Career Opportunity with Signals of Change
Where jobs could be based on core events we all can see
I routinely work with mid-sized companies across the country. The companies typically have between $1M and $200M in revenue and 10 and 100 employees.
Regardless of industry or business model, mid-sized companies share a common challenge: succeeding in markets dominated by Fortune 500 giants that have Herculean war chests at their disposal and are intent on crushing them in a giant steel vise.
Unlike corporate behemoths, mid-sized companies can’t afford to spend tens of millions of dollars on sales and marketing. The cards are stacked against them, like a 16 seed trying to vanquish a blue blood during March Madness.
Like a wide eyed, worried toddler at story time hoping the hero vanquishes the villain, you may ask “What can these little guys do? How can they channel David and take down their Goliaths?”
They can become masters of identifying signals of change, like a fortune teller reading tarot cards. Signals of change suggest and sometimes even predict when a buyer will act. They are things like new leadership hires, product launches, and more.
The other day I thought “Can’t the same logic apply to careers? Aren’t there core signals of change or momentum that can help us hunt for career opportunities where they are most likely to be? Might we be able to strategic listen in the market for key leading job indicators?”
Searching For Career Signals of Change
While I’m not currently on a job hunt, I know plenty of people who are. Over coffee and croissants, at least one person has told me, “I might have to look outside of Southwest Ohio to find a gig. I don’t want to leave, but I don’t know where the opportunities are.”
As friends or former coworkers have described their plight — the ticking clock to find a job to support their family before the liquid savings runs out — I wondered what I could do to help.
Then, a light bulb went off. Why not create an opportunity radar and publish the results here, on Career Adventurer! Next week, I will publish version 1 with a Top 10 list of firms in the Southwest Ohio, Greater Cincinnati MSA.
I’m starting with Southwestern Ohio for two reasons. First, I live here and am curious where the opportunities may lie. Second, I need to iron out the thinking, methodology, and process before expanding it to other cities and regions.
In the meantime, there is no harm in previewing some thinking on how you might use signals of change predict where opportunities are most likely to occur. They aren’t rocket science. In fact, you are probably already paying attention to some of these informally.
Thinking in signals of change will behoove you because it will help you look beyond the purple #Hiring symbol on LinkedIn. It will help you strategically target job opportunities where they are most likely to be. Hopefully, it will minimize the time you spend on going after opportunities that are fleeting.
The key challenge: how do you filter the entire US economy to a manageable list of companies to target. This is where signals of change come in. If we can identify the ideal current and leading indicators of job opportunities, we filter down the list.
5 Signals You Can Monitor
Revenue or Income Growth
Growth leads to jobs. “Duh,” right! When an industry or company is growing there is a greater likelihood that more jobs will exist. Sure, automation may eat into the growth, but I’m skeptical that AI and robots eliminate the desire for companies to hire behind growth.
Recent Leadership Changes
When you see people in positions of authority change oftentimes there is a chance for new job opportunities at the firm. It’s no different than coaching turnover in sports. New regimes are hiring machines. The leaders want to create new roles and to hire new people to bring the vision to life.
Funding Events
When companies secure new funding — be it venture investment, grants, debt, etc. — it’s a big precursor to growth. Companies are usually growth hunting in these scenarios. That means jobs. For some companies, securing scaling capital financing such as Series B or C rounds of capital, this could mean a nice little job watering hole for a while, at least until they’ve tapped out the primary markets and need to get more creative.
Expansion Announcements
This is another “no duh” kind of signal. When a company announces plans to enter into a new market — either product type or physical location — jobs are likely to follow. Pay attention to your local chamber of commerce and economic development organizations. They typically have a keen eye and interest in business expansion.
Company Size
Last but not least, company size is critical. Major corporations typically are not as big of engines of job growth as we may assume. We look to the Fortune 500 Bigcos first because we assume great size equals large number of job opportunities. Reputable sources like the US SBA, Kaufman Foundation, and US BLS, suggest companies under 500 employees but more than 10 typically are the biggest engines of growth.
Any one of these five factors is a decent job opportunity indicator. You could argue that focusing on growing companies of sufficient size is enough. However, in doing so, you may assume some companies are more likely to hire than they really are. I prefer considering at least company growth, leadership changes, and funding events as three good indicators in determining if there is a good opportunity.
Without knowing if the company is growing, the opportunity could be short lived. Assuming you aren’t in desperate need of a job, you want to know that there is runway for you. Thus, focusing on more than growth is a good idea.
Signals Can Help You Filter
Over the past week, I’ve used these factors to filter a list where I currently live in Cincinnati, OH. I’ve trimmed a list of 100,000 companies down to a top 100 list of firms more likely to hire. I’ve used a combination of tools you can also use to do this including LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Crunch Base, and more.
This list may not help you immediately. Instead, it’s like being a geologist hunting for oil using seismic surveys, mapping underground rock structures, and harnessing sound waves in the hope that they’ll improve the odds of discovering large fields of liquid gold for pumping.
Next week, I’ll share my findings. In the meantime, I wanted to get you thinking about career signals of change methodology, to consider how you might discover opportunities with the indicators at our fingertips.
Thanks for reading!
Paul G. Fisher