Jonathan and Keith share their insight with host Peter Clayton regarding what skill sets a UX professional should possess and what opportunities exist for them thanks to this rapidly growing industry. (download mp3)

Welcome to an all new episode of the Onward Search Career Cast. This is Peter Clayton reporting. I’m here with Director of Account Services, Jonathan Restaino from Onward Search and User Experience Expert, Keith Laferriere, to discuss the latest trends and changes taking place in the user experience job market. If you’re interested in a UX gig, you’ve come to the right place.

First things first guys, when I think of user experience, I think of Jakob Nielsen, who has been writing about this stuff for about 20 years, the user experience is a term that gets a lot of buzz but when we talk about user experience as a discipline or a profession, what does this really mean and what does this person really do?

Jonathan, can you help us out here?

Jonathan: Sure. User experience is how a person feels, interacts, reacts to a product, website, service. Mostly over the past few years since the user experience has become a hot topic, it’s being used in the interactive world for the most part. It highlights perception of the user, the subjective feelings and thought of a product, like I was saying, or a service. It’s really in the interactive world a human-computer interaction. These talent… these people in the industry, they saw complex interaction challenges. They research, evaluate, create user personas as far as who is the audience around what they want, to what these limitations are. Further down the process, they create wireframes, interaction pathways for a website, then there is the visual component in the creation, so everything from color of site to button shape to site components and flow of the content is analyzed and created.

Peter: Keith, what is your perspective on this?

Keith: You know, it’s multidisciplinary. When I started UX group on LinkedIn, I was amazed by the call to action for so many people on this. The first topic of discussion was what does UX mean, and I go back to Don Norman who is Jakob Nielsen’s partner who came up with the term essentially on user experience and I think about how many different disciplines this touches. You know you’ve got the designers, you’ve got the IAAs, you’ve got UX’s interactive challenges that we handle. It reaches basically every sense of the gamut from creative to production to the digital output – every single person that has anything to do with a customer journey is part of the user experience team.

Peter: Is there any difference between the term user interface or user experience or are they basically the same thing?

Keith: No. A user interface is really – and it can be applied to an ATM just as well as it can apply to a mobile phone or a website – the user interface is the thing that you’re interacting with. It is the actual non-physical but tangible-in-their-mind thing that you’re touching on and you’re working with as opposed to the user experience which is it could start all the way at a store with the right signage that points you to a website, that points you to a mobile experience, so the user experience really does take you out of just one item and work you all the way through an experience, as opposed to user interface which is primarily for one specific device or website.

Peter: Thanks for that. What makes a good user experience on the web on mobile or even in a physical store?

Keith: Without question, it’s continuity. If you can get someone to experience the same thing as they go from one step of their journey to the next and keeping in mind a good user experience from the customer side is a little bit different than that of the business side where a customer needs to have to continuity. It needs to know that when I go somewhere no matter which part of the journey I’m on, I’m being treated the same way and I’m being brought down a certain path.

For the business side of it, it’s bringing the customer down a certain path so that they end up at the purchase decision or at the piece of information that you really need them to get to.

A good experience is multidisciplinary, it’s across all channels, it helps you understand the full journey, and it gets you somewhere from point A to point B with a real continuity involved.

Peter: Jonathan, should information architects be expected to be involved in the visual design process?

Jonathan: I think they should always be expected to ensure the integrity of the information is not compromised. IAs where they have a design background or a design skill set is certainly, whether desirable or put to use, they should at least be prepared to add value to the design process itself by being able to make sure that the content and information and flow of the site is going properly for its success.

Peter: If I’m a student, recently graduating from a UX program, what information should I be prepared in the industry, Jonathan?

Jonathan: That’s a good question; I’ve been asked that a lot lately, and you’re seeing not only recent college graduates but talent that have been in the field, been designers, been researchers going back and getting a further education in human factors or user experience essentially. I preach to them that they learn to become an expert in a particular skill yet understand all of the supporting components, so be versatile yet be coveted because you are an expert in the field. It’s a tight market so you need to have an edge.

There are multiple technologies out there that go into user experience from the design suite as well Axure, OmniGraffle, Visio – these are tools that are used to create wireframes in the information architecture in UX process, and you will be asked to use those at multiple occasions and multiple times, so be familiar with the tools of the field.

Peter: Why is there such a disparity in the field among a specific title or the field like user experience designer or UX architect or interaction designer and information architect?

Jonathan: I think it goes back to what Keith said earlier in the call that it’s very difficult to compartmentalize many skill sets into one field, into one title. I also think that the industry is very young and there’s a lot of education to be had that hasn’t happened yet and there’s much more that we can learn about the industry. Many things are still to be tested, they’re still trying to be figured out; so certain titles are bringing different skills, whether it’s more design heavy to more research heavy but overall, there are times where they will interact with each other and then there will be components of one title and one position that will flow into others.

I think over time, like I said, as we learn more about the industry, there will be a uniform title or will be a uniform hierarchy of titles that will come.

Peter: Keith, where does the UX fit in the application or software development cycle?

Keith: It fits everywhere! Here’s my approach on this. The earlier, the better.

If you can get an UX designer or an information architect or just somebody who has an idea or a stake in the user experience in general, all the way at the beginning of a project no matter what the project type is, they should be involved in figuring out what the journey from step 1 to step 17 and to work with the team, both in an iterative approach; where you start with the project, you go down the cycles and let’s say you have an agile project where you’re building an application for a bank, the idea is to keep the interface design and the experience as a whole in a certain path where it’s linear tasks being taken care of and not so much a path where a user has so many options at them.

In the case of an application for a banking system, you know you might say I want to transfer funds, so you take that use case and you start to develop it with the user in mind. What happens a lot of times in the software development cycle is that there are really smart people putting together really smart applications and sometimes because they’re thinking so smartly about the application, they forget about who’s actually going to use it, and we want to make sure that everybody’s on the same page and that the UX person responsible for that care taking of the customer is, in fact, there helping the journey be established from all the way from the beginning of the project.

Peter: You bring up something interesting; the fact is when people are doing this kind of transaction, like wanting to transfer funds or whatever in a banking application, they don’t want to think about that anymore than they have to. How does a UX talent balance information and the functionality?

Keith: It’s all about the environment you’re trying to create. The experience that you’re in for a banking system and you’re doing very functional, tactical things is going to be a lot less information driven with the exception of maybe having a help option or having things that allow you to see whether or not what you’ve done has taken effect so some messaging that goes back and forth from the system but really, it depends on the environment.

If you’re in a marketing situation, even an overflow of information is going to be too much. You kind of want to peel back a little bit, get the most bang for the buck, understand that people are not going to digest seven paragraphs of information no matter what system they’re on, and start to pare it back from there. Marketing experience can withstand a little bit more text than a banking system which really doesn’t have any place having a ton of text attached to it because they’re trying to get something done and just don’t get in their way.

Peter: I’d like to get some insight from both of you guys, what do you think the future of user experience is?

Jonathan: It’s an industry that I think is going continue to grow, it’s going to be looked at more closely. Just think about all the devices and all the technology that’s out there now from the iPad and Kindle and even gaming devices like the Play Station Portable to mobile devices from your iPhone to your Android, even 3D television and 3D gaming, there’s going to be so much more to look at and to analyze that the industry is just going to keep growing and continually expand because as people, we crave information, we crave entertainment, so any other device or any other website or component that’s going to be out there that’s going to allow us to get more, is just going to have to be analyzed and create an optimal user experience.

Peter: Keith, from your perspective?

Keith: It’s pretty limitless. The idea is that we’re still in a pretty young stage in user experience as a whole from people not even adopting the term at some larger agencies to people who are just experts in user experience because they come from such a wide background. What I’d like to see in the future, I can’t tell the future or else I’d be a very, very rich man, but what I’d love to see in the future is that we keep growing this thing at a rate at which it can be digested. I want to see companies really put a stock in user experience as a whole and understand what the customer is really looking for, not just designing because the business requirements say so. It’s more about how do we grow this industry into a much more powerful unit for every type of project no matter what type of company you work for. That’s the goal is to really get it to be part of your every day thinking.

Peter: From my perspective, when you want to think about the power of what user experience is all about, you have to look no further than the iPad. Here’s a technology that has completely reinvented the industry over night and it’s the user experience, right?

Keith: Yeah, that’s correct. As a matter of fact, any of the devices that have become touch with haptic response, with any kind of interactivity where you don’t even have a physical keyboard anymore to be honest with you, you know we’ve had touch screens for years, that’s not really new, but what’s new is how they’re being developed and how integrated that touch is and the different mechanisms and the different gestures you can make within a touch interface to get from point A to point B and work with software and work with games especially. Where it’s comes now is from the days of yes, we can do a touch screen to now we can do a touch screen that actually means something that you can do something with, that it’s so easy to use that even a 6 year old can pick up a device and immediately know how to use it, it’s that intrinsic to your behavior – that’s where this is all headed. So if we can keep it going in that direction, that’s perfect.

Peter: One last question and this is really towards Jonathan, we usually end these shows with a hot job segment. What jobs in UX is Onward Search trying to fill right now?

