Sales and marketing fields seen prospering this year

DALLAS — Business was up 65 percent last year from 2004 in Tony Beshara's sales-recruiting department at Babich and Associates, a Dallas placement firm. But he's not taking credit for it.

"We're not 65 percent better than we were last year," said Beshara, who is Babich's president and owner. "The economy is better."

Babich's lavish gains may be exceptional, but the outlook for the 2006 job market for sales and marketing professionals is clear: Expect another year of steady and solid improvement, recruiters say.

"We've seen a 3.5 percent increase overall in salaries for creative and communications marketing professionals," said Larry Robertson, division director for the Creative Group in Dallas. "That's a healthy industry outlook."

The improving economy has spurred businesses to move forward with new marketing and advertising initiatives, Robertson adds, and for that, they need marketing professionals.

"Hiring accelerated in 2005 ... due in part to pent-up demand for talent," according to the Creative Group's 2006 salary guide. "Firms with lean teams found it necessary to augment their staffing levels as they began funding new initiatives."

Plus 68 percent of advertising and marketing executives polled by the Creative Group in mid-2005 said they planned to add staff in the next 12 months, up 11 percentage points from a 2004 survey and up 24 points from a 2003 forecast.

"That's translated into higher salaries, particularly for multimedia professionals," said Robertson. "We've seen an increase in demand for interactive designers, graphic designers, and for people with Internet and Flash skills."

Any skill that adds movement to a presentation is in particular demand. "Businesses are really pushing the level of effectiveness of their message, and Flash and the Web are wonderful ways to do that," he said.

Internet-related skills remain highly marketable. The Creative Group's survey showed high demand for online media buyers and planners, as well as "e-strategists."

Beshara, who recently wrote a book, "The Job Search Solution," says his firm's huge uptick in business is due less to the big improvement in the economy than to pent-up demand as the area finally recuperates from the tech bust.

"We're making a lot more placements than we did last year," he said. "The market has picked up, and most of us have been around long enough that we know what to do when that happens."

At least one expert, however, predicts that "a return to a late 1990s-style hiring frenzy may be only a matter of time."

John Challenger, chief executive of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, cites a full-page ad placed by Google in The New York Times in December, inviting "the brightest minds in sales management" to apply for positions with the company.

Challenger believes that the best opportunities in sales and marketing will go to those with global experience. Challenger's annual forecast includes "international sales and marketing managers" on its list of top job categories.

"Sales and marketing executives specializing in international markets will be particularly sought after as American firms try to tap the growing populations of middle-class consumers in China and India," Challenger said in a statement.

Gains in sales and marketing hiring mirror general improvements in the job market.