When Life Hands You Lemmings…

Stock markets are a lot like lemmings—those furry, arctic mammals who reputedly* will follow one another right over a cliff without hesitation. At the end of July a hiccup in the labor market** spooked stock markets and many investors headed for the exits.

Indeed, there may well be reasons to consider stocks overvalued, but not because of the labor markets, and especially not the market for executives.

“Overall, we are looking at what is still a very strong labour market,” said Jerome Powell, the Fed’s chairman, explaining why officials have so far demurred from cutting rates. [The Economist, June 13, 2024].

“The labor market has cooled over the last several months but isn’t weak,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, U.S. lead economist at Oxford Economics. “However, that’s a scenario the Fed wants to guard against, and we expect the Fed to begin cutting rates in September.” [See source.]

Executive recruiters have actually seen a pick-up recently in recruitment:

• Leadership demand from privately held companies is nearly 2X the previous peak in 2021 […]
• C-level demand remains nearly half of all opened searches, but searches for Director & Below level ha[ve] started to rebound. [Thrive Marketing, 7-27-2024]

The issue seems to be one of perception. People apparently think jobs are harder to find.

Perhaps that is because they are only looking at the published market—the mere tip of the iceberg and just one-quarter of the executive market available to our clients. We help executives understand and penetrate the thriving but invisible unpublished market where fully 75% of our clients land with generally less competition, more self-determination, and higher compensation. [Read more about the unpublished market.]

In fact, our executive client landings have held steady in 2024 at an average of 5 or 6 per week throughout the year and our leading indicator “interviews” has also stayed consistently in the 12-15 per week range.

To share but a few of our recent client landings:

Of course, not every client wants to be top dog so we also help lots of clients achieve Vice President, General Counsel, Director, and many, many other positions as well.

Our service produces results every week. Read about them on our Front Line Reports.

In fact, The Barrett Group (TBG) routinely tracks an executive population of about 11 million on LinkedIn in the US, Canada, EU, UK, and the Middle East. This group has grown by more than 80,000 positions in the past year and fully 415,000 have changed jobs. That means there have been almost 500,000 executive opportunities in the last twelve months—more or less equally divided on both sides of the Atlantic.

In this cohort, the titles most in demand are Director, Managing Director, CFO, Vice President, CEO, and COO. The most coveted skills include Analysis, Finance, Operations, Budgeting, Accounting, Consulting, Events, Education, Risk Management, and Health Care—to name only the top ten specializations most in demand.

Industrially, IT Services, Business Consulting, Software Development, Investment Management, Accounting, Technology/Information/Media, and Capital Markets are all rated by LinkedIn as having a “very high” hiring demand while Financial Services, Higher Education, Non-profit Organizations, Banking, Civic & Social Organizations, Oil & Gas, and Manufacturing also come in rated as having “high” hiring demand.

Geographically, the demand for executives remains broad, but certain locations stand out, having “very high” or “high” hiring demand per LinkedIn:

We encourage all executives not to behave like lemmings but to think independently and consider alternatives.

Our Clarity Program© (the initial, or “targeting” step in our five-step career-change program) actively helps executives to think outside the box about their careers, their preferences, and their futures.

Here is how one landed client explained her Clarity Program© experience:

“I thought Clarity would be a waste of my time because I’m a coach myself. I just wanted to get on with the job search. But then I met Marsha, and it became very clear to me that I wasn’t at all conscious of what I wanted from my career!” said Victoria. “I had never really stopped to consider what might be a good match for me. I always just made a square peg fit into a round hole. Marsha did a really good job of teasing out of me what my ideal job is and helping me realize that I didn’t have to settle. That was a big, and refreshing, revelation to me! Thanks to Marsha, I went into the career consulting phase of the program with a really clear picture of what I wanted.” [Victoria Sydorowicz – Controller, Read more.]

And by the way, not pursuing your career change because you are scared (like a lemming) also has a cost.

Not investing in your career guarantees you a zero percent return (or perhaps worse in the short term if your money is in the stock market). On the other hand, investing in your career by hiring the Barrett Group gives you a 90% probability of achieving satisfaction AND a big increase in your compensation. Want more evidence? Read: “Results Don’t Lie: It’s the ROI!”

It is only natural to be fretful when others panic, but you need not behave like a lemming. Why not delve into the 500,000-plus executive opportunities we see each year and enjoy a healthy return on your investment? When life hands you lemmings, make the rational choice: hire the Barrett Group.

*Lemmings have become the subject of a widely popular misconception that they are driven to commit mass suicide when they migrate by jumping off cliffs or drowning in bodies of water. [See source.]

**In fact, there were three causes: the slight adjustment in the US labor market, the deflation of the AI investment bubble, and sudden adjustment to higher Japanese Yen-based interest rates. “Why fear is sweeping markets everywhere” [The Economist, August 2, 2024