Jonathan: Onward has a number of contacts and opportunities with agencies and organizations across the nation in particular in Boston, New York, Dallas, and Los Angeles, there are a number of opportunities for information architects, for user experience designers. Those that can create that content structure as well as be able to apply visual components, so two separate positions, but there are number of opportunities. My request with the user experience talent world out there is to connect with us because we understand the market, we are able to speak to the industry and speak to our clients about your skill set and be able to be successful together.

Peter: Jonathan and Keith, thanks so much for taking time to speak with us today on the Onward Search Career Cast.

Keith: Thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure.

We’ve been speaking with Jonathan Restaino, Director of Account Services with Onward Search and User Experience Expert Keith Laferriere. Thanks for joining us on Onward Search Career Cast.

Jenn Walsh and Mike Ondocin from the Onward Search NYC office spoke with host Peter Clayton about the hiring trends they are seeing in and around the city.(download mp3)

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to an all-new Onward Search Career Cast. If you want to know what’s happening in New York City, you’ve come to the right podcast. Joining me is Director of Staffing Jennifer Walsh and Account Executive Mike Ondocin of Onward Search to discuss the freelance job market in New York City and what freelancers can expect regarding hiring trends and skill set demand.

Jen and Mike, welcome to Onward Search Career Cast.

Jennifer: Thank you.

Mike: Thanks Peter.

Peter: Mike, why don’t we start with you, give us a big picture if you would, what is the marketplace like for freelance professionals in New York City right now?

Mike: The market in New York City right now is strong for freelance professionals. It’s obviously a competitive market. It always has been, it always will be. It’s really the candidates that are staying on top of their skill sets, continuing to learn, continuing to advance; those are the folks that are landing the jobs. You know at this point, it seems as though companies are looking for resources that are available at the drop of a hat and that’s really where the freelance talent pool comes into play and has really been an asset, especially in the last year or so with all the changes in the economy.

Peter: Talk to me about money, how is compensation for freelance talent in New York City right now, especially compared to the last couple of years?

Mike: Well, you know I’d say it’s better than it was about a year ago but the fact of the matter is that the candidates who are flexible on their rates are the ones who are landing the jobs. You can’t be hoping for the dollar amount that you got three or four years ago but it is getting better and that’s a good thing.

Peter: Okay, so let’s get in to some of the trends you’ve seen in this area. Are you seeing an increase in demand for interim help and how about temp to perm?

Jennifer: We are, we’re seeing both actually. There is certainly an increased demand as far as interim is concerned and temporary help and with companies laying off for the last couple of years, I think a lot of our clients are still a little bit gun-shy to commit to hiring people on a permanent basis even though the market has significantly improved. They need somebody to come in to help them continue to grow but they’re not committing long-term just yet so that allows an increased demand for freelance to come in and be that extra set of hands and the temp to perm comes in because as these companies are growing and landing additional business and their sales are increasing, they’ve already got those freelancers on staff who have come in and proved themselves. They’ve already come through the kind of learn-to-work curve and now they have the opportunity to hire them on a permanent basis so we are certainly seeing an increased demand in that.

Peter: Is this mainly project based where they’re coming in to tackle a specific project or a specific need the client has?

Jennifer: I think it really depends on which companies we’re talking about. A lot of our business in New York City is with advertising agencies and much of that is strictly project work so they’re bringing in freelancers to help them pitch new business and once the pitch is won, the project is pretty much over and their internal staff takes over from there. If you’re talking about more of our client side business, like the traditional corporate organizations, those aren’t so much projects as much as it is they do need the increased head count but don’t have the budget to hire permanently just yet.

Peter: Okay, well let’s talk about some of the industries that present the most opportunities for freelancers in New York City right now. What are you seeing?

Mike: I think advertising has been and always will be the number one vertical for creative. We are placing online marketing professionals. We’re placing creative professionals constantly with advertising firms of all sizes. I think that there are a few verticals that are a little bit more difficult to get into, including the pharmaceutical world and the finance services world simply because you really have to have some specific skill sets in order to make an initial impact and that’s really what these companies are coming to us for when they’re sourcing freelance talent; the learning curve is incredibly short and I think Jen just touched on that briefly. You really have to know what you’re doing and know how these business processes work in order to be effective right off the bat.

Peter: Well, to that point Mike, when you speak about financial services and pharmaceutical and healthcare, you’re in to highly regulated industries so I’m sure they really want people who have those skill sets.

Mike: That’s absolutely true. That’s absolutely true, and I think also too as a freelancer, you have to be careful in that you’re not strictly working in either pharmaceutical or financial services. I mean if you have an opportunity to do expand your skill set to any other vertical, you’re diversifying yourself and you’re giving yourself more opportunity if at any point, you know, the pharma world seizes up or the financial world again goes through a difficult period.

Peter: Well, let’s expand a little bit on the skill sets that you’re looking for currently right now in New York.

Jennifer: Mike actually just said this in relation to expanding your skill set outside of financial services or pharmaceutical. It’s really expanding your skill set not only by industry but by strict skill experience. What we’re finding like the highest demand is for fully integrated professionals and by that, we mean people who have experienced on the creative side of the world designing for and writing for the web, writing for Facebook, writing for and designing for print. Whereas there used to be a very specific desired skill, we need somebody who is a print designer or we need somebody who is a web designer. Now, it’s we need somebody who is an integrated designer, whose portfolio reflects a variety of platforms where they’ve worked and that’s probably one of the highest skills we’re looking for right now and the skill set that we’re looking for right now, whether it’s for design or for writing on the creative side even when you get into more of the deeper positions that are user experience and information architecture and the like, they need very, very diverse experience.

Peter: When we’re talking about New York City, of course, we’re also talking about the New York Metro area which encompasses Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey, so from a location standpoint and from a project standpoint, is it easier to get a freelance gig up in Westchester or out on Long Island than it is in Manhattan?

Mike: It’s always going to be easier to find a freelancer opportunity in New York City. We find that people who live in the tri-state area are always willing to commute into the city to make that one hour, one and a half hour commute, whatever it might be to gain an opportunity with a top company, especially a top advertising company.

It’s difficult to find talent in those areas of Long Island, New Jersey, Westchester; everybody wants the New York City skill set but very few New York City freelancers who actually live in Manhattan or Brooklyn will travel out to these companies. One of the things that we found is having candidates freelancers work remotely has been a solution. You know, maybe they’ll be onsite with the client in Long Island or Westchester one day a week or two days a week but we can kind of talk them into taking that opportunity if they can work from home within New York.

Peter: As the companies in New York take measures to rebound from the economic downturn, how will this affect their hiring strategies?

Jennifer: We were actually talking about this quite extensively this morning, especially as we mentioned earlier the financial services industry, it’s really taken a public relations’ hit, we’ll say, for the last couple of years so these rebound factors that they’re taking in now are very, very focused on their advertising and their marketing strategies. Many companies have really struggled in the last couple of years to maintain their customer base and their consumer confidence base and they need to be able to change their face to their clients and that means changing their advertising strategies and changing their marketing strategies not only to kind of reel back in their customers but, frankly, also to soften their image and from a marketing perspective, reach a broader audience. So we’re seeing a lot of different measures being taken as far as the creative is concerned and as far as their marketing efforts are concerned for these companies to really rebound, and it really opens up an enormous amount of opportunity for creative and marketing talent.

Peter: Mike and Jen, I know that last week, you both went to this Boulder Event. Can you explain what this is and what some of your takeaways were?

Mike: We attended an event and it was in support of Boulder Digital Works, which is actually a school that’s been created in Boulder, Colorado. The University of Colorado and several large organizations throughout the US have come together to basically create an organization or a school that generates the talent that they’re looking for and the talent that’s lacking in the marketplace right now.

The big push for talents through this folks is to create what they call a T-shaped person, and the definition of T-shaped person is somebody that’s not only great at one particular task, maybe that’s web design, but they also are collaborative and know how to interact with the folks that are designing the Facebook page, the folks that are designing the iPhone application or the iPad application, so the days of being I guess a one trick pony, for lack of a better term, are over. You need to be able to work across multiple business lines. You need to understand how the entire agency functions and you need to be ultra-creative.

It’s really a very interesting concepts and it went through, I guess, its first year of beta testing as they call it last year and it’s been incredibly successful and companies are contacting Boulder Digital Works constantly looking for people that are coming out of that school with those skill sets. It’s really kind of an exciting and new way of creating a talent base.

Peter: Yeah, that is really exciting and Jen, what were some of your takeaways from this event?

Jennifer: You know it’s really interesting because everything that we have been talking about throughout this podcast of really having an integrated portfolio and be diverse in your experience, these are things that we’ve been talking about for months internally and to go to an event and listen to the folks at Boulder Digital Works talk, it reinforced what we’re seeing in our marketplace and they’re located in Colorado so it’s not just in as much as we’re talking about New York City right now and where the freelance marketplace is today, this is not just a New York City thing; this is an overall marketing and advertising industry challenge where identifying really great people who have really diverse experience is so challenging that this group of people has decided well, we’re just going to make our own by creating this educational institution that is going to help these people really diversify their portfolio. It really is super exciting because it’s always great to hear what you’re seeing in your marketplace be reinforced by some of the top advertising agencies of the world.

