7 ms·

My only anecdotal datum here is that I just got a new job, and every day I'm getting multiple messages from recruiters looking for developers. Full Time and Con

by LandR 4y ago

My only anecdotal datum here is that I just got a new job, and every day I'm getting multiple messages from recruiters looking for developers. Full Time and Contracting. If it's all gone to shit, I'm not seeing it here (Scotland), salaries I'm seeing are really good for the area too.

jamiegreen 4y ago
What do you specialise in if you don't mind me asking?
- LandR 4y ago
  C# .NET, SQL and some JS
mountainriver 4y ago
Same I’m still getting offers
skeeter2020 4y ago
I'm in Western Canada and locally, provincially and nationally there's a ridiculous number of open tech positions. I guess a chart that included hiring wouldn't be highlighted on twitter...
- adra 4y ago
  Yeah, I'm getting way more unsolicited job recruitments than ever before. I'm not sure if companies actually need the head counts or feel like they can pickup some cheap(er) hires now that the market is off.
- varispeed 4y ago
  I am in the UK and had quite a number of Canadian companies looking to recruit recently. Interesting.
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
  Probably because U.S. companies hit up Canadian talent hard during the talent crunch, since they mostly speak English at a native level, live in the same time zones, and were cheaper than U.S. devs. I don't think Canadian companies could compete and hire, so mostly just rode it out and let positions sit unfilled. I suspect there are more unfilled positions in Canada than there are unemployed devs in Canada right now, but if layoffs continue, the Canadian companies might get some relief
lordnacho 4y ago
Same here, the market still feels hot to me. Just interviewed with dozens of firms, plenty of interest apparently. Of course this kind of thing can change very quickly, and agency recruiters won't really know for a while.
cageface 4y ago
It took a while but after the dotcom boom it was hard for even good tech people to find work. We were getting 100s of very qualified applications for every open position we had. Hopefully things don't get as bad as that this time.
dhosek 4y ago
More anecdata: My employer is still hiring and has a lot of open dev roles. On the other hand, the flood of unsolicited recruiter emails that I delete without responding has become less flood-y in the last month or so.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  Same here. My flood of emails has cut down by roughly half, and LinkedIn has far fewer notifications about matching in searches, in mails, people viewing my profile, etc. Two months ago it was extremely busy and noisy. It might be even less than half the activity today.
Xenoamorphous 4y ago
I'm also in Europe and my concern is that this, like many things, starts in the US and then we get the same at a few months down the line.
weinzierl 4y ago
Data from indeed seems to support your anecdotal datum: "Employer demand for workers remains strong, with Indeed job postings as of June 24, 2022 54.2% above their pre-pandemic baseline. New job postings, defined as those on Indeed for seven days or less, are also well above their pre-pandemic baseline, up 68.3%. While job postings growth has slowed, the leveling out has been moderate." https://www.hiringlab.org/2022/06/30/june-2022-us-labor-market-update/ https://www.hiringlab.org/2022/06/30/june-2022-us-labor-mark...
- ItsMonkk 4y ago
  Job listings is a terrible metric because it has never been cheaper to have a listing. Listings are nearly double pre-pandemic norms while actual hires are only up slightly from pre-pandemic norms. This implies that each job listing is much less effective than it was. If companies would stop throwing away 90% of resumes because they didn't exactly match the keywords for the job, perhaps this would be better. The bottom line though, is we shouldn't factor listings into any metric in much the same way that me putting a $100 trillion price tag on an item doesn't increase inflation. Track actual transactions.
  - supernovae 4y ago
    I don't see this at all in the tech industry. Companies are actually scouting for talent. Heck, my family in service industry says anyone with a pulse is hired these days.
gkoberger 4y ago
I'll start by saying that overall I agree. For engineers, specifically, things are still pretty good and companies are actively hiring. That being said, be careful with this assumption. Recruiters aren't going to stop recruiting; that's their job. At many companies, they have a certain amount of outreach they're required to do. If they stop emailing, then all of a sudden they stop doing their job, and that means they're personally going into layoffs with bad numbers. The jobs still exist, but behind the scenes it's likely things are changing. Companies are hiring 2 engineers instead of 10, or increasing their hiring bar significantly. The difference between "we're desperate to hire" and "we're open if someone great comes along..." is huge, but you won't see a difference in how recruiters treat you. tl;dr = if a company cuts their hiring plan from 10 engs to 1, they still send the same number of recruiting emails.
- vasco 4y ago
  Exactly this, recruiter messages volume might actually increase because they also know companies are tightening and so they need to lock in those placements asap before roles dry up outright. A bit of my job ends up being a hiring management and the amount of recruitment agencies that want to send developers our way increased a lot. They are getting desperate.
rongenre 4y ago
That´s my hope as well, however in 2001, I was getting flooded with recruiter messages at the same time that layoffs were going on. For a few months people were having pink-slip parties because they just assumed it was always 1999. It was pretty scary, to be honest. Eventually the recruiter messages tapered off until about.. 2005.
asdajksah2123 4y ago
The fact that there was so much hiring over the past 5-10 years meant that there was also a lot more recruiters. And now that the hiring is reduced, the number of recruiters haven't (especially since they tend to work on commission, rather than on a fixed salary). Since they now have fewer jobs to connect people to, even they are likely to get more desperate and send more recruiting pitches to candidates, because they aren't filling as many jobs as easily and earning as much commission. IOW, seeing an increase in recruiter activity can be completely consistent with reduced hiring (and is also consistent with increased hiring), so in itself it doesn't tell you much.
varispeed 4y ago
> salaries I'm seeing are really good for the area too. That I don't get. It should rather be good for the skills you have on offer, not where you are based. From my experience the offers are pretty sh*te and only gone up slightly. You also need to take into account being caught in the higher tax bracket. So if the offer is £120k you'll only get £73k, which these days isn't that much considering costs of living are not the same as 10 years ago. That being said, I have received a couple of offers for over £150k recently so at least the trend is upwards. Still not enough for me to consider.
bastardoperator 4y ago
Same, I currently work at fortune 10 and while I actually appreciate recruiters reaching out to me unlike many other folks, I've had to start ignoring everything on LinkedIn because I'm getting upwards of 1-5 people asking me to talk/interview per day. One company was claiming 400K salary too, so I really have no idea where any of this stands.
randomsearch 4y ago
You’re just way down the domino chain. VCs react first, in the most savvy and farsighted places. That’s why we’re seeing symptoms already. There is literally a geographical delay. Things like house price crashes take time to spread. The more remote you are, the less connected you are to the global economy. Scotland is relatively isolated. The tide has gone out, make plans.
- disgruntledphd2 4y ago
  Actually, I'd suggest that bootstrappers react first, and VCs react somewhat after the public markets do.
  - randomsearch 4y ago
    > bootstrappers react first, Interesting! What is it they react to? I agree VCs react to the markets and/or anything that is likely to affect them.
    - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
      Business signals.
      - randomsearch 4y ago
        Like sales or engagement? That’s way behind VC signals.
- throwaway71271 4y ago
  > The tide has gone out, make plans. chill bro, things will be fine, planned or not the wheel keeps turning
zerr 4y ago
I believe it is about weeding out mid-high 6-figure (and sometimes 7-figure) staff. It is understandable that 5-figure (underpaid) European devs are not affected.
- jedberg 4y ago
  Google, Meta, and Amazon are all actively making 7-figure offers, according to levels.fyi.

