Carl Bradford

BusinessWire – Executives are optimistic and preparing for growth, according to the Ninth Annual Forbes/Gartner C-Level Executive Study with C-Level and senior management executives.

More than 650 executives participated in the study, “Preparing for Growth in the Current Economy,” conducted between April 21, 2009 and May 6, 2009. The complete study is available at http://www.forbes.com/adinfo/research.html.

• Seven out of ten respondents said they were confident about their organizations’ prospects for revenue growth in 2010 (26% were very confident and 44% were somewhat confident).
• Large companies (those with 1,000-plus employees) were the most optimistic – 78% were somewhat or very confident in 2010 revenue growth.
• Small businesses (under 100 employees) were the least positive, with 67% expressing confidence in 2010 growth.
• Looking beyond 2010, 87% of executives were very (46%) or somewhat (41%) confident in their prospects for growth through 2012. More than 92% of large-company executives expected revenue growth to occur before the end of 2012, with more than half (53%) being very confident.

Executives Planning For the Upturn

• More than half of large-company executives (53%) said they are preparing strategies to be ready for the economic upturn, compared to just under half of midsize businesses (49%) and 41% of small businesses.
• Large companies are investing for growth in 2009– including technology, new products and services, and marketing initiatives.
• Small businesses, meanwhile, are putting more emphasis on increasing their marketing and advertising expenditures.

On the technology front, executives see digital marketing and communication as the best tech investments for business growth, followed by customer relationship management and digital collaboration technologies.

What This Means For You

You should be optimistic, yet this growth will be slow to spread into more jobs.   For those so inclined, the prediction for more state and federal job opportunities will offer some of the quickest growth.

If you search using Google job opportunities, you can expect to find more and more employers moving their job listings into the broader aspects of the Internet and social media sites vs. use of large job boards. Niche and specialty job boards will continue to do well in the near term and as a job seeker you can expect to find some of the best jobs listed there.

I was also somewhat surprised this week to see that there is a correlation between the number of Human Resources – HR – professionals looking for job opportunities and the number of recruiting job opportunities available.  I read one report this week that over 108,000 jobs were available in US within the HR/recruiting profession. These jobs covered everything from entry level and support positions to very senior recruiting executive positions.

Typically when you begin to see a significant number of jobs in the recruiting profession open up, it means there are plans for more aggressive hiring in the near future.