Peter: That’s great. One last question for guys and this is the way we always wrap up the Onward Search Career Cast, what are some hot jobs? What’s sizzling on the front burner there in New York City?

Mike: Well, right now we’re really seeing a push towards the development front and a need for front-end developers. A lot of the positions are with advertising agencies but we’re also seeing them from the client side as well. There is a strong push for search professionals as we started to see over the course of the last several years, so that market is still staying strong and we’re a major player in that market, happily. Those are really the focuses that we’re seeing right now in terms of skill sets and it’s always changing too. It’s a wave and it goes up and down and we’re just trying to stay ahead of it.

Jennifer: To Mike’s point, the jobs that we’re working on today will be completely different tomorrow, so I would encourage anybody interested in kind of signing on with Onward and doing some really great freelance gigs with us to continue to go to our website and check it on a regular basis. If you don’t see something there today, it could very well be there tomorrow.

Peter: Jen and Mike, thank you so much for taking time to speak with us today on the Onward Search Career Cast.

Jennifer: Thank you so much Peter.

Mike: Thanks Peter.

Peter: Thank you. Jennifer Walsh is Director of Staffing and Mike Ondicin is Account Executive with Onward Search in New York City.

Thank you for tuning in to Onward Search Career Cast. For more information on the career opportunities available through Onward Search, you should visit us online at onwardsearch.com or call 1-800-829-0072 and speak with an experienced recruiter, and you should also follow Onward Search on Twitter at Twitter.com/onwardsearch.

In this episode of CareerCast, we focus on how companies are approaching their hiring strategies during 2010 and what that means for professionals in our idustries. Internet and interactive marketers will find a changing market place as hiring companies begin to recover.

Ken and Josh from Onward Search discuss how the job market is turning around and what kind of opportunities SEO, IT and Creative types can expect to see during the rest of the year.(download mp3)

This is Peter Clayton and I’d like to welcome back everyone to the Onward Search CareerCast. I’m joined today by Ken Clark, one of the cofounders of Onward Search, and Josh Gampel, vice president.

So guys, 2009 is over, thankfully, and since we just wrapped up the first quarter of 2010, I thought it would be an opportune time to check in with both Josh and Ken on what they’re seeing in the job market for internet marketing and interactive professionals. So let’s get started.

Ken, I think the first question on everyone’s mind is how the job market is today and how was the first quarter. Are we in recovery or not?

Ken: It’s safe to say that things are getting better, particularly in our market, Peter, as you know just from talking with us over last several months where we specialize is everything in the internet and web marketing world, and what has been very encouraging for us is really, even starting back in Q4 of last year, absolutely driving through into this first quarter job orders which is really how we can see demand in the economy within our business have been increasing dramatically. Particularly this quarter, I believe every month of Q1, January to February, February to March, our job orders have been increasing, and what we’re really seeing is a lot of demand in the marketplace.

Why is that happening? Well, in a recession, usually the first jobs to come back are temporary jobs. And there was actually a report that came out about two weeks ago that couldn’t have been more encouraging. What it showed was that in the last five months, the number of temporary jobs created in the economy basically was unparalleled over the last 20 years. And if I remember the stats exactly, in the last five months, the total number of temp jobs that were created equaled the number of temp jobs created in the last recession over, I think it was, a 24-month period. So what’s happening is, luckily, these jobs are being created, the economy is moving, companies are starting to hire again. Why temp jobs are the first to recover typically are because companies are still being cautious with their money, and so they hire people on a temp basis.

Long answer, but things are looking very good for us; internet, interactive, anything in that space is hot. That’s where folks are spending their money. We’re pretty encouraged right now.

Peter: How about geography; are there any geographies that are particularly hot right now?

Ken: I would actually say if you look at, just mentally kind of take calculus of the ten big metro regions in the United States, that’s where the jobs are. Not coincidentally, you know where our footprint is, we target our offices in the major metro regions of the country. That’s where you’re seeing a lot of job growth – New York, Boston, LA, Dallas, locations like that.

Peter: You just opened an office in Los Angeles, right?

Ken: We did. Actually, we’re two weeks in, and we’ve got a terrific team there. We are super excited to have our first West Coast office. So yeah, things are going great so far.

Peter: Let’s talk for a moment about the trends that you’re seeing in the marketplace. I know we talked about this a couple of podcasts ago but it seems like everyone is going crazy now that the iPad is out and of course, just recently there was another Apple event where they talked about the new iPhone software 4.0 which is going to be doing multitasking, and also about the new iAd format which, I would guess, would create some real opportunities for some of your folks.

Ken: Yeah, absolutely. The whole iPad mania, frankly, over the last week or so I think is very good for the job market. I was one of the faithful, I bought my iPad on Saturday and it is just so cool to use. The interface is amazing. And when you use it, the applications style and application design of an iPad app is very unique compared to what you see in an iPhone. So it really is going to drive a lot of job growth.

The iAd feature of the 4.0 software is pretty interesting. There’s a whole development, STK, I believe around that. And again, I think what we’re going to see are companies insisting that they have iPhone/iPad platforms to access their aps, their sources, everything like that. So that is another space we operate in and demand, I’d say already we’re getting phone calls about do we have iPad developers. So it’s actually pretty cool.

Peter: Josh, let’s talk a little bit about SEO — search engine optimization. Is this still a hot place to be if I’m an Internet marketer?
Josh: Yeah, Peter. Absolutely. It’s still a hot place to be for many reasons. Actually SEMPO – Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization – just released a study this past week that companies are overwhelmingly moving spend from print to online. A huge portion of that is in SEO. On top of that, of the SEMPO companies that were reported that are already spending money on the internet, almost 50% of them said they were going to increase spend. So just that alone as far as increasing spend into personnel to build your in house SEO team or with agencies, or on your page search, increasing the spend in internet marketing is going to be huge just in the dynamics for SEO.
Another statistic to look at is just the demand for SEO. A company called Conductor recently released a study stating that only about 25% of the Fortune 500’s targeted paid keywords – meaning all of those keywords that they’re spending money on, about $3.4 million a day actually – only 25% of those ranked in the top 50 natural search results. That’s staggering, if you really think about the demand that’s needed in the Fortune 500 for an SEO professional and the amount of money that’s going to be spent across the board out of all these companies that are surveyed, that means the demand is very high, and we’re seeing that reflected in the amount of jobs that we’re getting as a company and the amount of candidates we’re continuing to place.

Peter: And Josh, if you were to give me the top three professions that you are seeing the greatest demand for right now, what would they be?

Josh: SEO is one of them but another thing that I want to mention, social media. Social media is very hot right now. And it’s not just about SEO; it’s about maximizing your marketing strategy around all forms of online. Social media, it’s predictably it’s the new hot skill. It’s really what SEO was three years ago. Three years ago if you could spell SEO, you were making a ton of money and you were getting a raise and you w ere getting offers all over the place.

There’s actually a great website, just an interesting stat that came out – I love statistics – but naturalsearchblog.com, about three years ago, they announced some of the top in house SEOs. They just did a new posting – I think it was today – came out today, April 9th is when we’re recording this – 46 of the people that were on the top in house SEO sheet moved, 22 stayed. There were 68 listed, 46 of them moved and they moved… if you look at the position titles, they were all an increase in title.

So, that’s pretty interesting to show that online marketers have gotten an increase from three years ago where SEO was really the hottest item; they have all advanced in their career and social media is really where that is right now. Social media SEO, those are really the acquisition pieces.

The other high demand area is once the customer or the user gets to the site, it’s about the experience. So we’re doing a lot of work with information architecture and user experience. It’s all about converting the customer once they get to the site. And that’s very high in demand as well, as well as Flash. That goes with the user experience, but if you’re a Flash developer, call us because we have jobs for you in every major metro.

Peter: There’s something you brought up that I think is really interesting. There’s a new job title, which is social media manager. Nobody had one of those a year ago, and now you go to these corporations and they’ve “got to somebody on this Twitter thing,” you know. So, I think you’re absolutely right; there’s all of these interesting dynamics.

Ken, let’s talk a little bit more about the economy and what tips you would give a job seeker today, given what you’re seeing?

Ken: Probably the number one thing that you have to think about if you’re looking for a job right now is that over the last 18 months, companies got a heck of a lot smarter. And what I mean by that is they got used to being in an environment where there was a lot more supply out there in terms of folks looking for jobs, and they got smarter on how specific and how high their standards are around hiring, and they are a lot more demanding.

So, when you’re looking for a job right now, probably the number one pointer that I’d recommend is you have to be able to really effectively demonstrate how you bring an impact and you bring an ROI to an organization.

If you’re going into an interview just trying to win it on your charming personality and smile with not a lot of meat behind it, it’s going to be tough because over the last 18 months, there was such a high inventory of people in the marketplace, companies got really good at narrowing down to only the best of the best. That’s number one of what I would say.

