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Seattle - A Recruiter's Perspective

What is it like to be a recruiter in Seattle, one of the hotspots in recruiting right now? It's an amazing life!

We have a healthy recruiting community, and we discuss and discourse on a variety of topics. Seattle is home to top technology companies (Microsoft, Amazon.com, Nintendo, T-Mobile among them), corporate headquarters of well-known global entities such as Starbuck's, Nordstrom, Eddie Bauer, and Washington Mutual. We have a thriving city with the most educated population in the US*, major sports teams, diverse arts and cultural attractions such as the Experience Music Project and the Museum of Flight, excellent educational facilities including two of the top medical schools for both traditional and alternative medicine in the country.

There is something for everyone in Seattle, and our competitive recruiting landscape is an excellent indicator of our healthy economy.

*http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/elearning/?article=EducatedCities

The Focus is on Compensation follow this blog post

posted by on Nov. 12, 2008

Lately I've been seeing an *awful* lot of compensation openings (Director of, analyst, specialist, etc.) coming across the wires around the country. With the recent economic fallout I think a lot of executives aren't going to be happy with comp restructuring in the next 12 months. Not only that, but I wonder if compensation model numbers in general are going to fall? How many companies will have wage freezes on? Interestingly, these openings haven't been in the financial field. Manufacturing, health/bio, some technology.

Let's be honest, it isn't exactly the *best* time to be a recruiter. I'm working on a lot of independent projects right now. More and more recruiters are flooding the market, especially in Seattle due to some recent corporate restructuring around town. The name of the game now, more than ever, is networking and working your contacts.

The agencies are faring a little better, but a *lot* of the corporate recruiters I know cringe at the thought of returning (or entering) the agency market right now. The agency comp structure in Seattle tends to be rather lower than the cost of living, making it hard to make a decent wage if clients aren't hiring.
 
I think it will be interesting to see what happens. Most of the projections I've seen are saying things won't start to look up until June of 2009, probably closer to the end of the summer. So we have 7+ months of panic and hardship to look forward to? It'll be interesting to see what the compensation trends look like both in recruiting and across the board by then.
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