Charlotte's Job Market: An Insider's View

Earlier this week, I spent time chatting with Patty Comer and Amy Nolan, owners of Charlotte-based AccruePartners, the employment and recruitment firm. If you've been following local and state jobless numbers, you'll likely find their upbeat view of the market to be, let's say, contrarian.

Along with the highly abbreviated Q&A that published in today's paper, I figured some of you might appreciate their deeper view of Charlotte's job market. So, here goes...

The agency says it's not hearing “we are not hiring right now”. The employment market in Charlotte is great for those with skills, education and the superior American work ethic.
What we do hear is:
· We expect to hire at a specific time frame
· We have seen an increase in our business and need to hire
· We have an investment in IT upgrades and will be hiring
· We’ve just gotten a resignation
· We unsuccessfully outsourced to India or the Philippines and we need to bring back those positions in-house.

The firm says it has:
· has seen an increase in perm placement revenue by 145%
· has seen an increase in contract/temporary to hire revenue by 39%
· Industry indicators had projected temporary to increase a higher rate as jobs came back but the firm have not seen that to be true in Charlotte.
· After 9 years in business the firm have seen the strongest 6 month run rate in the history of our business

2. Technical Skills a miss match in the market
· Very few of the firm's positions are being filled by the long-term unemployed. The talent that was truly laid off late in the recession are now getting absorbed very quickly as they still have the skills that employers are requiring.

· Required skills are truly that “required”. Companies no longer have the leisure to train for specific software skills or industry expertise. What they need they need with high levels of expertise. Investment in the employee is described but the employee cannot be a great person with a good resume.

· The currently employed, highly coveted, high achiever is working multiple roles at their current employer and not found seeking a new position via the job boards due to limited time, confidentiality and lack of information provided in a job posting.

3. Candidates and Companies are both very selective

4. Candidates are just as selective as Employers

· The Unemployed:
The high level of weekly payout of NC ESC benefits has allowed candidates an extended period of time to be more selective in their search. Candidates who are not in total financial distress (2nd income earners, those with savings on top of the unemployment check) know that they can take their time and don’t want to be back in the job search mode anytime soon so they are more selective. Many of those on unemployment refuse to take a financial step backward or a longer commute to “just have a job”.

· The Employed:
Currently employed candidates have made it through the recession with their current employer
and want to be confident in their next employer. A compelling story is critical to attracting “A”/High Potential talent and employers are getting better at this. Candidates require information up front on the leadership of the company, growth opportunities, financial position, benefits before engaging in an interview process. Candidates are looking at the whole of the company and aligning themselves to their personal objectives, professional goals and the company’s needs. Bonus opportunities that are clearly defined are critical to candidates.

5. Candidates are restless
· Many employees who considered making a job change in the last 2 years held off and are now restless and ready for change. There is more confidence in the market. The firm is seeing a lot of positions that open due to someone resigning to accept another position elsewhere. Those numbers are not reported in the new job numbers by the Department of Labor as they are not newly created roles but replacements.

6. Where are the new jobs are coming from
· Adding back old head count – due to increased work loads. Most employees were already doing the job of 2+ and to keep productivity and profitability in line with budgets and objectives. The additional head count needed to be added to ensure retention of current team. Employers are realizing they can’t keep piling on the work to existing staff and that there is a breaking point.
· Newly created positions due to increased growth and jobs being retooled/reevaluated. Again, referring to the skills needs. Systems, industry and the ability to communicate are more important than ever.
· Companies expanding into the market and or consolidating roles to the region to capture Charlotte’s attractive human capital.
· Resignations due to movement
· Temp-to-Hire is coming back very strong in the lower level positions under $40,000 per year and professional positions are coming back direct hire.
· Manufacturing sector is hot and hiring across the board consistently for the last year. Positions are technical and very interesting. Analysis of business lines, products to drive the new business economy.

