Most of the Commerce Department news on Friday morning sounded bleak for jobs creation including:
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the broadest sum of goods and services produced across the economy, falling by 0.7% in the first quarter.
- S. exports falling by 7.6%, including exports of goods tumbling 14%, the most in six years!
- Business investment (reflecting spending on construction, machinery, and research and development) falling by 2.8%. That was the biggest decline since late 2009.
- Consumer spending, which represents more than two-thirds of economic output, growing by only 1.8% in the first quarter. That was far slower than the fourth quarter’s 4.4% growth. Additionally, household spending on long-lasting manufactured items was the weakest in nearly four years in the first quarter.
However, the Commerce Department also shared that the jobs market continues to grow as evidenced by exceptionally low levels of layoffs and increased recruiting by many companies. This has also been confirmed anecdotally by both:
a) Our technical recruiting clients, who continue to hire engineers, scientists, R&D, IT, technical and manufacturing professionals at an accelerated rate.
b) Many engineering recruiting, R&D recruiting, scientific recruiting, IT recruiting and manufacturing recruiting firms that we have surveyed over the last few months.
For example, there has been a major uptick in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) recruiting as demonstrated by the recently opened exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago entitled “Robot Revolution.” Additionally:
a) My article: Are Robots The Death Nail For Many Future Jobs?
b) Last year’s TV appearance (Please go to https://strategicsearch.com/media.php and scroll down to First Business on June 17, 2014 entitled, “The Rise of the Machines”)
c) Several recent media articles (e.g. bookkeeping, bartending and fruit picking robots) all point to an explosion in robotics and AI recruiting.
As a result, there is currently a technical recruiting war among hiring companies for key software, AI and robotics experts. That is why I recommend employing my First Commandment of Recruiting The Pie Chart Question during your interview process to obtain more information from your robotics and AI candidates.
What you want to do is ask your candidates, “please break down for me by a pie chart what you do on a daily basis.” For example, an AI engineer 60% of their time may be spent on C++ programming, 20% on AI architecture and algorithms and 20% on 3D programming techniques. The key is to really push your candidates to focus on what they have done on a regular basis. Also, prod them (e.g. what percentage of the time are you doing C++ coding?) with skills relevant to your job opening. This will force your technical recruiting candidates (especially in robotics and AI) to provide you a more precise estimate of what their actually duties are and simplify your technical recruiting decisions.
What is your opinion?
