• by Larry Dobrow , September 2, 2004

With Thursday's release of Monster Worldwide's Monster Employment Index, in which the hiring giant noted increased overall demand for workers and related online job-recruitment activity, we thought it was a good time to check in with Dan Fanok. Although Monster declined to break down its numbers specifically for the media and advertising business, Fanok, Mediaedge:cia's human resources director, has his own slant on the current state of hiring and firing within media. And while he's not a fan of big-picture predictions ("I may not be omniscient. I don't often admit to that publicly," he says dryly), Fanok agreed to share a few thoughts with MediaDailyNews on the eve of Labor Day weekend.

MediaDailyNews: What's the state of the media business right now from a hiring perspective?

Dan Fanok: In the media industry, very generally, there's a gradual trend upwards. If you adjust for the obvious things--somebody wins or loses a huge client--there's no huge spike in either direction. But it's stronger than it was at this time last year.

MDN: Are companies still cautious in the wake of everything they went through over the last few years?

Fanok: They're actively looking for people, but they're being smarter about it. It's reflective of business in general: there's a certain degree of caution in the air, which should in part be alleviated after the election. There's that uncertainty now, because people are anxious to see what happens. If Kerry takes over, what will his policies be towards business? And terrorism is such a wild card.

MDN: How hard is your job right now?

Fanok: I've been in HR for more than 20 years, and there's never been a time when it wasn't challenging. What changes is the nature of the challenge. It's always hard to sort through and find the best talent, so you have to do whatever you can to be the employer of choice. The biggest change in HR in general is that we're now part of the core management team.

MDN: In what specialties do you see the highest demand?

Fanok: Well, always the top people in any specialty. In the last year, there's been an uptick in demand in the interactive marketplace. After the tech bubble burst, lots of people left the interactive side of media. Now, the demand is creeping up again. Clients are spending more money there, so companies have to be more aggressive [to secure the best employees]. I'm also seeing an increased emphasis on channel planning. It's where strategic or brand planning was in creative agencies a number of years ago.

Soft areas? I can't think of any I'd consider soft right now, even in back-office support--finance, IT.

MDN: Are there enough good people? Should the media business be looking outside the profession more than it has?

Fanok: There are never enough good people in any business. I've worked in professional services; on Wall Street, I was even a headhunter. You have to constantly raise the bar of talent and performance, either by improving the way you hire or by bolstering the staff you have on board--through coaching, rotations, on-job appraisal, things like that.

MDN: How do you see things unfolding over the next few months?

Fanok: If I had to venture a reasonable guess? We'll see the economy continue to pick up speed. As clients become more aggressive in spending and increase demands for measurable impact of ad spending, the challenge for us will be to meet the demand for people. Developing the strategic vision to help clients best position their ad spending--it sounds obvious, but that's the direction in which we're headed.