Executive job seekers and employed managers considering a career move would be wise not to put their career planning and professional networking on the shelf this summer.

Two leading indicators of projected executive job market expansion — a monthly forecast of management-level job creation and a separate reading on recruiter confidence — suggest continued hiring activity through the summer and fall. Recruiters expect 80 percent of employers to recruit for new management roles or trade up with new hires for existing roles.

In May, 36 percent of 162 executive recruiters polled by ExecuNet reported they expect companies to leverage the economic climate over the next six months by adding new executive-level jobs. Also, 44 percent forecasted companies will trade up with new hires for existing management jobs to improve leadership bench strength. Another 15 percent indicated companies would elect not to add new management jobs, while 4 percent anticipated employers would choose to avoid filling current management-level vacancies. Only 1 percent of executive recruiters expect companies to further eliminate executive jobs.



ExecuNet's Executive Job Creation Index is based on a monthly survey of executive search firms and reflects responding executive recruiters' expectations of how companies are managing their executive talent needs. The Executive Job Creation Index compares the number of companies expected to add executive positions over the next six months versus those planning to downsize their management teams or delay filling vacant management roles. In May, that figure reached 30 points, representing the seventeenth consecutive month the index has held in positive territory.

"In some years past, we've seen a seasonal slowdown in executive hiring activity due in part to corporate interviewers and/or management job candidates taking vacations," says ExecuNet President and Chief Economist Mark Anderson. "But if you consider our latest market data forecasting continued executive job creation and continued recruiter confidence, companies don't appear poised to put the brakes on their most critical hires, and summer may actually be an opportune time for job seekers and in-role executives to keep their job search and business networking activities in motion."

Joseph Daniel McCool
Joseph Daniel McCool is senior contributing editor with ExecuNet and principal of management recruiting/succession advisory firm The McCool Group. He is also the author of Deciding Who Leads: How Executive Recruiters Drive, Direct & Disrupt the Global Search for Leadership Talent, recognized widely as "one of the best business books of 2008," and its Brazilian Portuguese translation, Escolhendo Líderes, published in June 2010.

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