The second thing is, despite the optimism that, I think Josh and I have expressed in this podcast, you still have to realize that the economy is recovering, it’s not recovered. And what that means is you need to be flexible, you need to be aggressive in your job search. The days of throwing in a resume or an email and waiting for phone callback are certainly not going to be here for awhile. So, you still have to attack it and have a strategy around it.

Peter: I think that’s really important and to your point of showing an ROI because a lot of the people you deal with are creative professionals and they get really cranked up about this cool new thing they’re able to do in Flash, but what they really have to do is demonstrate that as an ROI.

Ken: Absolutely, and on the creative side in particular, and luckily, most Flash developers do a great job of this, but you have to have a really winning portfolio to get the job that you want.

Peter: Josh?

Josh: Yeah, Ken hit it on the head with the winning portfolio. Differentiate yourself somehow. If you’re a jobseeker right now and you’re looking for your next new role, differentiate yourself in the channels that the hiring manager lives in. Do something on your blog that’s creative. But then you’ve got to get your blog in front of him. How are you going to do that? Don’t just send it to him in an email; send it to him, phone call, send a handwritten note, go knock on the door if you have to. You definitely have to differentiate yourself, but don’t just do it the old school way by phone call and a handwritten note. Do something online in one of these new media formats that is going to grab somebody’s attention.

Create an iPhone application if you have some time. If you’re a developer, create an iPhone application about finding a job and send it to everybody. It might not necessarily get published but you can maybe have a demo version out there. Do something different.

The final part is network, network, and network. Don’t be afraid to network. There are events. If you go to meetup.com or if you go to LinkedIn, there’s networking meet-up groups for every single discipline out there right now. So go to those groups, network online and in person. That would be one of my biggest suggestions.

Peter: Okay, so let’s talk about some hot jobs that you have right now, Josh. You mentioned that you’re really looking for Flash developers. Can you give us some real specifics on some really hot jobs that you are looking to place right now?

Josh: Yeah, I mean, Flash developers everywhere. Every single market of ours is looking for Flash designers and developers. Some specifics – we have VP group account director, social and mobile for a major agency in New York City. That’s a hot opening that we’re working on. Also in the city, we’re working for a web developer, web master for a large financial services organization. We’re looking for information architects in Boston across agencies and on the financial services side.

Interactive designers are also needed everywhere on the agency and corporate side. I would say the financial services world; if you have financial services experience on the creative side, give us a call because that’s an area that they’re all making money again. The gloom and doom for them is way over and they’re back to making the big bucks, and they’re spending it too. So, give us a call because they are all redesigning their websites and they’re doing great iPhone applications and it’s all around the user experience.

And then search marketers, like we kicked off this conversation, every single company needs a search engine marketer of some form – SEO, PPC or also social media.

If you go to our website jobs.onwardsearch.com, you could see a list of all the active openings that we have right now, or follow us on Twitter, you get all of our most recent updates.

Peter: Josh and Ken, thanks so much for taking time to speak with us again. Great information and great advice.

Ken: Thanks Peter, we enjoyed it.

Thank you for tuning in to Onward Search Career Cast. For more information on the career opportunities available through Onward Search, you should visit us online at onwardsearch.com or call 1-800-829-0072 and speak with an experienced recruiter. And you should also follow Onward Search on Twitter at twitter.com/onwardsearch.

The latest edition of the Onward Search Career Cast covers topics relevant to job seekers and companies seeking to hire senior level directors and executives to manage Internet marketing operations for a business.(download mp3)

Tom Hull, the vice president of Executive Search at Onward Search and Josh Gampel, vice president of Onward Search discuss the types of permanent positions that are available and how the process works compared short-term engagement contracts.

Host Peter Clayton guides us through what both job seekers and companies can expect when working with an executive placement firm.

TRANSCRIPT

We’re back in Wilton, Connecticut today with Josh Gampel who is the vice president and Tom Hull, The VP of executive search for Onward Search, and we’re going to talk a little bit about the current job market for interactive marketing at the executive level and to understand what a candidate needs to do to find the right next step in their career.

Tom and Josh, obviously we’ve had a big economic change, thank God, over the past 18 months, and if I’m a VP or a C-level interactive marketing candidate in the job market right now, what does the job market look like, Josh?

Josh: Thanks Peter. To say it short and sweet, the job market right now is great. I know it’s a sigh of relief for everyone to hear that. Our open job count is at the highest it’s ever been. Statistically speaking, for positions such as search engine optimization, from year over year, there has been about 100% job growth for job boards and ads that are online. Social media, there’s been about a 300% job growth. iPhone, I mean, it’s absolutely through the roof for the amount of open jobs that we’re seeing across the board, across the company, across the country, for many different type of acquisition marketing roles.

Basically, companies are reinvesting into their acquisition marketing strategy. There’s been a lot of cutbacks over the past several years, and really about six months ago, we started to see a drastic shift in okay the recession is over and we need to start hiring again, and marketing is one of the first areas that people are starting to invest in, specifically interactive and online marketing. We are really excited for where the market is going and have a lot of openings. We’re looking for talent everyday right now.

Peter: That’s really great news and, of course, most of our shows here on Onward Search Career Cast have focused on the temp market or the project-based, go in, do an assignment three months, whatever, and get out, but today, we’re really focusing on those permanent jobs and that’s really what Tom Hull, who is the VP of Executive Search focuses on.

Tom, talk to us a little bit about the executive search team, and how you work and interact with the contingency based team.

Tom: Hi Peter, thank you very much. It’s nice to be here. For our group, we focus exclusively on the permanent placement hires, those senior level executives that will really impact the business and lead the growth for years to come. The typical clients that we work with are companies that are usually frustrated by not having a committed partner, who don’t understand the business issues or have limited access to the right candidates, and that’s really where we come in.

What we’ve seen over the past year and a half or so is an improving job market. We’re starting to see a shift from what we say is a client-driven market where there is not as many jobs open that would see a lot of candidates for each position, where now where they’re looking to hire, there is not as many qualified people to get access to.

Choosing the right search partner is critical for business success, that’s really where we see our executive search team coming in to find the right talent.

Peter: We’ve talked in past episodes here about going from temp to perm. Do you ever get involved with the temp side, the project side of Onward Search when you start doing a candidate search for full-time employees?

Tom: What we do is we work with our clients to really determine what works best for them. In some circumstances, the temp model works great for them. In others, especially at the more senior level, bringing in executive strictly from a permanent basis makes the more sense for them. So, we really work with the client to understand what their needs are and we can work our business model around that.

Peter: If I’m a candidate or a client, why would I choose to work with a recruiter?

Tom: The short answer to that that covers both the client and the candidate is access. From the client’s perspective, the way that businesses grow is through talent and through money, and we offer the talent piece of that. We specialize in our marketplace for internet marketing creative, that’s the space to work in a daily basis, we know where the talent sits, and we know how to get access to them. We find those candidates that are passive, those that are not looking for their next opportunity. We constantly keep them aware of the opportunities in the marketplace, and then they can decide if it makes sense for them to make a change. Those are the ones that truly impact the business.

From a candidate perspective, same thing, access is supremely important. We have jobs that they’re not going to hear of to any other resource. For exclusive reasons or replacement of an incumbent, where it needs to be a confidential search, we’ll have access to those jobs. Looking for a job is almost like a full time job, so when you work with a trusted partner in an executive search firm, what we’re going to do is proactively keep you aware of opportunities that will match your skill set, your personality, and offer you that next step in your career that you wouldn’t hear about otherwise.

Peter: Josh, if I’m an active candidate looking for a new position, and I approach Onward Search, is there any cost to me in getting involved with you guys?

Josh: Great question, Peter. On the candidate side, there’s no cost at all. Basically, the clients pay for our services. On the executive permanent placement side, there’s a couple of different pricing models that we have but at the end of the day, we price it off of a percentage of the candidate’s salary.

If you’re a candidate looking for a job, you reach out to us, we get to really understand what you’re looking for, where you’re based out of, a lot of times we deal with relocation, are you willing to relocate for the right opportunity. We really looked to understand what you’re looking for as that next step in your career, what skill sets you have, and then we match that up with our client’s needs. If we put you into a position with our client, they pay the fee.

There’s never any charge to work with us, the benefit is to get access to the jobs that we’re working on it this time and many are not on the job boards. Our clients partner with us because of our relationships to really find them the best talent for the specific need that they have.

Peter: To expand on that a little bit, what are some of the segments and categories that employers are looking for right now, Tom?

Tom: Well, what we’ve seen specifically for within our niche in internet marketing creative, emerging technology, and mobile is enormous. You put the social media category in their a couple of years ago, everyone wanted to use social as part of what their strategy was going to be and unfortunately, it was basically put on hold. They said we’re going to focus on our course strategy, we know we want to do social but we can’t measure it, we don’t know how it’s going to impact the business, so we’re going to put it on hold. However now it is a core piece of everyone’s business. There’s a dearth of talent in this area, and finding somebody that can impact the business through social or mobile is in high demand.

Peter: Josh, can you give us three tips for a job seeker in 2010? What are some of the things that if I’m out there and I’m actively looking for a job, what are the main things that I need to concentrate on?

