IR Jobs on the Rise?

In a webchat held on Monday April 19th, 2010, NIRI President Jeffrey Morgan said that the current employment for IRO's is picking up from where it once was last May. Although the job market isn't as stable and open as it once was just a few years back, it's definitely improving.

After reading Dominick Jones' blogpost today, maybe his analysis of the poor performance done by IR departments in monitoring social media, will further increase the improving IR job market. Jones' research has found that the lack of social media knowledge and poor monitoring activity by IR departments is potentially putting their respective companies at legal risk.

There are many social media compliance risks and if IRO's aren't carefully monitoring the flow of information on their company and industry, as well as keeping up to date with regulations, this could result in a legal issue. According to Jones, current IR departments are not as knowledgeable as they should be and are not actively engaging in online discussion about their company.

Maybe that's where we, Class of 2010 graduates, will prevail. As an emerging member of the class of 2010, with an interest in Investor Relations, I hold a vital piece of experience that even IRO veterans may not possess, social media knowledge and the ability to quickly adapt to changes within it.

Apple CEO looks Sick

An issue I am considering to write my final case study on is about Apple CEO Steve Jobs and shareholder reaction to his sickly appearance. Apple released news of Jobs' pancreatic cancer when he had his surgery to remove it. Since then it has been a situation closely monitored by investors. Essentially many believe that Jobs is the driving creative force of the organization and thus heavily weight his health on the success of the company.

Although there are no legal requirements to submit updates on the health of the company's employees, shareholders still should probably be informed on the health of upper-management. If handled correctly, shareholders can generate more trust in the IRO's, but moving forward if Apple denies serious health questions for being only small issues of concern and it turns out Jobs is not doing very well, then it could result in a serious dip in share price.

Conference Calls

Conference calls is an easy way for IRO's and members of a company to meet with investors, without LITERALLY meeting with investors in person. However, Reg. FD has put restrictions on how businesses conduct conference calls with investors and analysts.

Conference calls are beneficial to investors because they can hear their top management speak and really learn what they are doing with their money. They can also potentially get non verbal cues, to give them a better idea of what is going on.

Reg. FD has put restraints on conference calls, ensuring that they have to be conducted with all investors, or at least attempted. This puts a great deal of pressure on IRO's to plan these meetings well in advance with their constituents. At first, it lead to a massive decrease in IR conference calls.