More Sales Jobs... Even in Hard Times

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), sales positions in some industries are slated grow up to 40 percent faster over the overall job market.

To find out where those sales jobs would be coming from, I asked Dave Stein, president of ES Research, what he's been seeing in the field. (His company studies hiring patterns in sales organizations, based upon their purchasing of sales training programs.)

According to Dave, there's already been an uptick in hiring of Sales personnel, despite the weak economy, with particular growth in healthcare, technology, professional and business services, and some manufacturing sectors.

It's not difficult to see why. The net effect of healthcare reform in the United States will be to increase the overall amount of healthcare. Technology sales are up because we're about to hit a refresh cycle in computer hardware and the implementation model for software is changing from in-house to "cloud computing." For example, many "cloud" software firms are hiring sales reps as quickly as they can bring them up to speed.

At the same time, professional and business services are in demand because companies are outsourcing more of their management functions, and manufacturing is selectively up because all of the above requires supplies and infrastucture.

In short, despite the recession, it's seems that there's never been a better time to either be in Sales, or make the move to a Sales career.

How's that for a positive Monday message?