Josh: Another great question, Peter. It goes along with what Tom said about what the clients are looking for right now. As Tom mentioned, they’re looking for a lot of experience in the social and the mobile piece. Clients are looking for what have you done to attract customers and increase sales. They want to know what type of online marketing techniques have you used, and if you have used cutting edge or emerging technologies to help gain customers and increase revenue. That’s the hottest thing.

If you’re really doing the just print direct marketing world, a lot of companies are phasing out that spend and really going into the online marketing space.

From a three-tips perspective, your resume needs to reflect your online internet marketing experience as well as creative, also statistics are huge. You need to show revenue growth, you need to show quarter over quarter growth, new leads, return on investment, you need to speak the language that the internet marketers are speaking. Also throughout your career, make sure that your resume shows proven career growth every change and every step that you’ve made from an increased responsibility standpoint.

The next tip I would say is Twitter. A lot of people have made a lot of jokes about Twitter. If you haven’t already, jump on the bandwagon, jump on the bandwagon, start following people, and then start tweeting yourself. The most important part about that is myself as a recruiter, and Tom as a recruiter, and other employers out there are looking at it now. They’re looking at it, they’re seeing what type of things you’re saying, and if you start providing valuable content to your followers in regards to marketing, they know that you get it, and that you live and breathe in that space.

The final tip I would say is update your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn has become a massive resource for recruiters, hiring managers, really anybody in this space is on LinkedIn. Recently LinkedIn has added the functionality where it updates, your Twitter account at the same time, so Twitter and LinkedIn really coincide with each other, talked to your LinkedIn community, join groups, be active in the groups, provide content for them, and myself as a recruiter if I see you’re on LinkedIn and you’re commenting on different group boards, and you’re answering questions, I know that you understand what you’re talking about when I look at your resume, I’ll see your proven revenue growth year over year, I’m going to want to talk to you, learn more about what you’re looking for, and really dig in deeper into that.

With a dearth of candidates out in the marketplace, you need to stand apart from the rest and LinkedIn, Twitter, and statistics on your resume are the top three things that I would suggest just to be noticed.

Peter: I think that’s some great advice, so sort of the old, either how you’re going to save me money or how you’re going to make me money, right?

Josh: Yeah, exactly.

Peter: Tom, tell me about some of the hot jobs that you’re working on right now?

Tom: You’re going to see some general themes coming along with the jobs. When we focused within our niche market and we’re saying where we’re seeing some of the newest opportunities coming in, we’re working in mobile, we’re working in social, we’re working in search, we are working with e-commerce companies for their internet marketing needs, and we’re also working in web analytics.

Currently, we’re working with a major digital agency in Manhattan. They’re looking for a mobile marketing strategist. This is somebody who’s going to sit on the executive team and they’re going to develop the mobile strategy for major blue chip clients.

On the internet retail side, we’re dealing with the multi-channel organization that is looking specifically for a creative director who is responsible for the artistic direction and design oversight for the e-commerce activities. In conjunction, we’re working with them to find them their next VP of digital marketing, who is in charge of growing the business through social, through their affiliate network, through search, and through mobile.

That’s a real quick checklist of some of the things that we’re working on but it’s national. We’re working with blue chip companies that everyone has heard of, small entrepreneurial firms, major agencies as well.

Peter: That’s great, and these are all six-figure plus jobs, right?

Tom: Yes. They’re all permanent placement at the executive level.

Peter: This has been really interesting and I really appreciate your time today. Any last minute thoughts, Josh?

Josh: Get your resume out there if you are interested in any of the jobs that we have on our website. We also have @Onward Search, @SEO jobs and @PPC jobs – Twitter accounts, check those out. If you’re interested in anything, email us, reach out to Tom or myself, or one of our recruiters.

What we’re going to do is we’re going to have a conversation with you, understand what you’re looking for, check on what we have right now that may be a fit. We may not have anything right now, but our main goal would be really to establish a relationship for the future so when that right opportunity comes that meets our client’s needs and your needs, we’ll be able to make a match.

Peter: That’s great.

Thank you for tuning in for Onward Search Career Cast. For more information on the career opportunities available through Onward Search, you should visit us online at onwardsearch.com or call 1-800-829-0072 and speak with an experienced recruiter. You should also follow Onward Search on Twitter @Twitter.com/onwardsearch.

Peter Clayton: Welcome to an exciting new episode of the Onward Search Career Cast.  I’m here with Josh Gampel, Vice President of Onward Search and Tim Dineen who is Vice President of Internet Marketing for Onward Search. as we head into the week here, it marks the start of the interactive marketing tradeshow season and we thought it would be a great time to sit down and discuss a few of the different ways to maximize your experience at conferences across the country. Josh, why don’t you kind of just give us a little overview of some of the events that are coming up in the spring? DOWNLOAD MP3

Josh: Thanks Peter and thanks for having us.  One of the most recent events is SMX, it stands for Search Marketing Expo.  That’s going to be out in California.  Ad:tech is coming up pretty soon.  PubCon, which is typically in Las Vegas every year is actually going to be doing PubCon Dallas in April, and there’s also SES or Search Engine Strategies which comes to New York City.  A lot of shows, those are some of the major ones.  There are some smaller venues that are a little bit more on the advanced topics but those are some of the main ones that we’re going to be at at least over the next few months.

Peter: I know a lot of these shows like SES, have multiple shows throughout the year in major markets.  So, it’s not just the show in New York but it shows across the country, is that right?

Josh: Yeah.  SMX is going to be out in California, Ad:tech is out in San Francisco, PubCon is in Dallas.  It has been in Austin.  It’s always in Las Vegas every year and then SES, they’re all over the place.  They’re in Chicago, they’re in New York, they’re out in the West Coast, they’re overseas.  If you’re in the search engine marketing industry, there’s s conference coming to you real soon.

Peter: And I know you’re going to be speaking at SMX out on the West Coast.  Does Onward Search have a booth as well?

Josh: Yes, we have a booth.  I’m going to be actually speaking a few times.  There’s going to be theater presentation on Tuesday about how to find “SEO Rock Stars” and I’m also going to be speaking on Thursday, really talking about how to build an in-house PPC team. We’re excited to be presenting and sharing some ideas that we have in the industry and we’ll also have a booth, so if you’re there, come on up, ask us any questions and we’d love to get to know you.

Peter:  Josh, this is a really great opportunity because of the number of shows that you have participated in over the last couple of years.  From a job seeker’s perspective, is this a good investment of time and money to attend these shows?

Josh: Absolutely.  Coincidently, as we sit here and I’m here with Tim, that’s how I met him.  I have been attending shows for years as Tim has and he and I met each other several years ago at a networking function at PubCon Las Vegas probably three, four years ago, didn’t really get to know each other then but we had met, shook hands, and last year, we met again at PubCon again in Austin.  I was speaking on a panel and Tim came up to me and asked me a few questions afterwards and we got to know each other and we are able to build up a good rapport and I didn’t ever think of the ability to hire Tim for Onward Search at that point.  It wasn’t until he called me several months later that he was going to be out into the active job market and we happened to have an opportunity at that time.

Just by building up that relationship with Tim, we were able to hire him… A great success for Onward Search on our corporate side.

Peter: That’s a really great story.  Tim, can you share with us from your perspective — how did this all happen and how did you connect with Josh to get this job offer?

Tim: Sure.  I’ve attended a number of conferences over the years, probably about two a year, maybe three.  I met Josh, I’d seen the Onward Search booth, and I’ve used conferences as a learning experience – in that go out and attend as many sessions as I could and meet as many people as I could. I never really looked at it from a job seeking perspective but I did meet a whole lot of people, different people at every show, and when the time came to look for a job myself, I had a network that I could rely on and one of those happened to be Josh, so I gave him a call first.

Peter: Let’s talk about the kinds of things you should prepare to do before going to one of these conferences to really maximize your time and what you’re able to accomplish at a show.

Josh, can you give us some tips on things that specifically a job seeker should consider and plan ahead of time?

Josh: The best thing I would recommend if you are an active job seeker, you’re going to one of these conferences, you need to have a plan.  The plan has to be around understanding what your goals are and executing them, like all plans are.  Understand who you want to meet based on the speaker roster.  Every website has a list of speakers, you can see the companies that they work for.  If you’re  willing to relocate, you can talk to a lot of people.  If you’re not willing to relocate, understand which speakers work at companies that are located near you so you can really target those people.

Bring your resume with you; that’s important.  Have it ready to go or at least be ready to send it to somebody very quickly from your iPhone or whatever mobile device you’re using so they get that right in front of them.  Have your 30-second commercial of yourself down pat.

What do I mean by that?  It’s your elevator pitch.  Be prepared in 30 seconds or less to tell somebody what you do, what you’re looking for, what your strengths are, and keep in mind to include a little bit of that wow factor.  You want a hiring manager – a potential hiring manager – to think about your background, maybe not have an opportunity for you at that moment, but be very excited that he/she met you and that you know what, I might just have something for them and I almost want to create role because this person’s really good and they’re available now.

