Predictions for 2010 – what have we got to lose? | rightPRO™ Advisors Recruiting Blog

I just spent some time reviewing a number of predictions from 2009, getting a good laugh, and wondering how many of the predictions from 2010 will be as equally off-base, including my own prediction from last year that given everything that was happening in the economy, and the dearth of remaining corporate recruiting assets, companies would turn to 3^rd party providers en masse to handle their needs, and that it could have potential been a banner year.

Not.

I can safely hide behind the cautionary language of “may” or “could be”, but the reality was I thought companies would outsource a significant part of their efforts in order to keep some semblance of hiring capability if for no other reason than to replace workers who hadn’t been temporarily or permanently furloughed. Instead, despite every consultant’s pleadings, including our own, most organizations ran for the exits like rats off a sinking ship, and their scorched-earth policies when it came to laying people off and destroying internal infrastructure in the name of cost control resembled nothing less than theater-goers reaction to the fire alarm. In other words, panic.

In hindsight (or in our case and many others, foresight), we now see many of these actions were unwarranted, and in fact have placed organizations in highly precarious positions, where retention of key personnel will be critical to whether the company survives. They’ve cut to the bone, and when the “bone” leaves, the organization will fail.

Strategically, this is called a “nightmare”. But it’s ok. They can always blame the accountants

So what does this mean for 2010? Since no one gets slapped for making wrong New Years’ predictions, let’s survey the landscape and see what’s coming. Or not.

Here are ten I came up with over coffee.

Social media as a means of recruiting will continue to be viewed as the Holy Grail, but candidate quality won’t improve one wit, and hiring managers will continue to complain “they have no decent candidates”.
In the absence of having to do actual hiring work, a number of pundits will continue to focus on how we all can hire better, using Facebook, Twitter, MySpace (wait, wha?…someone’s recruiting drug addled metalhead Goths with raging teen angst?), LinkedIn, all in the name of luring the notorious “passive candidate”. The fact that 18% of the American labor market is currently looking for work and is ready to start tomorrow means nothing. “Quality” has come to mean “only people who already have jobs with competitors who are willing to violate the very same non-compete agreement we’re going to ask them to sign but who aren’t looking for a new job”. Candidates will still find work the old-fashioned way (networking) and hiring managers will still complain, because that’s what they do. Always.
The economy heads for a double dip recession
There are two axes hanging over the head of whatever kind of recovery we’re now in. The first is we’ve monetized our own debt, meaning we’re printing greenbacks as a way to ostensibly stimulate the economy. To the extent that only one guy in Kooskie, Idaho can actually claim he got his new job replacing ceiling tiles in rest stops on I-90 due to the $1 Trillion dollars earmarked for “stimulus”, it’s a safe bet this hasn’t been a good investment. The Chinese who lent us about $800 billion are going to start to object to us inflating our way out of the debt, and the Fed will respond with increased interest rates.

The other ax is one that few have mentioned, and even fewer remember, though it was only about 2 years ago: $4 gas. Any economic recovery will mean higher oil prices, and high gas prices. The last time we saw $4 gas, people couldn’t pay their mortgages and well…the meltdown began. Interest rates, or $4+ gas – either way, the recovery comes to a screeching halt.
Hiring will continue to lag economic indicators

Duh.

Most experts seem to think we’ll get back to a “normal” unemployment rate of about 5% in 2014. Since this is after the end of the world in 2012, no one is listening.
Wall St. will continue their delusions

What did the stock market do today? Oh wait…cool. Up another 150 points. WTH? Does ANYONE up there in Manhattan read the news? With the Chinese building factory after factory after factory to keep their own economy growing at something like 10% or more a year, they’ve created a bubble…the next bubble to break when they realize there are no consumers around to buy whatever products these new factories will produce. Commercial loan defaults are up, and make the mortgage defaults look like lost loose change in the couch by comparison. But the markets keep climbing. The Chinese will be broke, so they won’t be able to help us with THAT round of bailouts, so none of this makes sense.
Everything will be about retention

