A poll of global senior executive members of BlueSteps.com, a career management service for senior executives, has revealed that 48% expect the economy to rebound in the first half of next year.

Only 25% of those surveyed believe a recovery will occur in the second half of this year, with 27% are not expecting a recovery until the second half of 2010 or later.

Seventy-two per cent of respondents reported having a neutral to positive outlook for the senior executive job market for the next six months, which supports a recent survey by the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) where 64% of executive search consultants reported the same outlook.

Della Giles, director of BlueSteps.com, says: “As economists are announcing that the recession might be over, we are already seeing an increased optimism from both senior executives and search consultants worldwide.

 “At a recent BlueSteps networking event held in New York, our members were actively networking with search consultants, developing their personal marketing materials and finessing their career management plans to take advantage of this predicted market improvement in early 2010.”