The other thing I would do is leverage social media tools.  Twitter for example, every show is using Twitter.  If you’re not at a show or if you want to follow all of the events, let’s use PubCon as an example as we’ve talked about that one, follow HashTag #PubCon and you’re going to see everything going on in every conference for the networking events, you’re going to really be able to know where you need to be to maximize your exposure.

Another idea is to find a sponsor.  What I mean by that is get to know somebody that’s connected and very well networked and if they trust you, if they can vouch for your and know your skills, they’re going to introduce you to a lot of people that you normally might not have had the chance to.  At networking events, if you can have a sponsor, you know, really walk you around, introduce you to some key people, that’s all you need.

Actually just last year, I remember I was at one of the conferences, there was somebody that actually came up to our booth with their resume in hand and was doing a great job, actually probably followed all of those tips that I mentioned and I went to call her up about a week after the show because we have a few opportunities that I wanted to introduce her to and she had three job offers.  Three job offers, one week after spending her own money to go to a tradeshow and that was really impressive.  The ROI in the show has paid off because she got a great job.  It was a great success story for the networking piece.

Peter: I think that’s some great advice and you know, people joke a lot about Twitter but I’ll tell you that, talk about a stealth application,  especially at a conference and as you mentioned, using a Hashtag and putting in #PubCon or #SESNYC, you’re going to see real time, and be able to follow all of these people and all of these activities that are going on at these events and really do a better job of planning what you’re going to be doing there.

Tim, talk to us about how you recommend someone go about figuring out which of the conference events to attend.  As you know, a lot of these shows are really big, they have multiple tracks, so how do you decide which speaker you go see and….

Tim: Do them all!  It’s so hard to pick because these shows are so big now.  There are five different tracks, SEM, SEO, pay-per-click, social media, affiliate marketing, there’s so many different tracks now that they – it’s incredibly hard to pick but obviously you have to.

The way that I look at it is I try to go by the speakers.  There could be a topic that I really feel I need to learn, obviously, I’d choose that one first.  Secondly, I’d look at the speaker list.  If there are speakers from a search engine for example, you get the opportunity to hear information right from the source that are usually very useful and then  if there’s somebody who’s speaking who’s in your industry, in your particular niche, that’s always a good idea to attend that.  And then having gone for a few years, you get to learn who the good speakers are and who gives away information.

Peter: We’re talking about a number of really high profile, very valuable conferences here.  So how do you go about picking and choosing which events to attend?

Tim: It’s really a good idea to just mix them up.  Personally, I don’t go to the same show every year, year after year but I like to pick a couple of different shows one year and then go to different two or three shows the following year.  After a few years of doing that, you get to learn that sometimes you’ll learn a certain subset of information at a PubCon that you wouldn’t learn at an SES New York.

One way to look at it is from your own skill set.  SES may be a good show, a good starter show if you’ve never been to a show before.  New York is also pretty commonly targeted to advertising whereas SMX, SMX Advanced, some of the West Coast shows including PubCon would be more SEO focused and more technical.

Josh: If I can add on that Peter, budget obviously if you’re a job seeker and you’re very cost-conscious, budget is going to be important for you, so you want to look at the hotel prices in the area.  Also, from a job seeker’s perspective, networking events.  Every conference has a list of networking events.  Sometimes you can find a blog, talking about the different events.  If you really want to maximize your exposure to different people, make sure you go to one that has a lot of organized, open networking events.  You also want to look at local shows coming to you and if you’re not going really to be able to afford the pass to go to the whole show, at least get the Expo Hall pass or buy the $50 networking pass that allows you to go to the cocktail hour with the cheese and crackers and the really long lines but at least you get to talk to people.  So, look at the networking events, look at the ability to get in front of the most amount of people and really maximize your time.

Peter: That’s great.  Josh, let’s talk about some of the hot jobs that Onward Search is working on right now.

Josh: We’re busy.  Across the board on our temp staffing and our executive search space, we have more and more jobs coming in every day.  A simple quick solution, go to Onward Search, go to our jobs page, you can see the most up-to-date jobs for some of our hot jobs that we have.

Right now for instance, we’re working with a major digital marketing agency.  Actually the job is going to be headquartered in Chicago.  It’s going to be a VP of Search Engine Marketing that’s going to really spearhead a major financial services account.  We have iPhone developer jobs all over the place.  We have some that are for agencies that are you know, going to really do fun, cool iPhone apps.  We also have another financial service iPhone application that we’re looking to develop that requires somebody to have significant, enterprise-wide iPhone application development experience.

We’re looking for SEO copywriters, Flash developers, interactive designers.  We have several e-commerce companies right now that are going to be redesigning their website.

The latest thing in 2010 is internet retailers are going to redesign their website and the biggest thing is to increase conversions.  So, if you’re a web designer out there that has had experience redesigning a website for landing page optimization, increasing conversions, anything that’s going to help an ROI, CEOs want to know who you are and they want to hire you so give us a call and we’ll help you out.

Peter: That’s great news.  On our last show, we talked a lot about the new iPad; are you getting some calls and some inquiries about that at this point?

Josh: We’re getting a lot of inquiries.  Not everybody knows what it’s going to turn into.  iPhone developers have been all the rage and you have to get your hands on one because you need to develop an iPhone app, just because you do.

iPad is the next big thing.  It’s just a matter of time before we’re going to do a lot more on Android application development because they are really growing.  We really try to stay focused in everything that’s cutting edge and emerging technology.  So, take a look at our website, follow us on Twitter at Onward Search, follow some of our list, you really get to see some of the things that we recommend and there’s a lot of industry news out there that we try to share with everyone to keep you up to date on what’s going on in the growth of the job market across everything internet marketing and creative.

Peter: Josh and Tim, thanks so much for taking time to speak with us again on Onward Search Career Cast and we really recommend and encourage all of the listeners to check out some of these tradeshows we’ve been talking about today; I’m sure you’ll find some really valuable information to help you in your job search.

Thank you for tuning in to Onward Search Career Cast.  For more information on the career opportunities available through Onward Search, you should visit us online at OnwardSearch.com or call 1-800-829-0072, and speak with an experienced recruiter.  And you should follow Onward Search on Twitter at Twitter.com/onwardsearch.

The growth of iPhone, iPad and Android Jobs

Welcome back to Onward Search Career Cast.  We have some real world and very timely advice to share with you today.  I’m joined by Ken Clark, the Cofounder and EVP of Onward Search and Leanne Owens, Director of Staffing for Onward Search’s Boston office. DOWNLOAD MP3.

Ken and Leanne, welcome back to the Onward Search Career Cast.

It seems like every one is talking about the iPad these days but what is not always talked about is the impact it has on the job market.  We’re going to take some time today to dig into not only the iPad but the entire mobile space to include iPhone, Android and Blackberry platforms.  In 2010, the internet industry buzz is certainly centered in mobile so Ken, let’s get started.

With the hot topic of the moment, the iPad, it certainly has had it’s share of both positive and negative buzz since it was introduced but what kind of impact do you think it’s going to have on the job market?

Ken:  I think that the iPad is going to be a pretty powerful driver for jobs.  When you look at the impact of the device, it’s actually made pretty cool.  I’m a big iPhone, iPad, Apple guy, big lover of all things Apple and I’ve been following a lot of the critical reaction, which is you know somewhat in the middle actually right now, but I think what we’re going to see is when the iPad comes out, it is really, the power of it is that it’s a platform and just like we saw with the iPhone, the iPad momentum is really going to be powered by the apps.  It’s all about the apps, so to speak.  You look at what’s happening already in the marketplace, then you have companies, there are some great companies like one develops great software for the whole Apple platform called Omni Group.  They actually over the last several weeks have been showing kind of their conceptions of what they’re going to different on the iPad that’s different than the iPhone, different than what they do on the Mac.  A lot of other businesses actually just recently, WiredMagazine had a whole demo of what they’re iPad app is going to look like.

And what this is going to do is it’s going to drive jobs and that’s really where we kind of enter into the equation and what specifically is going to happen is you are going to see a lot of the iPhone developers that are already out there now have additional opportunities to develop custom apps for the iPad.  We’re also going to see a lot of jobs created in this space and to quote – I think it was Scott Forrestal, who is one of the folks at Apple that’s in charge of the iPad, he said it’s going to be a “gold rush for developers,” and he was talking about it from the perspective of financial gain.  What I would say is there’s going to be a gold rush around jobs.  You’re going to see a lot of job creation that’s tied to the iPad and that’s just great for the economy.

Peter: One of the biggest criticisms of the iPad is that it doesn’t support Flash.  From your perspective, do you think that’s going to be a real barrier?  Of course, there are a lot of people other than Steve Jobs who don’t like Flash and as we all know, a lot of the large enterprise organizations block Flash applications from even going across the firewall.

Ken:  Yeah, that’s interesting.  There is a whole Flash ripple effect, in my opinion, from the iPad.  You look back at some of the decisions that Apple has made in their history, on the hardware side, you can remember back when they just said we’re not supporting floppy drives anymore, and at the time, that was like oh my God, what is Apple doing?  A couple of years later after that, they were actually one of the companies – most people don’t remember this – to support USB 2.0.  That becomes a standard.  Apple is taking a stand once again.

