The "Pyramid Effect" of Job Searching

One of the big problems I see when people are job searching has to do with this "pyramid effect". In industry, when you see a whole lot of available positions, it'll probably be at the lower part of the pyramid where the staff and seniors are. When you start getting to manager and above, there's less and less jobs. So you see the pyramid effect. There's a lot more jobs at the bottom than there are at the top. It's just how it works in a department.

One of the big problems is when someone is already a director or a senior manager or manager and they're looking for a new job, how are they supposed to find the perfect job when there's just not a lot of those out there? Let's take for instance, this past week I really kept a good track of job openings. This past week, there were 200 new staff and senior positions that opened up across the country, give or take like four or five, but it was around 200, and then there were only five manager and above positions that opened up across the entire U.S.. So that's a big problem when you're trying to find a new job as a manager and above.

One of the things that I suggest to the people that are a little bit further on in their career that are trying to find something new is if you already have a job, stay there as long as you can. If you don't, I want to suggest to you that you look at consulting, you look at doing some temp to hire work, doing some type of work where you can really start making an impact, get your hands dirty again and not be so tied to the people management side of the job. Eventually something's going to pop up that you're going to want to be interviewed for and you're going to want to submit for, but you need to find something to fill that time. And that's really when I suggest people go back into getting their hands dirty, do more consulting and temp work.

If you think about this pyramid effect for people that are in the Big Four, in the public accounting world, whatever it might be, you've got to think about when's the best time to get out. It's when you're going to have the most possible opportunities, right? So you need to start thinking about leaving within that three-ish to five-ish year timeframe, preferably before you get manager. So I would suggest if you're looking for the most possible opportunities for yourself, get out while you're a senior or maybe even just on the cusp of becoming senior because you'll have the most choices for yourself.

Hope that helps.