The Job Search Solution
How to Overcome a Soft Job Market Part I
Rich Lavinski Interview with Rich Lavinski: Rich discusses what consultants (and other job seekers) should do to overcome a soft job market.
Welcome. This podcast is sponsored by the jobsearchsolution.com. America is only 60 hour program of everything you could possibly imagine about how to find a job. The jobsearchsolution.com has successfully helped more than 100,000 people find a job as fast as possible. The jobsearchsolution.com. Welcome back and as we do every Wednesday evening, we like to welcome Rich Jovinsky. He is the co-founding partner of the East 57th Street Partners Consulting. It's a consulting organization that does finance and accounting, project management, talent acquisition. Rich has only been in the consulting business since 1981. He's either owned or managed five consulting organizations in the North Texas area and he is an expert and authority in the consulting business. He comes to us every Wednesday evening talking about consulting issues or issues facing consultants. In this evening, he used to talk to us about what should consultants and other job seekers do to overcome a soft job market. Particularly pertinent topic, Rich, it goes without saying what made you think about this but what made you think about it and what can they do to overcome that kind of thing. Thanks for asking, Tony. Well, as for the question of what made me think about it, I had coffee late yesterday afternoon with a good friend who's also a competitor. We've both been in this business, mainly consulting and some staffing for more years than either one of us would like to admit. And soft market downturns or something. Of course, we've seen many, many times before. And I'm not sure if you're interested in that. And in our discussion about this market, we agreed that in most aspects it's the same as always. You and I have seen these things so many times. Demand lowers and that simultaneously increases the supply of, in our case, anxious consultants and probably in Babbage's case, anxious candidates chasing what appears to be fewer and fewer opportunities. And while all market declines are the same, each one has some subtle differences. This market, I think, is particularly unique in that it really is not that kind of a bad market that we've seen previously, such as in, you know, you and I suffer through the huge decline in 2008 and, you know, several others. But I think this market is simply a slowdown of, you know, what we experienced in the last two to three years, which, you know, post COVID was in a normally hot market. You know, I think right after COVID, the market became almost supernaturally hot to accommodate pent up demand. And as we came out of the pandemic, businesses thrived and just couldn't hire people fast enough, whether they're consultants or, you know, just people coming in to fill day to day jobs. Added to that was what, you know, certainly the media has called the great resignation, where millions of people left the workforce. And the value of retirement funds, for example, at that time was near an all-time high and many workers who were at, or near retirement age, decided not to go back to work because they had this huge cushion. They were looking at their 401(k) plans and investment accounts and post-pandemic, the stock market, everything was just up. So, you know, these people just left because they felt comfortable. And so, in our discussion yesterday with my friend, the analogy that surfaced was that something like taking a long drive through some of the highways we have here in Texas, down outside of Austin, for example, there's a toll road where the speed limit is 85 miles an hour. And I've been on that toll road, and even though the limit is 85, most people are driving 90 miles per hour or more. And then, you know, so you feel you get kind of comfortable with that and you think, over time, you kind of think that's normal. And then all of a sudden you enter a zone where the speed limit is like 60 miles an hour. And while 60 miles per hour is still fast, after going 90, it feels like you're barely moving. And I think this is what our current job market is. This is what I think it is like for consultants and overall the economy because we just, especially here in the Southwest, I think some places in the Northeast, the North and the West Coast, they may be different. But I think what we see here, particularly in the Southwest, is not really a bad market. Just, you know, a slowdown from what we just grew accustomed to and what we had grown accustomed to was, you know, kind of hypergrowth for a while. I don't know. I mean, you, at Babich, you may have seen or felt differently, but this is just what I take. And, you know, I think others have felt this way too. There's been articles and things like that about it. But I guess at Babich, you see the same thing or what you feel in there? Absolutely, sure. It's all relative, you know. They're right after the pandemic. People are hiding right left to catch up with what they lost in the pandemic. And we always, we're always so crazy. I've seen 11 recessions now. And every time we come out of one, we think it's going to last forever. Every time we get in one, we think it's going to last forever. And we never prepare like we're going to have one. And we very rarely prepare like we're going to go into one. And we're going to come out of it. And we know we're going to come out of it. And we've got to prepare for both sides of it. And that's why so many people, the average, the average recruiting firm only stays in business when business cycle. And the people that were in this business when I got in it in 1973, I mean, they're long gone. Other than a couple of national firms, they're none. They're none of them are around. And that's because we all, oftentimes, one thing Millard Babich shot us that never let it go to our heads. That it ain't the, it's the economy stupid. And it's part of what you do. And you ride the economy in the good times, and you prepare for the bad times. And you realize that it's not going to last forever. And that you ride it out. And you make, oftentimes, you don't make much money if you make any money at all. And you prepare for that and you sock it away. And if you're a professional in the market, you realize that there's going to come a time where you, I got an email from a guide this morning that said he is desperate. And he's the kind of guy that I used to call him all the time about opportunities. And he would sound so picky. And so unrealistic about what was available out there. He acted like it would never end. He would always have a job. He's now out of work six months now. He passed up two good opportunities at, in the very beginning, and talking to him on the phone the other day he wished he hadn't. So, and he's, he's 50. And so you think he had learned. So, it's, it's never ending, never ending lesson. Time to take a short break. Stay tuned. This is Tony Bezier along with Richard Vinsky here on the Job Search solution. This podcast was sponsored by the jobsearchsolution.com. It's the world's most successful online job search program. My expert in the trenches advice has been used by more than a hundred thousand people to successfully find a new job. So go to the jobsearchsolution.com and start today toward a better job.