What I think is going to happen is I don’t think Flash is going to go away but I do think if I’m a Flash developer, I am now looking at the world and saying Flash is one of the tools in my utility belt but it’s not the only tool.” Apple, I personally don’t believe is ever going to support Flash on either device.  What they are really aiming for is to support HTML5 as a standard and if I’m a developer and I’m looking to say what are the other tools I want in my utility belt, I certainly would be focusing on HTML5 and using that as a way to kind of guide my career path.

Peter: Leanne, we hear a lot about iPhone app developers who are building the latest games and hottest apps of the day, not a lot of attention is given to the ecosystem around enterprise development corporate iPhone app development.  What does the environment look like around MIT and the Route 128 corridor up there in Boston?

Leanne:  We really see a lot of momentum building in the business corridor here in Massachusetts and our business is engaged with several Fortune Organizations who are leveraging our staffing consultancy programs within the mobile application strategy design and development space to build.  Certainly the iPad has elicited a huge surge in not only application development in the apps store but the buzz overall in the platforms that have, up to this point, sort of been ignored.

So I think that there’s enough advance notice for companies and for talent to really, like Ken said, galvanize their skills and be available because it’s going to be less about wouldn’t this be cool and let’s do this in the third or the fourth quarter, to who’s going to be first to market with not only a mobile application that is going to continue to provide brand awareness, but really engage these companies’ customers with their product 24/7 and it’s not just going to be in the iPhone and iPad space, but I really think the other platforms are going to see a huge surge in development.

Peter: Let’s talk about that a little bit, Ken.  What do you see coming up as far as the Android platform, which is certainly getting a lot of traction, and Blackberry as well.

Ken:  If you had to rank them, I think that the ranking is along the lines of what you said:

iPhone, iPad – 1

Android – 2

Blackberry – 3

There’s a lot of activity around all three spaces.  I mean certainly the most popular one is the Apple platform.  What we’re hearing in the marketplace with increasing frequency as you’d expect is I don’t just want an iPhone platform, but I want a mobile Platform that hits all spaces.  Android, it’s interesting just to kind of think about even over the last three months; three months ago, I recall I having a conversation with one of our partners and they were saying – and I’m paraphrasing them – they were saying, “Yeah, Android’s pretty interesting.  We’re starting to get into it.”  I spoke with them a couple of weeks ago and the attitude was, “Okay, everything we’re doing is Android as well.”

So I think Android is going to be hot.  I think Blackberry; again it’s not going away, it’s not as exciting, so to speak, as iPhone and Android but from a corporate perspective; businesses are looking a mobile platform.  It starts with iPhone and then it immediately says okay, once we have the iPhone, we need to get these other platforms as well.

Leanne, you may want to add onto that as well.

Leanne:  One good thing about that is that our talents are agnostic when it comes to mobile application design and development.  They tend to be able to move in between the platforms and the programs effortlessly.  So, the folks that we work with don’t just come with just one level of expertise with one product or one platform; they have a lot of experience and can point to successful applications that have been delivered for clients through us that are on the Blackberry platform, the iPhone and soon to be iPad as well.  So, it’s nice to be able to work with folks that have a very macro overview of what they’re doing and how to best provide those deliverables to our clients.

Peter: Ken I know you’re at CES this year and mobile was the big buzz at CES and that’s really where a lot of this development effort is going, especially from a corporate standpoint.  What advice would you give companies looking to source iPhone and iPad and other mobile app developers?

Ken:  The key thing is you really need to as with any job search, you need to target where the talent is.  There are a lot of enterprising folks out there that have downloaded the SDKs and they’ve developed their Hello World app, so to speak, but on a corporate level, you really need to find the talent that has experience.  The tough part is this is what –a year, maybe two years old –  so finding that experience is tough and there’s a lot of good partners that we see out in the marketplace that have established experience but when you’re looking for a partner, or a developer, what you have to realize this isn’t just a coder.  You think of any good iPhone application and soon to be iPad application, in a way you can really conceptualize it just like a website.  There is a wire framing process that you have to go through around what’s the navigation flow.  You have to think about what’s the creative, what’s the look and feel of the application, and then there’s the backend of the application.  So if you’re working with a developer or partner that only has one piece, that’s really not the right way to go.  The kind of analogy, again, that I think is most appropriate is you think about if you were doing a website redesign, what are the skill sets that are involved, usability, creative, wire framing and backend; the same thing applies on an iPhone app.

Leanne:  You definitely need scalable solutions.  We’ve had companies that we’ve worked with that have felt that they would reach out to us for a compartmentalized group of individuals to do one component and these folks have been able to come in and educate and influence those clients and help them kind of back into a better solution.

I agree exactly with what Ken just said, that Onward offers the scalable solution and I think that companies even starting off who feel that they only need the coders end up going for the whole solution and at the end of the day, they deliver the best product.

Peter: Are companies really getting into this wave?  I mean do they understand how important that is for the continuing conversation they’re trying to create with their customers, Leanne?

Leanne:  They absolutely do.  Again, it’s less of a novelty and if you just look at what’s in the apps store right now, the 600 apps in December of 2009 versus the 1600 apps in January of 2010; that’s making folks not just pay attention to Apple’s products but their mobile application marketing strategy completely.  We’re working with companies that aren’t putting out things that are just entertaining but we’re doing very complex delivery of products that have authentication that help people in their every day lives, not only reach back to these client companies but also improve their finances, they’re health, you name it, and they’re getting into all different lifestyle reaches.  They’re getting into the environmental components, they’re getting into health, they’re getting into financial.

Peter: Leanne, our listeners always like to hear about what the latest hot jobs are here on Onward Search Career Cast and since we have the benefit of you up there in Boston, what’s really hot in Boston?

Leanne:  Everything’s hot in Boston.  We are really seeing a big surge in opportunities and the job market is exploding, especially in internet marketing.  We’re working with the best and the brightest in the interactive space.  A lot of information architecture, a lot of online content strategy, and copywriters, online copywriters, a lot of search marketing professionals, social media consultants and folks that can, of course, do all of the mobile application design and development.

Peter: One last question for you guys.  Leanne, are you going to be standing in line at the Apple store there in Boston to buy an iPad when they come out?

Leanne:  Absolutely.  I have held off to this point but I can’t wait to be a part of it.  It’s a really exciting product, it’s a leisure product and something that’s going to be able to help me gain access to all of the cool tools that are out there.

Peter: And Ken, how about you?

Ken:  It’s kind of a foregone conclusion I’m going to buy one.  I have my daily questions to myself about when but I know that just like Leanne, come the end of March, I’m buying one and it’s going to be pretty cool.  I’m excited to see it.

Peter: As we all know the Apple has just had its 10 billionth download of music and let’s hope that the iPad is able to save the publishing industry as well.  So again, thanks so much for taking time to speak with us today on Onward Search Career Cast.

Leanne, up there in Boston, we really appreciate your time.

Leanne:  A pleasure, thank you.

Peter: And Ken, it’s always great to speak with you and we’ll be doing so again soon.

Ken:  Alright, thanks Peter.  I enjoyed it.
Thank you for tuning in to Onward Search Career Cast.  For more information on the career opportunities available through Onward Search, you should visit us online at OnwardSearch.com or call 1-800-829-0072, and speak with an experienced recruiter.  And you should also follow Onward Search on Twitter at Twitter.com/onwardsearch.

We’re at the corporate headquarters of Onward Search in Wilton, CT with Ken Clark, co-founder and executive vice president of Onward Search, and Josh Gampel, vice president for Onward Search.

Onward Search Career Cast Episode #1 – Transcript

Welcome to Onward Search Career Cast, the podcast that brings you the latest insight and career advice from experts within the internet marketing and creative space. Onward Search is a leading nationwide provider of web-based talent and offers a full range of recruitment and staffing solutions.
If you’re looking for a career in search engine optimization, interactive design, or emerging technologies, you should apply online at OnwardSearch.com or call 1800-829-0072 and speak with an experienced recruiter today.

Hello, and welcome to the inaugural episode of Onward Search Career Cast. We’re in Wilton, Connecticut with Ken Clark who’s the Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of Onward Search and Josh Gampel, Vice President for Onward Search.
I’d like to start with you Ken, can you give us some of the background of Onward Search, a little bit of the back story how this whole company started, what your vision was?
Ken: Onward Search is a company that my brother and I actually founded several years ago and it came really as a result of a kind of complementary background that we’ve had in both the marketing, and technology, and staffing industries. A couple of years ago, we were looking at the search engine optimization space, and it’s pretty amazing even with kind of the economy we’ve had over the last or so, the online marketing industry is forecasted to literally double over the next five years, and one of the big challenges that companies have right now is finding the talent that can power their online marketing initiatives.

Both Kevin and I, as I’ve mentioned, have had experience founding other staffing businesses, and we started Onward Search with the goal of becoming the number one provider of internet marketing and creative talent in the country. So what that really means is we have a temporary staffing company with actually an executive search division as well, that provides everything from search engine optimization experts, to social media consultants, to Flash developers, graphic designers, usability experts, really anyone that helps a company market their company on the web.

