So, when you mix young companies being bought for millions, an ad campaign that has taken the Internet by storm and the DOW hitting 12,000 - what do you get? It looks like the start of another Tech Bubble. Oddly enough, even CNN, Slashdotters and more blogs around the world are deciding that we’re entering into a new market. CNN even got bold enough to say that Google has helped the situation with the DOW…
The Proof Is In The Jobs
I’ve been contacted by recruiters here recently much more than in the past. In fact, I get 2 REALLY good leads every 6 months that I look in on and usually try to woo my way in for an interview. Add about 6-10 other leads I ignore or pass up and thats the last couple of years. This year, however, I’ve had 3 solid leads and countless offers to work everywhere in the US, France and Germany. In fact, I was approached yesterday for an hour down the road in Germany and today I was approached for Washington State. At this point, I’m averaging a recruiter every two of so weeks. Some weeks, like this one, I seem to attract them like mosquito’s. Even at this very moment, I’m rewriting a resume for a recruiter looking at me for a short term government contracting position…
But beyond my personal experience with the job market, there are plenty of reports showing that the market is getting better. Notice I didn’t say the tech market… A recent report found that companies are shedding technology based positions faster than ever . Its a little odd that I’m writing about the next possible boom and technology jobs are going into the can. The reason? Efficiency.
Take Google for instance. Google has made a killing by poaching employees of competitors and hiring some of the best engineers and people on the planet. For awhile, recruiters where consistently blaming Google for killing the job prospects and driving up the start-up salaries for people they recruited. There have also been a slew of lawsuits about the poaching that Google has done to get the best and brightest. Past all of this, there is something that falls into line. If you take all of your hiring effort and focus on getting the best talent possible instead of someone that can crawl their way through their job, the company’s bottom line and, overall, happiness of employees will be much much better - both making the company more money. This is efficiency at its best and more companies are learning from it.
The Outlook
While I like Google, I simply cannot see it moving forward at its continued pace. While I don’t know all the avenues of income they have, something is going to eventually give. The Ad market is explosive right now, no bones about it. But what happens when businesses start seeing that their spending money and not much is being given back with new customers and purchases? Google solved a little bit of that problem by introducing the Channels section in Adsense. This allows you to test “channels” of ads to rate how well they do for you. That was good for awhile, but Google released Analytics, otherwise known as Urchin. Now, Google has released Website Optimizer that helps you see whats wrong with the website your visitors are bouncing to. Long story short, Google has to keep releasing products to make AdSense look like its still worth spending money on.
After another year or so, AdSense spending will drop and we’ll start seeing a little more level-headed market. But, again, that’s just in static online advertising. The day Google figures out a way to allow you to post videos to your blogs with advertisements, we’ll see another advertising boom.
Ultimately, the market is gaining speed again, but how long can it last this time? Will it burst again or will investors see that they can’t just shovel money into a dog food delivery company? Only time will tell.
Tags: Google, ads, internet, Reports, jobs, industry, stocks, bubble
