Hire Power

As I meet with clients, I am always keeping my ear to the ground for new opportunities and trends. I have a particular advantage in that I speak with several people each week who are otherwise isolated from eachother. When I begin hearing almost the exact same things from three or four of my clients at the same time, I pay very close attention.

There’s something happening here, and I believe it is very, very good.

With that, I am going on a limb to describe what I am seeing and predict some coming events:

• Businesses are very active right now in Utah County.
  From Lehi to American Fork, Orem, Provo and even down to Spanish Fork and Payson, it seems that everybody is growing. Everyone I talk with is getting ready for some big stuff they’re working on.
• BUT, it’s all in development right now, so there is a very select market of people that is being hired right now.
  You know this if you are a designer. There is already a hiring crunch for good designers and drafters in this area.
  


• BUT, that means it will all be into production soon.
  If you are an engineer, programmer, machinist, technician, installer or any other kind of developer, in the next 90-180 days, you will be very, very busy!


• Then, everything must be managed.
  At this point, all of this new business must be packaged, marketed, sold, serviced, warehoused, repaired, upgraded, accounted for, and otherwise managed. In fact, I can’t think of any other job-type that won’t be affected when the trees of commerce in the area really begin to be heavy with the fruit of their own labor! It may not be for 6-12 months for this final phase of growth to begin, but it will be worth it.

My greatest single piece of advice to a job-seeker right now is: “Are you ready?” Are you meeting the people you need to meet with? Are you honing your skills? Are you keeping/getting in shape? Are you networking? Are you volounteering? Don’t ever, ever wait for someone else to tell you it is okay to make a difference in the lives of people around you!

These things will prepare you, and you need to be ready because, with all of this growth, there will still be some who do not find their dream job. At the same time, I don’t believe this is a game of “survival of the fittest”, but I do think it is “survial of the prepared“.

Change is coming, and the economy grows stronger daily. But, employers (and employees) are not taking things lightly this time. Companies are still smarting from the economic misery of the last few years. Worse yet, many of them still have the bitter aftertaste of their relatively foolish mistakes and dizzy-decision making from the late 90s. As embarassing and financially problematic those decisions were, you can bet companies are keeping their cards very close to the vest right now, and unwilling to take very many leaps of faith.

For the job-seeker, this means longer interview cycles, being turned down for a position for the smallest-of-reasons, or not ever getting a response to your application—ever!

“Opportunity”, it has been said, “is the distance between where you are, and where you want to be.” My opinion is that you should run to where you want to be, don’t stoop down and try and measure the distance.

Are you ready?

I like having some music at-the-ready when my day needs some spice. But I get distracted by the commercials and the deejay. When my MP3 collection begins to feel tired, I go for either MusicMatch Jukebox (download and play new music/manage your mobile device) or Real Rhapsody (Commercial-free music, 1 Million songs to choose from!)

For fun, see an old writeup I did of Music Match: That’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it…

There’s a lot of things you can do to make life easier when you’re at work, or job-hunting. As we’ve scoured the web looking for Great People, we’ve come up with a few “gotta-haves” that are simply tools or things we think everyone should know about.

So, I’ve just added a new category: Cool Tools & Apps

Check out our bookmarks, and be sure to tell us about your favorites as well!

The Monster Blog recently posted an article titled: Working Harder Is Not Always Smarter which discusses different work-ethics in the workplace. They even give a list of ways to identify your own workaholic addiction.

When I read item two, “Listen to how people describe your strengths”, I disagreed at first until I read the whole paragraph.

It is true that great leaders have rarely been known simply as “hard workers”. At the same time, exceptional leaders are the ones right their with the people they’re leading—and working very hard for the success of the whole group.

I like to call this “muddy-boots leadership”. And, it is the kind that rallys people, companies, communities and even nations to greatness in the face of trials.

Yes, vision, boldness and communications are absolutely crucial for top-level business success, as long as your whole team is familiar with seeing your sleeves rolled up just as much as theirs.