Jobs Outlook 2011

Companies are getting out of cost-cutting mode and shifting into gear for growth in the new year. What does that mean for the job market?

“In 2010, we saw steady, gradual increases in jobs across sectors,” said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder.com. “2011 will be a better year for jobs … as business leaders grow more confident in the recovery,” he said.

It’s not going to be a job boom, but there will be steady growth in hiring. One in four hiring managers said they plan to hire full-time workers in 2010, up sharply from the past two years, according to a recent survey by CareerBuilder.com.

We already know the hot sectors that are hiringbut when it comes to the actual position jobseekers are applying for, the best opportunities will be for sales, information-technology and customer-service jobs as companies shift out of safety and cost-cutting modes and prepare to grow .

Click ahead for the 10 jobs that will be the most in demand in 2011.

By Cindy Perman
Posted 3 Jan 2011

As companies shift their focus to growth mode, they need more people out on the front lines driving revenue growth and that means they need to boost their sales teams.

A whopping 27 percent of hiring managers said they plan to hire for sales positions in 2011, according to the CareerBuilder survey.

The highest-paying sales positions are for those who sell financial products, computer equipment, electronics and pharmaceuticals, according to the Labor Department.

New technologies, technology replenishment and the continued desire by companies to run as efficient a ship as possible will continue to drive the need for information-technology workers.

Twenty-six percent of hiring managers said they plan to hire for IT positions this year, according to the CareerBuilder survey.

“This is an area where we have seen strong growth in hiring,” Ferguson said, adding that IT job listings are up 45 percent year over year on CareerBuilder.com.

Companies may be focused on growing their business (i.e., sales) but at the same time, it’s also crucial to keep the customers you have “happy, loyal and spending,” Ferguson said.

Twenty-five percent of hiring managers said they plan to hire customer-service representatives in the new year, according to CareerBuilder.

The most demand for customer-service representatives is expected to be in finance and insurance, industries where customer interactions don’t require physical contact, according to the Labor Department.

Engineers will be in demand because they provide two key functions of an organization: They figure out how to make things more efficient (cost-cutting) and they help integrate new scientific discoveries into commercial operations (growth).

“We’re seeing more companies place a greater emphasis on business analytics, leveraging the information they have in their existing data streams and warehouses to create solutions for their own organizations or their clients,” Ferguson said. “The proliferation of smart phones, social media and other developments are creating more opportunities across the board in technical fields.”

Twenty-one percent of hiring managers said they plan to hire engineers in the new year, according to CareerBuilder.

Petroleum engineers make the highest salary, followed by computer hardware, nuclear and aerospace engineers, according to the Labor Department.

Not only are information-technology workers in demand but any job involving technology will be in demand in the new year.

Nineteen percent of hiring managers said they planned to hire technology workers this year, according to CareerBuilder.

There are nearly 27,000 IT jobs listed on CareerBuilder and if you broaden that so your search is just for the keyword “technology,” it doubles to nearly 55,000 – everything from a technology-recruiting manager at an IT firm in Chicago to a finance-technology position at a big accounting firm in New York.

It’s great that companies are boosting the front lines of revenue-generating positions like sales. But with more people out front, that means you also need more people in the back to process everything and that means administrative jobs will be among the most in demand in 2011.

Seventeen percent of hiring managers said they plan to hire administrative staff this year, according to CareerBuilder.

The healthcare industry will be doing a lot of administrative hiring. CareerBuilder has listings for medical administrative assistants everywhere from Oregon and California to Oklahoma – even Alaska! Other listings include a senior admin at a bank in Boston and an admin at a midsize law firm in Denver.

A company’s business-development team goes hand-in-hand with its sales team, Ferguson said. “Those positions heighten brand awareness, facilitate key partnerships and identify expansion opportunities.”

That means they hit both targets for executive – they help cut costs and drive revenue growth.

Seventeen percent of hiring managers said they plan to hire for business-development positions, according to CareerBuilder. The site has listings for everything from a business-development coordinator at a commercial and residential security-system firm in West Palm Beach, Fla., to a director of business development at an accounting firm in Houston.

Marketing, like sales and business development, is also part of a company’s growth strategy. Consumer and business spending are both poised to accelerate in 2011 and that means companies need to boost their deployments for brand awareness and business expansion.

Seventeen percent of hiring managers said they plan to hire marketing staff in 2011, according to CareerBuilder.

CareerBuilder has over 80,000 job listings with the word “marketing” in it, though many of them are entry level. The listings include everything from an entry-level sports marketing job in Seattle to an assistant manager at a marketing firm in New York.

Companies have already been boosting their R&D staff in anticipation of the recovery but they’re going to be hiring even more in the coming year.

Fifteen percent of hiring managers said they planned to hire for research and development positions in 2011, according to CareerBuilder.

R&D jobs span a variety of industries. CareerBuilder has listings for everything from a senior research associate for international development at a consulting firm in Columbia, Md., to a market-research analyst at a manufacturing firm in Orangeburg, SC.

Accounting and finance workers, like admin workers, will be in demand in the coming year because all this growth requires back-office support.

They “support company operations and keep the organization running smoothly,” Ferguson said. “We’re seeing more jobs added there and in other support functions.”

Plus, with all of the new accounting regulations, more companies are hiring accounting and financial staff to ensure that they are in compliance.

Fourteen percent of hiring managers plan to hire accounting/finance positions in 2011, according to the CareerBuilder.com survey.

CareerBuilder has listings for everything from a senior auditor at an accounting firm in Michigan to a hedge-fund accounting manager in New York.