Top 10 Biggest Recession Winners

IBISWorld Announces Industries To Perform Best in 2009

The recession is crippling businesses across the nation, but several industries will remain unscathed by the current economic strife, according to recent Recession Updates published by industry research firm IBISWorld. As one of the nation’s most respected independent publishers of business intelligence research reports, IBISWorld today announced the top 10 industries expected to have the largest revenue growth in 2009:

INDUSTRY AND REVENUE GROWTH 2009
1. Voice Over Internet Protocol Providers (VoIP) 20.1 percent
2. ecommerce & Online Auctions 12.6 percent
3. Biotechnology 10.3 percent
4. Engine, Turbine & Power Transmission Equipment Manufacturing 10.0 percent
5. Scheduled Bus Service 9.2 percent
6. Court Reporting Services 7.7 percent
7. Community Housing Services 7.5 percent
8. Search Engines 6.5 percent
9. Family Counseling 6.1 percent
10. Video Games 5.8 percent

“Emerging industries remain well represented and continue to benefit from technological innovation and cost advantages,” explained George Van Horn, senior analyst with IBISWorld. “Unfortunately, the impact of the recession is equally pronounced among sectors directly benefitting from the social and financial stress associated with the downturn.”

While only five percent of all U.S. industries are fortunate enough to be positively impacted by the recession, IBISWorld research estimates that nearly 60 percent of all industries are negatively impacted or worse.

About Recession Updates
On January 15, 2009, IBISWorld published a set of Recession Updates on its website that includes quarterly forecasted growth, an in-depth look at the shifting business landscape and its immediate repercussions on each U.S. industry. Also published was a macroeconomic recession briefing, entitled Economic Crisis: When Will It End?, created by the company’s senior analysts and Chief Economist, Dr. Richard Buczynski.

For more information visit ibisworld.com

What can you learn from observing the top performers within your organization as well as embracing the mindset of your potential successor? While this final section may require some more due diligence on your part, it doesn’t stop here. Even as an eternally grounded optimist, it’s just good business sense to ensure you have developed a contingency plan and have it in place so that you have some additional cushion to land on in the event the bottom falls out from under you.

This could make the difference between a rapid free fall into the abyss of career uncertainly and a lateral move or even an upward career re-engineering on your part where you come out ahead. Develop your career safety net by planning for the unplanned.

Here are the final three installments of this eight part series on what you can do to keep your job and insulate yourself from a layoff.

Part 6: Observe the Top Performers

1. Become the model employee. What are the best of the best doing? Benchmark best practices so that you can then emulate them. Don’t wait for your boss to come and tell you what they are. By then, it’s probably too late.

2. Master the basics. Now is not the time to take anything for granted. This includes the more obvious displays of the behavior of a model employee. And this isn’t limited to simply being on time at work and for meetings as well as meeting all of your deadlines. You also don’t want to be caught making personal calls, texting or corresponding to non-work related emails. Stay away from toxic gossip and keep your positive attitude on high.

3. Produce stellar work: Everyone today can rely on the excuse of being understaffed, unsupported or resource thin and always feeling under the gun when dealing with last minute demands. This certainly helps justify mediocre work. Instead, treat everything you do as the most important task of the day. That’s the champion’s creed. If you did, how would that change your output?

Part 7: Embrace the Mindset of Your Successor

Imagine if you were the person who was laid off twelve months ago and has the opportunity to land a new job. How would that change your work ethic? Keep in mind, this is the person who you are competing against for your position every single day.

Part 8: Develop a Contingency Plan

1. Build out your network. Use social networking tools such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and others to connect with the people you know and expand your network from there.

2. Know who’s hiring in your field. It’s important to know your options. What skills, education, and job training are employers looking for within your profession or industry? While it’s not what you want your thoughts to be consumed by on a daily basis nor be top of mind, you still need a balanced plan of attack; maintain a stellar productivity level while knowing what you can fall back on. So ask yourself, “If I was unemployed today, would I be ready to start up my new business, create my dream job or apply for the open positions tomorrow?”

