Don’t Just Stand There! Do Something About Your Career!

You might say that we live in challenging times, particularly if you are an executive contemplating a career change.  Stock market gyrations, war and terror, major political upheaval… some execs conclude that it’s safer to stay put.

For any specific individual this might even be true. But, statistically, executives who change jobs judiciously simply earn more money. So that’s one reason to make the move.

Another is that there is tremendously more opportunity than you are probably aware of.  If you are only scanning the positions posted online you are seeing perhaps 25% of the market.  Like an iceberg, most of the market for executives is invisible.  We call it the unpublished market and have been helping execs discover opportunity there for 35 years.

Chart 1 provides a little more specific evidence.  We publish regular Industry Updates that describe what is happening in each major industry as far as their total executive headcount is concerned.  [Please see this Industry Update example for definitions and further background.]

In Chart 1 below we summarize selected sectors that employ the most executives, their rate of change (job changes and newly created positions), and their percent rate of change or “churn.”

In total, some 500,000 executive positions changed hands in the past year.

Surprised?

How come you’re only hearing about this now?

Well, as mentioned, we’ve been helping executives find new ways into the total market, especially the unpublished market, for decades. We’ve had such success that Forbes recognizes us as one of the best in the business.

Our clients come from all walks of life. They discover in the first stage of their Barrett Group career change journey where they might really be at home professionally. Sometimes they confirm their past choices. But often they uncover new and undreamed of opportunities by mining their transferable skills and experience.

Landing positions at the rate of more than five per week over the last six months (despite all the turbulence you hear in the news), our clients have found new homes in the industries summarized in Chart 2.  By the way, “other” includes interesting segments such as aerospace, non-profit, construction, real estate, and engineering.

Most of these clients landed through the unpublished market by following the tried-and-true guidance of their six-member Barrett Group team.  Yes, it takes work. But the work yields significant rewards, for example, title and recognition.  Chart 3 provides an overview of the levels at which our clients have landed over the last six months. 

This fluctuates considerably over the course of economic cycles, of course. And it is important to remember that a Director title in one organization may have significantly larger responsibility and income than a CEO title in another. So, please do not draw overly hasty conclusions based on titles alone. 

After all, some of our clients want to swim in a big pool while others are happy to be the largest fish in a smaller pond.

We help clients tailor their career change strategies to obtain the position they really want. Not the one that happens to be available.  In fact, more often than not, hiring organizations will create a role for our clients. That means the candidate can co-define the role and has much more latitude on the compensation than when applying for a pre-defined role.

Naturally, we help clients maximize their compensation packages when the offers start to come in, and we are almost always able to help clients negotiate an additional $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 or more in total compensation due to our experience and understanding of various markets’ dynamics.  Because it is impossible to compare benefits on an apples-to-apples basis, Chart 4 only focuses on base compensation and provides the median value in each of the quartiles for our clients over the last six months.

So, despite all the negative news and uproar you are hearing about on your TV or the internet, there is also good news for would-be job-changers: executives who take the plunge are finding new opportunities, changing industries, discovering new roles, and earning more money.

Isn’t it time you shook off that fear of change and took the steps you know you need to take to advance your career?  You need an expert to guide you through the complications of the executive market.  You need The Barrett Group.  Give us a call to find out how we can help.

Peter Irish, Chairman
The Barrett Group