This recession is Bunk!!!!!!!!

Economic recession and expansion happen constantly. Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down, but rarely if ever does it just stay stagnant. The pundits however are talking doom and gloom. The optimists are talking silver lining. The rest of them are mood driven.

The fact is that recession is a state of mind. According to the data we had one quarter of minute contraction last year. Every one since has shown growth. Thats right Growth, as in expansion. The opposite of recession. Why then does the media keep using the R word??? I have an answer. They did it once before and it worked. The media in general few would argue tends to trend towards one particular political influence. This is an election year folks. They discount the party in control of congress, who can actually change things, and focus on the President, who cannot change things without congress. This my friends is a classic case of smoke and mirrors. Down is up, up is sideways and in is the new out. I don't care which party you favor or which candidate. It really does not matter as Congress is the key, not the figure head in the White House. I refuse to participate!

That's right. I refuse to participate in your non-recession! You sell, I'll buy! If you're smart, you will buy too. The facts remain these. Prices are stable for the most part and oil is dropping. It will drop much further but it's not your best investment. Conversely, now is likely the best time to buy your company's future. Old school managers are thinking about downsizings as they fear the next two months. They don't think about the next six months as the election passes and the rebound hits. It does not matter who wins, the mere fact that it's over will cause renewed optimism. The smart managers will already have their people in place to capture this optimism, they will have obtained those well positioned people from the less forward thinking managers who will be sitting on the sidelines as you run past them in November.

Much like a stock investor, this is not the time to hibernate. There is a whole lot going on while the bear is sleeping that he is unaware of. See, the sleeping bear missed the hunter setting up the blind outside of his cave. He's not however gonna miss the inevitable Kablaam in the spring when he emerges from his slumber to find himself the one on the losing end of the contest.

The key question then is are you the hunter, or the bear?

The Perfect Candidate

I have come to determine that there is no such thing as the perfect candidate. There will be some compromises made. It might be salary, it might be experience or it might be location. In this market we are seeing positions that are impossible to fill due to one requirement or another. This seems to happen when a position is either newly created, or, the incumbent has retired and the company seeks to refill the position without realizing that there really isn't another one just like them.

Many of these survivors of the various corporate ups and downs that perpetuated in the latter baby boom era, did so because they adapted. They took on roles that were previously held by someone who got the pink slip. One person may well have been doing the function that was previously done by three people or at least should have been. The net result is that this person was not replaceable when he left. There really was no one out there who had all of his skills or experiences. Your competitors may well have multiple people doing various parts of this role but not the whole thing. This is going to force hiring managers to look to compromise. They are going to have to decide which attributes are most important and realize that they may have to accept most but not all of what they were looking for. If you are a hiring manager suffering this frustration, I ask you to revisit the requirements you looked for, then decide what you need most. This may help ease the crunch. There are good people out there, but it took decades to create the last guy or girl, and it may well take some time to grow the next one.