3. Track trends. This is where I suggest caution, as the pendulum of extremities can swing each way when it comes to staying current on industry events, changes and news. Reading newspapers, checking your blackberry or iphone, reading journals and trade magazines; even talking to colleagues is good practice in order to keep your ears wide open for opportunity and your finger on the pulse of activity. However, given the number of people I’ve been coaching recently, I’d think that most of us are probably indulging a little too much what the media is feeding us. The unfortunate fall out of this is, what you continually listen to you start to believe.

Be careful about overindulging in the media and the news, and invest more of your time on what you can control in the immediate moment, the quality of your work, your attitude and your productivity. Because in the end, this is what is going to keep your job.

In this third part of an eight part series, here are some strategies that will enable you to increase your visibility and the measurable value you deliver in order to avoid being the victim of another layoff.

Be Visible but Not Egocentric

Ironically, this is not the time to put your head down and just do your work. If you’re not known by others and the measurable value you bring to the organization, then you’ll be the first to go. It’s great if your boss is a raving fan and an advocate. However, make sure he’s not alone. Make it a point to get your name in front of other managers so that they know and value your work as well. After all, what if your boss loses his or her job first? You want to make sure that someone else knows who you are and can speak highly of you, especially if your boss is first to get axed.

If your great work is unnoticed or you are not connected with some measurable results, something positive, something important, such as an increase in sales or profit, then all of your efforts can easily become insignificant if not visible. What if there’s no one to stand up for you during the planning meeting where the objective is to determine the number of layoffs and who it’s going to affect? At that point, it won’t matter how valuable you are if your value is not clearly recognized by these decision makers. Make sure people understand what you do and how you add value.

Finally, while you want to be visible about the results you’re producing, do so without bragging about it. Instead of running around pontificating about your achievements or emailing people about your successes as if you’re running for public office, meet with your manager regularly to make sure you’re on the same page regarding your performance objectives. Moreover, ask directly where they feel you can improve and what you can do about it. If you haven’t had your annual performance review yet, take a more proactive posture and hand in an updated progress report, action plan or business plan with the intention of bringing your boss up to date on your accomplishments and responsibilities within the company.

Millions of jobs have been lost over the last year. A recent survey indicated that almost 50% of American’s are worried about losing their job. Our job market hasn’t experienced these staggering numbers since 1974. With more companies laying people off, how can you insulate yourself from the rest of the work force and maintain your employment without becoming another statistic?

Today, employers have less tolerance for mediocrity, and just doing enough to get by creates the opening for someone who’s hungrier (or more desperate) to take your position. Being valuable takes precedent over being important these days. Every job today has become more valuable and as such, every person more transparent about how much of a measurable impact they’re having to the bottom line.

Here are a few career retention strategies to adopt (as well as some things to avoid doing) to stay employed and what you can do to avoid being the next one cut. It all starts by becoming more proactive and shifting away from the reactive posture many people are taking.

These strategies can make the difference between you moving up the ladder of success or moving out the door.

In this first of an eight part series, we’re going to start with what you can do to make yourself indispensable.

1. Make Yourself Indispensable

Do More For Less: Work longer hours and take on more responsibility. Take on more work and as many assignments as you possibly can, even the workload of two people without asking for more compensation or recognition. Over-deliver on what’s expected while managing realistic expectations with your manager.

Be the best at what you do. Period. Find out what the top producers are doing and do it or better.

Round out your skills. As more companies shrink in size regarding number of employees, there’s still a significant amount of work that needs to get done. Those who are open to new ideas and are willing to stretch themselves regarding learning new skills and adapting to a new culture are the ones who will be retained. Conversely, those who have a very narrow skill set that may have been deemed valuable when initially hired yet can’t help beyond their current role will be the likely first candidates to go.

Build Your Skills: Be the best you can be. Get a coach. Take continuing education classes. If you’re not, your colleague is. How important is your career?

Being valuable takes precedent over being important. It doesn’t really matter where you sit in the organization in tough times, being a contributor who can be counted on to do the important work is the most significant position to take and certainly takes precedent over being “important.” Managers need to roll up their sleeves and get back in the trenches if it means making their numbers or not, even if that means having to pick up the phone to make a cold call or two.