Recruiters who are filling actual job openings have universally indicated it is harder to find qualified individuals if for no other reason than that people don’t want to leave the security of their current jobs for the uncertainty of being the new hire in an organization. But (and it’s a big “but”) because of this lack of transition, the lack of promotion, and stagnate wages, the pent-up demand to leave a current opportunity for something perceptually “better” is HUGE. It’s been bottled up for nearly two years now, and the minute the economy starts hiring again, not only will all the “under-employed” people be out competing for these jobs with all the unemployed still seeking work, but a significant part of employed population will be jumping ship.Organizations are aware of this, and a few are putting strategies in place to minimize the damage to their on-going operations. But because so many of the people left in these organizations, particularly at the senior level, are truly “mission-critical”, retention will get a focus it has never seen before.
Republicans will secure the House, and win enough seats in the Senate to filibuster just about everything.

Regardless of your political bent, it’s generally perceived that the current crop of Democrats wouldn’t know sound economic policy from an exorcism. And no matter your opinion of the merits or lack thereof of healthcare reform, cap and trade, and a host of other issues, the GOP now runs significantly ahead of the Dems on a generic ballot, which means the party of Andrew Jackson is going to take a shellacking about 10 months from now. Likewise, with more seats to defend, coupled with some key retirements, the Democrats will lose their 60 seat filibuster-breaking super-majority in the Senate.

Overall, this can’t really be viewed as a good thing, since it will mean essentially complete gridlock in D.C., and a failed presidency, which no American really wants to see, and from a business perspective, it will mean another 2 years of uncertainty at a time when we need decisive leadership. On the plus side, it means they’ll stop screwing things up and making it all worse.

In 2012, things will get sorted out. Assuming the world doesn’t end.
Search firms will continue to see their work go uncompensated

In 20 years of being in and around recruiting, never have I seen organizations so blatantly treat their vendors so poorly. This isn’t a personal complaint, as our clients have all been outstanding to work with. But time and again, I’ve witnessed companies this past year engage search firms to find candidates for positions that don’t exist, but which they feel MAY exist at some point in the future (where they will then have a pool of quality candidates to draw from). This will come back to bite them…hard…later on, but for now, it’s a cheap way to keep the pipeline full. This will continue for most of 2010.

Most search firms will play along, but in the meantime, will be taking copious notes on who’s screwed them. Those companies will become “farms” in the next year or two. Mea culpas will fall on very deaf ears.
Job boards will continue to live on, just as they always have

The “death of the job board” is usually an annual prediction by various pundits in this industry. I think this more of a wish, though, than a real prediction. My prediction is that they aren’t going anywhere. Monster (to take one example) is a billion dollar company, and billion dollar companies have enough resources to adapt. The fact that only 5% of people find jobs or fill requisitions through these media is irrelevant. They fill an important EEOC and OFCCP “need” and as a result, in the absence of anything else (especially social media recruiting which is akin to an East German Berlin Wall field of landmines when it comes to compliance and reporting, to say nothing of that old saw “disparate impact”) they’re here to stay. Live with it.
Someone will claim age/sex/racial/(insert victim status here) discrimination over the use of video resumes. And win.

Technology has surpassed existing law, as usual. There is a future billionaire in the making out there who can somehow reconcile current anti-discrimination regulations with the desire of employees under 35 to use the tools of the Internet, including video, to present their credentials. There’s another billion to be made by the person who can figure out how to make video resumes searchable by recruiters. In the mean time, though, the lawsuits are going to start, fed in part by frustrations over jobs or the lack thereof.

Was that age-ist of me? No, I’m over 35, so I get a pass.
@Animal will continue to be the Gilbert Gottfried of the recruiting industry, much to our pleasure.

Love him or hate him, he’s here to stay. Enjoy it. He’s harmless. Except when he’s not.

There are a ton more – like the fact that as hiring DOES pick up, companies will use HR generalists to handle the tasks, rather than create expensive recruitment infrastructure, or other more obvious ones, like the fact that the Apple iSlate will take over every subject on the internet, even for those who wouldn’t own an Apple if you gave us one, but we won’t be able to get away from it no matter how hard we try (sorry…oh, wait. That’s just me).

But this is our list for the year. What’s your prediction for 2010? Let us know!!

Michael