TheLadders.com quarterly executive employment outlook

With corporate earnings thriving and companies continuing to stockpile the cash, does 2005 have the makings of an all-star year for job hunting? According to a survey conducted by executive job search service TheLadders.com, job seekers in the $100k market have become increasingly optimistic.

Showing the most dramatic shift to the positive, 82% of respondents to a survey of 414 executives said ìnow is a better time to be in the job market than this time last year.î When this survey was last conducted in November 2004, just 67% of its respondents shared this positive outlook.

In a related survey of 502 executives, 38% said they expect relatively short job hunts, suggesting that they plan to be in the market just 1-3 months. Thirty six percent of the executives surveyed anticipate a three-to-six month search. Among the less optimistic executives, 19% expect a six-to-twelve month job search and 7% are preparing themselves for twelve months or more in the job market. When compared to previous Quarterly Executive Job Market Outlook figures, the January 2005 numbers are all reinforcing a positive trend towards shorter job hunts.

Despite this increasing optimism, however, job hunting executives still expect to have their work cut out for them. Thirty-six percent said they expect to send out over 100 applications before finally getting an offer. In this survey of 727 executives, 26% said theyíll need to apply to 20-50 jobs before an offer is made; 22% anticipated it taking somewhere between 50 and 100 applications to shake out an offer; and 16% thought it would require less than 20 applications to land their next gigs.

ìJanuary is the time to get your next great job. Companies have new goals for the new year, hiring budgets are refreshed, and managers want to get new talent on their teams,î explained TheLadders.com founder and president, Marc Cenedella. ìWeíre seeing steady growth across a variety of industries; all of the signs are there for a banner year in the high-end job market.î

TheLadders.com Quarterly Executive Employment Outlook is based on a series of independent surveys of registered $100k executives conducted on TheLadders.com Web site between

November 8, 2004 through January 17, 2005. The margin of error for each survey is as follows:

How long do you think it will take for you to land your next job: 4.37%.

Is now a better time to be in the job market than this time last year: 4.81%.

How many job listings do you reasonably think youíll need to apply to before getting an offer: 3.63%.

Now reaching over 230,000 readers and featuring over 4,000 new $100k job listings each week, TheLadders.com is the largest online job search service catering exclusively to the $100k market. Marc Cenedella founded TheLadders.com in July 2003 after a tenure as Senior Vice President, Finance & Operations, at HotJobs.com, ultimately shepherding that companyís sale to Yahoo, Inc. (NASD: YHOO) in 2002. In May 2004 he was named Entrepreneur of the Year by award-winning marketing newsletter, MarketingSherpa, which cited TheLadders.comís unique business model as a key to its sustained growth.