"The high-profile moves in this market are so individualized that I really wouldn't attach a trend to it," Rick Gillham of Dallas-based Gillham, Golbeck & Associates, tells GlobeSt.com. The musical chairs game is in the limelight right now because of the high-profile figures who are steering former competitors' ships. And, it's the operations men, the big titleholders, who are being courted more so than those in the deal-oriented sector. That, says Gillham, is due to the current capital markets cycle.

Professionals have more time to think and evaluate their stations in life. Consequently, Gillham's firm has seen a 20% to 25% increase in the number of candidates knocking on his doors in the past six to eight months. It's not just in Texas, it's everywhere. But it is far too difficult to tally just how many jobseekers are in the ranks of the nation's 750,000 commercial real estate professionals.

Some are looking for challenge; others want more responsibility. Sometimes, boredom triggers change while other times, it could be a new supervisor or corporate merger. It doesn't take long during the interview process to determine that titles and higher salaries are secondary to the underlying issues for job jumps, says Gillham. "There is a long list that comes into play before money does," he says.

Hefty bonus signings also are not at fault for today's wave of change sweeping the industry. In a sign-now situation, the upfront bonus offsets what the executive stands to gain at year-end from the present employer's bonus or what might be coming from transactions in the pipeline. On the West Coast, that could easily reach into the mid-six digits for senior level executives. Junior executives are being courted with $40,000 to $60,000 plus bonuses.

In the Dallas-Ft. Worth region, there has been a string of near back-to-back exits in the past year from major companies and many fall into the high-profile category. "The changes are different across the country. What fuels the Austin market doesn't always fuel ours," he explains. What Gillham does believe is "that it's going to be a short-lived scenario for our market."