start to realise it!

6. Something really useful in the recruitment world will catch fire for mobiles that will change the whole game.

7. Buy-up of other job boards to reduce competition and try and keep revenue streams from drying up.

8. People/Job networking sites to rise and rise, although where there revenue streams will come from is anyones guess.

9. YouTube video shorts promoting companies, individual departments or individuals will put on a growth spurt but YouTube will need to add a smarter interface if it’s going to work.

10. The term “Personal branding” is dusted off, given some new spin to the point where it actually takes off.

We’vee been working on various promotional videos for our site using Animoto.  This is our favourite at the moment:

Who do YOU think YOU are? on YouTube

We call it “Who Do YOU think YOU are?”.  We’re trying to get across the message that everyone should promote their skills and not rely on job boards or agencies……..