7. Those that aren’t getting hired:

· Candidates who have been the long-term unemployed who have not demonstrated what they have been doing with their time. Did they take courses to improve their situation, volunteer or have a meaningful reason for not working.
· Candidates without communication skills (written and verbal ). Specific examples would be; Candidates without a strategic thought process in their job search, lack the ability to properly network and the lack of follow through to include thank you notes for networking and interviews.
· Candidates who did not invest in software skills while they were gainfully employed are no longer competitive.
· The customer service agent – those jobs are gone and not coming back.

A Tempest @ TEDxCharlotte

While the Charlotte debut of TED, the global big-ideas conference, has the city's creative class abuzz, there are some rumblings of discontent. At issue: the Sept. 24 inaugural of TEDxCharlotte, held at the Wells Fargo auditorium in uptown, will be limited to 300 participants - a far cry from the hundreds of wannabe TED-sters around town. The situation has raised questions about the selection process, even spawning a group of protesting Tweeters, or as they've dubbed their site, NedxCharlotte ("We are an independently organized event for those NOT invited to TED" goes the tagline).

In my Sunday column (Sept. 5), I profile Candice Langston, the chief organizer of the event, and her push to bring Charlotte's growing creative community into the business mainstream.

Due to my own space limitations (of the editorial variety), my column doesn't address the question "How does one get chosen to attend a TEDx event?" But here's a bit of fodder on the subject, offered by Langston via email Friday night (Sept. 3) after my column went to press:

"As organizers, our goal throughout the process has been to remain transparent and to maintain integrity and fairness. We stand behind our process and the results it yielded. Hopefully, these facts will address some of those concerns.

Here goes:

1. All TEDx events include a selection process for participation. Each TEDx is independently organized by a local team and as such, each is different.

2. TEDxCharlotte follows a "best practices" format of blind review of applications, where the applicants' personal information (name, title, organization, etc.) is unavailable to the reviewers. This process produced the pool of selected applicants. Criteria are clearly stated in the application process and applicants are chosen based on their responses.

3. The timeline and deadline for applications was well-publicized and open to everyone in equal access.

4. We had many more applicants than available spaces - because of TED's rules and limitations on available seats in the venue we can't include everyone that wants to attend the live event.

5. The event will be livestreamed and anyone is welcome to view. UNCC, CPCC and JCSU have confirmed they will be hosting formal "viewing events" for 100 (max) attendees (each school coordinates their own viewing event). However, anyone can host an informal viewing party...in workplaces, homes, dorms, coffee house or any other venue with an internet connection. Like the event itself, the livestream viewing is available at no charge.

6. We are planning for TEDxCharlotte 2011 and invite anyone and everyone to engage, participate and contribute ideas.

7. ANYONE can apply for a TEDx license. TEDx events vary in size and scope...they take place in workplaces, schools, places of worship and living rooms. TEDxCharlotte would love to be a catalyst for other TEDx events and offer our support and guidance in that process."

The Minstrel on Main Street

After some deliberation, I decided to write a column about a racially-explosive logo that is an integral part of the marketing behind No Grease, Inc. the Charlotte barber shop chain. The column appears in today's paper (July 7, 2010), and explores my distaste for the company's logo -- a bug-eyed, big-lipped minstrel cooning for all the world to see.

My quandary in writing the piece is that I happen to really like the owners of No Grease, twin brothers Damian and Jermaine Johnson. The Buffalo natives have brought a fresh vision, not to mention jobs, to Charlotte's business community. Of late, their fledgling advocacy group, Urban Business Network, has been a critical force in bringing overlooked, small black businesses to the city's economic table.

But for the life of me, I can't quite grasp the logic behind the No Grease logo. As I say in my column, that logic "goes like this: symbols possess no real power and No Grease, through its solid work ethic and entrepreneurial success, embodies the notion that racist stereotypes are no match against the real truth of what we can accomplish."

While all this may be true, the reality is that lots of folks, black and white alike, find the No Grease logo to be racially offensive at worst and unsettling at best.

I'd certainly be interested in hearing your opinion on the logo. Take a look at my today column and tell me what you think.

