What is the current average length of an executive job search? How does an executive’s base salary level or education impact the length of the job search?
BPI group has established this Executive Employment Trends Report to offer greater visibility into the current executive job market. We are committed to quality and results in our career transition programs, and believe that keeping a careful eye on trends in the market is an important way to ensure we are meeting the needs of our executive transition clients.
This Executive Employment Trends Report includes analysis of the average length of the executive job search, as well as how the job search is impacted by an executive's base salary level, age, and education level.
Executive clients surveyed for our Q2 2016 report spent an average of 3.5 months in the job search, a much faster rate than the national average. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ March 2016 jobs report, those in “management, professional, and related occupations” took an average of 7.4 months to land a new position.1
The executives surveyed for this report were special in a few respects. With nearly 70% at 50 years old or younger, the group was uncharacteristically young relative to previous reports. Moreover, many of these younger executives were highly educated, high-potential employees who had benefited from ongoing internal training and mentoring at their previous organizations. As a result, they were well-positioned for a successful, relatively short job search. 80% of executives surveyed accepted jobs offering compensation equal to or greater than that of their previous positions.
Credit must also be given to the talented career coaches who partner with our executives to support them in both the short and long-term. Our proprietary Listen to the MarketSM strategy helps each job seeker determine how her skills, background, and career aspirations situate in the market, empowering her to effectively promote herself with a clear grasp of her unique value proposition. These more intangible benefits of our services are difficult to quantify in
a report — but the results are clear. We believe that a successful transition is not merely one
that yields a new job in an acceptable period of time, but one in which each person
gains a renewed sense of self and purpose in an ever-changing employment landscape.
In Q4 of 2015, 100% of our executive clients chose to seek a new job within an organization, whether on a full-time (83%) or contract (17%) basis. Of note, none of the executives surveyed decided to start their own business in Q4. The proportion of those starting a business has roughly halved each quarter this year, from 17% in Q1, to 9% in Q2, to 4% in Q3. None of the executives surveyed chose to retire in 2015, a marked difference from 2014, when the rate of retirement ranged from 2% to 9% each quarter.
From Q2: Key Takeaway: The vast majority of those surveyed this quarter fell into the $150,000-$250,000 base salary range, and this group tended to land new jobs at the fastest rate: an average of 3.4 months. The 8% of those making over $250,000 as a base salary took the most time to land, an average of 5 months.
Key Takeaway: Executives in the $150,000-$250,000 base salary range and those making over $250,000 landed new positions at comparable rates of 5.5 and 5.4 months, respectively. The 15% of the sample in the $75,000-$150,000 base salary range landed in an average of 6.4 months.
Key Takeaway Q2 2016: 66% of executives surveyed this quarter held a Master’s degree or Ph.D. While we normally observe an inverse relationship between level of education and time to new job, this quarter’s survey results upended that expectation. The 33% of those surveyed with a Bachelor’s degree landed in an average of 3.1 months, while those with a Master’s degree had an average landing rate of 3.7 months — not a dramatic increase, yet unusual nevertheless.
Key Takeaway: The education level of executives surveyed this quarter were almost evenly split between those with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. These two groups landed new positions at similar rates: an average of 5.6 months for those with Bachelor’s degrees, and an average of 5.3 months for those with a Master’s. We normally observe shorter average landing times for those with advanced degrees compared to those with a Bachelor’s degree or less.
Q2 takeaway: The majority of executives surveyed were between the ages of 41 and 50, landing new positions in an average of 3.2 months. Those aged 51-60 — 30% of the cohort — took slightly more time to land, at an average of 4.6 months.
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Executives between the ages of 51 and 60 - half of those surveyed - reported an average job search length of 5.4 months. Those in the 31-40 age group landed more quickly, in an average of 4.6 months, while the small minority of those 61 and over took the greatest time to land a new position.