Peter: To your point, there’s been a lot of publicity recently about Pepsi’s decision not to sponsor the Super Bowl this year and to put their money into all of the social media.

Ken: Yeah, and that’s indicative of what all companies are doing right now. You know, if you look at the trends, print and traditional marketing, advertising budgets are literally being slashed and marketing dollars are being spent online and these answers are pretty simple; (1) it’s because that’s where people are going and (2) it’s such a quantifiable and measurable form of marketing. You know, I can look at for my company a number of reports online right now and I can tell you exactly how much every lead is costing us and that’s what companies are doing all across the country.

Peter: Josh, can you give us an idea of what kind of professionals Onward Search looks for, for staffing?

Josh: Sure. As Ken mentioned, on the broad level, internet marketing and creative talent. We do this all across the country and invasively what does that mean? That means anybody that is involved with acquisition of customers via the web; so whether it’s search engine marketing professionals that are working on a pay-per-click basis, search engine optimization professionals that are doing organic search, social media professionals – I’m sure everybody out there is familiar with Twitter, it’s the most popular form of marketing right now – we deal with acquisition of customers to their website. But once they get to the website, we also deal with the creative aspect, the information architecture, the user experience, the web design, the graphic design, you know the total look and feel, the site is all part of the internet marketing and creative buckets that we consider that we recruit for.

Peter: As Ken mentioned, these are all temporary assignments, so how long is a typical temporary assignment with one of your clients?
Josh: Sure. Great question. I can’t give you 13 weeks as a finite number because every assignment varies. It depends on what the projects are for the company. We have several assignments that are three months in length. We have others that are two years in length. It all depends on exactly what the client is looking to execute. We have a certain client right now that’s doing a complete website redesign. Once that design is done, the project is over, it’s slotted to be a four month project but it’s most likely going to take about six months.

On the other end, we do temporary staffing. We also have an executive search division. The executive search division is permanent only so those assignments are indefinite in length.
Peter: Is there a chance for a temp position becoming a permanent position?
Josh: Yeah, absolutely. Most of our clients, that’s one way they like to evaluate talent, to make sure that the culture fit is right on both ends, the skill set is right. It’s also a way to just try before you buy on the client end. So temp to perm is a very popular model that we have. It also allows the candidate to determine if they like the company. I mean, in the search engine marketing world, the demand is very high, the supply is constrained, and that’s still the case today in even the economy that we’re in. So it allows both parties to make sure it’s the right fit before you jump right in and commit to each other.

Peter: Are most of your assignments onsite or are there opportunities for remote employment?

Josh: There are opportunities for remote, it depends on the client. I would say 90% of our assignments are onsite. It gives you a chance to go in, meet face to face. If you do remote work, most likely you have the ability to get to the office one or two times a week for meetings.
On the social media front where you can really, it’s a virtual world out there, we tend to have some more remote work but all of our needs are dictated by what the client wants and we really produce the candidates to match up with what their projects are.

Peter: Ken, what kind of clients do you normally work with?
Ken: The majority of our clients are actually what I generally categorize as Fortune 1000, Fortune 2000 clients. We certainly actually do a decent amount of work with internet marketing and advertising agencies out there as well but if you look at the bulk of our clients, they’re the big names in the industry that you’d read in Fortune magazine, frankly.

Peter: And what makes your staffing company unique or different from the other staffing companies out there?

Ken: I think it really gets back to what we started with when we talked about the premise of how we started Onward Search. There is not a single other company in the country right now that focuses on the niche that we specialize in. We have the DNA from the minute we started this company that internet marketing and creative staffing is what we do. When you look at the way, again, that the global trend line is going to online, we have the experts in that industry, that have been recruiting in that industry for years. Literally, everyone that’s on our team has unbelievable amounts of experience recruiting in this niche. We’re at the trade shows, we’re participating in the online communities. We really understand the space, frankly, better than any other company out there.

Peter: I think one thing would be very helpful is for you to deconstruct what the difference is between a staffing company, an executive search company, a retained search, a contingency search – this is very confusing to a lot of different people.

Ken: What I can do is let me just start with how the temporary side of the business works and then Josh, why don’t you talk about the executive search side.

The core of our business is temporary staffing and in essence, when you work with a temporary staffing business, what we’re doing is we’re speaking with customers usually in major metro markets that we operate in and they’re coming to us saying they need the best talent to get their products completed. So what we do is we keep a database of the most talented folks, nationally and within our regions, and we help you find a job that best meets your talents. As Josh mentioned, most of our work is project-based in some nature on the temp side and what we do is we then become your employer. You get benefits from us, healthcare benefits. We offer 401K plan, we offer health, life insurance, kind of all the benefits that you expect to get from any employer, but the benefit on the career side is you have the flexibility of moving from assignment to assignment and in this segment, that’s critical because the key to driving your career path forward is to advance your career, get a diversity of assignments and always be on the cutting edge of technology. So, working with Onward Search is actually a great way to do that.
Peter: And Josh, can you tell us a little bit about the executive search business?
Josh: Sure. On the executive search side, the way it differs from what Ken mentioned in regard to the temporary staffing is that it’s permanent assignments. What we do is partner with our clients typically on 100,000 or above positions and we really search for the right fit on a cultural and skill set basis for the person. We work with very large clients, typically Fortune 500 or the Internet Retailer’s top 500 and we really look for the best of the best.

Most often our assignments are all across the country. We’re looking for senior VPs of customer acquisition, senior VPs of SEO, VP of marketing, anybody that would run a marketing or acquisition strategy for the company is typically where search for and we do a lot of work and really headhunting as opposed to temporary staffing.

On the temporary staffing, it’s all about projects executed right away and for the talent that’s out there that’s listening, it’s typically those that are in the market available for work or looking for long-term projects.
On the executive search side, most likely you’re working right now. You’re going to get a call from us, listen to what we have to say, if it’s not a fit for you right now, we establish a relationship for the future and kind of go from there.

Peter: So what kind of trends are you seeing for 2010 going forward in the staffing industry and executive search, Ken?

Ken: Well, probably the biggest trend that we’re seeing which will come as no surprise to the folks out there is the rise of what I call mobile application development, mobile marketing. That is absolutely within our wheelhouse, so to speak, in the sense of what we do.
We have a number of projects ongoing right now where we’re helping companies develop iPhone applications, Android applications for the new Google operating system, as well as Blackberry applications.

It’s kind of interesting, CES, which is a big trade show, one of the keynote speakers made a quote and I’m paraphrasing him that said, “Not having a iPhone app is like not having a website,” and that is so true in what we’re seeing in the marketplace. Mobile is moving very quickly and in light of that or in the background of that, as I mentioned before, the whole online space, social media, email marketing, SEO, SEM, per Forrester’s research report that they released this year around the state of the industry, as I mentioned, is scheduled to double over the next five years. So all of these jobs are moving fast, growing and companies need talent and they are looking very hard for it right now.

Peter: Speaking about that Josh, can you give us an idea of some of the hot jobs or the hot professions that you are currently looking for temp help for?

Josh: Sure. Ken nailed it right on the head – iPhone application developers right now are as hot as they come. What clients are looking for, especially the larger ones are those that have experience doing enterprise-wide iPhone applications. What I mean by that is for instance, a financial services company that we’re working with wants to build out an iPhone application that can leverage accounts across multiple areas and multiple divisions, tie them all into one so a user such as myself or you that are out there listening can easily go to their iPhone, log in to whatever their account portfolios are, look at their 401K statements, look at the stock market and know in real time what their portfolios are doing. It involves a certain skill to be able to build the application but also to understand what’s going in the database in the backend and is as hot as can be right now.

Other areas that are very hot are Flash developers, anything that has to do with the look and feel of the website and the usability. If you’re really good, you’re going to find great work in clients that are looking for you. The other aspect as we mentioned in the beginning is search engine marketing; it’s one of the fastest growing markets out there, the talent is very high in demand and if you’re good and you have proven results, then we want to talk to you.

Ken: Just one thing I wanted to add to what Josh was saying on the iPhone side; we talked about our client mix and how we really work with enterprise clients, I meant that niche of an enterprise level iPhone developer as opposed to not that iPhone developer that creates games or utility apps isn’t needed or wanted in the marketplace, but that niche of an enterprise iPhone developer is in hot demand.
My tip to the talent out there is get your Cocoa and objective C books out and really focus on that because that’s a hot industry right now.

Peter: Well, thank you so much for your taking time to speak with us in the very first episode of the Onward Search Career cast, and be sure to tune in next time when we will be describing how a typical assignment with Onward Search works and joining us again will be Ken Clark who is the Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of Onward Search and Josh Gampel, the Vice President of Onward Search.
Thank you for tuning in to Onward Search Career Cast. For more information on the career opportunities available through Onward Search, you should visit us online at OnwardSearch.com or call 1800-829-0072, and speak with an experienced recruiter. And you should also follow Onward Search on Twitter at Twitter.com/onwardsearch.