The Leadership Vacuum

More than ever, it seems, I'm getting bombarded by pollsters, publicists, and pundits wanting to shed new light on an old subject: corporate leadership. In these head-scratching economic times, there's a glut of opinion on how the chieftains of American business ought to be guiding their organizations -- whether it's issues affecting employee morale or the bottom line.

Just last week, I found myself in a dim Knight Center auditorium watching Civil War films with an army of entrepreneurs who were mining the battle of Gettysburg for valuable leadership tips. We won't discuss the irony of the Civil War being used as a teaching tool for Southern business people. Suffice to say, folks are game these days to take good leadership ideas wherever they can find them.

In "Developing the 21st Century Leader", a study released earlier this year by the business consultancy, AchieveGlobal, pointed out various vacuums in organizational leadership from innovation to diversity. Craig Perrin, head of solutions development at AchieveGlobal, put it this way:

"The fatal flaw of business leaders is nothing new: hubris, or the delusion that business is only business, that we know everything we need to know, that we can solve any problem resulting from brash action to gain power, wealth or adrenaline rush. I think we can agree that this mindset was certainly the catalyst that led to today's lack of trust in business."

The good news, I suppose, is that the shakeout of poor business leaders isn't over. According to a new poll by Right Management, a division of the employment services giant Manpower, half of the nation's senior human resource executives expect their organizations to restructure within the next six months. Even more, the survey says, one in five HR execs expect a change in their organizational leadership during that period.

When was the last time the company you work for has changed leaders? Are you pleased with the direction the company is headed these days? What makes your company's leadership better or worse than others? Finally, who was the best leader in Charlotte you've worked for and why?

The Startup Funding War: Charlotte vs Research Triangle

Of all the facts I've reported in my column, here's one that I find most distressing: of the $459 million in venture capital investments made in North Carolina in 2008, only 10 percent landed in Charlotte and 90 percent of it flowed into Research Triangle.

I got this stat a couple months ago from the Ben Craig Center, a nonprofit advocate for entrepreneurs at UNC Charlotte. I have quoted the outfit's president Paul Wetenhall, saying that "Although Charlotte is a money center and has considerable entrepreneurial activity, its venture capital is almost nonexistent. There are many private equity firms investing in established businesses, but Charlotte does not have a single venture capital firm investing in seed, start-up, or early-stage ventures."

I was reminded of this recently when the president of a fast-growing high-tech startup expressed his frustration to me that various capital sources, from angel investors to venture capitalists to university grants and awards, tend to be biased towards companies located within Research Triangle. He said he's even been told by potential investors that they'd be more amenable to supporting his venture if he relocated out of Charlotte to the Triangle.

He says the political and business rivalry between the areas is just that pitched, and that startups pay a hefty price for that rivalry.

I'd like to hear from anyone who can support or refute that assertion. Is investment and seed capital really being steered away from Charlotte toward startups in Research Triangle, and if so, to what extent and how systematically? I'd love to better understand how 90% the $459 million in capital investments made in North Carolina in 2008 landed in Research Triangle, while only 10% here? I'd argue that one of Charlotte's short-term economic goals has to be closing that gap.

Revisiting Bob Johnson's Remarks About Charlotte

By now, most everyone in Charlotte's business community is aware of Bob Johnson's comments on the perils of doing business in Charlotte.

"Charlotte is a very, how would I call it, close-knit, arrogant, sometimes incestuous town," he said to a group of black business people earlier this month.

"...It's close-knit, and if you come to this town, and you look like you're one of those people that might break some glass ... it's going to be tough for them to relate to.

"The thing that concerns me is that I'm just surprised that the city doesn't do more for African-American small businesses. And I don't really understand that."

Johnson's words were harsh indeed, and might simply come down to sour grapes after a bad bet on the Bobcats? Still, I can't help wonder whether there is any truth in his statement? Has anyone heard this sentiment before; that black entrepreneurs have it especially hard in Charlotte, more than most other cities? Who are the entrepreneurs in town whose successes prove Johnson wrong, or whose failures prove him right?

