ASK SAGE

Hi Sage,

My wife doesn’t understand why I haven’t gotten a job yet. It never took this long in the past. What can I tell her? As you might imagine, I’m really struggling with this one. Looking forward to your response.

Best, Chris

Dear Chris,

I/ we get this question quite often. Most times even the executives themselves don’t know why their job search is taking so long and believe there is something wrong with them, that they might no longer “have what it takes”. This is not what I/we have been seeing when speaking to many tens of thousands of our peers since this company was started almost a decade ago.

Here is the simple (& hard) truth you may share with your better half:

• Since year 2000  job search times for execs have skyrocketed –to about 23 months at the present  while
• average tenures  have decreased to about 18 months and
• age  discrimination starts now at about 42 years of age (versus early to mid  fifties a decade or so ago).
• Millions of  American jobs were outsourced permanently to countries like China,  India, Mexico etc. -and the executive positions with it.
• The new jobs  that are being created are non-executive/ often low wage jobs
• un-and underemployment amongst  senior-level-execs is around 40+% nationwide.
• For every advertised VP and C-level job  opening companies & recruiters see now many thousands of applications  –versus maybe one hundred or so some 10 years ago.
• A typical executive today (calculating a  median base salary of $150K+ and the above mentioned job search times and  tenures) makes less money than many truck drivers do in this country.
• Waiting for that job interview that might or  might not come is simply no longer a smart way of allocating ones resources  (considering the money you burn through during your search with nothing to  show for it).
• Pursuing alternatives to employment (with or  without our help) and being (again) in charge of your own destiny and earnings  power is incomparably smarter, Chris.
  

Sincerely, Sage

Friday, May 13th, 2011, 4:13 pm   |   age discrimination, Business, Business Owner, Career, Change, Economy, Executive, Franchise, Jobs, Personal Struggle  |  RSS feed |  Respond  |  Trackback