Let's face it: Bob Johnson arrived in Charlotte boasting one of nation's best business minds; after founding and building Black Entertainment Television into a media juggernaut, he sold it to MTV for more than $3 billion. Somehow, though, Johnson stumbled badly in Charlotte. Most blame his aloofness to Charlotte, and his status as an absentee-owner. Others, albeit quietly, were always asking whether this Southern town was truly ready to deal with its first big-city black power broker. Any thoughts on this?

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/03/21/1327317/ex-bobcats-owner-blasts-charlotte.html#ixzz0jKNi3oyB

Charlotte's Middle-Class Crunch

Please pardon my absence from the blogosphere. As the Observer's new business columnist, I've spent the past couple months filling up with ideas, opinions, questions and a few rants that will start appearing in this space - along with my newspaper column.

One issue I'm really interested is this nation's disappearing middle-class. While there's all sorts of studies about what income bracket actually makes a family "middle-class", there seems to be little disagreement that this group is being squeezed from all directions.

Last month, an Obama Administration task force charged with figuring out ways to unburden America's burdened middle-class released its first annual report.

The study mostly stated the obvious. Among its conclusions: "After a lifetime of employment, American workers deserve a secure retirement. Yet for middle-class workers today, especially in the wake of the historic losses to retirement savings and housing wealth in the financial crisis, retirement seems anything but secure."

To be fair, the task force did unveil a few initiatives to address the middle-class squeeze, from tax credits to help with soaring child-care expenses to beefed-up regulations for company 401-K savings plans. The initiatives are slated for the 2011 fiscal year.

Yet meanwhile, there's plenty of angst about the ability of today's middle-class, particularly Baby Boomers, to fully recover from the depths of this unique downturn.

An article in USA Today, published last year, summarized the situation this way:

"The 77 million Americans in the Baby Boom generation face an economic storm: The Wall Street meltdown trampled their retirement nest eggs more than any other group. After losing their jobs during what they thought would be some of their peak earning years, many are struggling to get back into the workforce. Healthcare costs are rising, and declining home values mean they might not be able to count on home equity to guarantee an easier retirement."

I'd love to hear your stories about how this economy is threatening your family's security - or someone you know - in America's storied middle-class; from your ability to send your kids to college, to scaling back on the home you live in, trips you take, or car you drive, etc. The Baby Boomer generation might be hit the hardest, but I'd like to hear stories about Charlotte's crunch from anyone who is feeling it.

Is Charlotte a Great City for Entrepreneurs?

It’s a fascinating study in contradictions: on one hand, Charlotte enjoys a favorable reputation nationally as a place for launching new businesses. Out-of-towners routinely sing Charlotte’s praises as a kind of start-up nirvana, citing its young and educated workforce, muscular business center, and generally warm climate. “Charlotte has all the amenities of a metro hub with the flavor of a small Southern town,” gushed CNNMoney.com, which last year ranked the city 7th among large metro areas on its annual list of Best Places to Launch.

Yet my own talks with local entrepreneurs, angel investors, venture capitalists, and business experts suggest otherwise. As the head of one of Charlotte’s small business advocacy groups told me recently: “When it comes to supporting entrepreneurs, there’s been a lot of lip service in this town for years. This is a fairly risk-averse environment.” Another entrepreneur and angel investor who has successfully launched firms in entertainment, technology, and real estate put it another way: “This city lacks a critical mass of risk capital. You get a lot of people who talk and do nothing. I get a lot of pats on the back.”

I’d love to include more local entrepreneurs - as well as those who make their living investing in start-ups – in my column. Last Sunday (Jan. 17) , I wrote about a laid-off Wachovia exec who launched a local solar energy firm called Greenfield Power. What’s been your experience as an entrepreneur in Charlotte? Have you gotten the support you’ve needed for success? What other people, companies, and investors should I be writing about? I look forward to hearing from you!