by LandR 4y ago

jamiegreen 4y ago

What do you specialise in if you don't mind me asking?

LandR 4y ago
C# .NET, SQL and some JS

mountainriver 4y ago

Same I’m still getting offers

skeeter2020 4y ago

I'm in Western Canada and locally, provincially and nationally there's a ridiculous number of open tech positions. I guess a chart that included hiring wouldn't be highlighted on twitter...

adra 4y ago
Yeah, I'm getting way more unsolicited job recruitments than ever before. I'm not sure if companies actually need the head counts or feel like they can pickup some cheap(er) hires now that the market is off.
varispeed 4y ago
I am in the UK and had quite a number of Canadian companies looking to recruit recently. Interesting.
pcthrowaway 4y ago
Probably because U.S. companies hit up Canadian talent hard during the talent crunch, since they mostly speak English at a native level, live in the same time zones, and were cheaper than U.S. devs. I don't think Canadian companies could compete and hire, so mostly just rode it out and let positions sit unfilled. I suspect there are more unfilled positions in Canada than there are unemployed devs in Canada right now, but if layoffs continue, the Canadian companies might get some relief

lordnacho 4y ago

Same here, the market still feels hot to me. Just interviewed with dozens of firms, plenty of interest apparently. Of course this kind of thing can change very quickly, and agency recruiters won't really know for a while.

cageface 4y ago

It took a while but after the dotcom boom it was hard for even good tech people to find work. We were getting 100s of very qualified applications for every open position we had. Hopefully things don't get as bad as that this time.

dhosek 4y ago

More anecdata: My employer is still hiring and has a lot of open dev roles. On the other hand, the flood of unsolicited recruiter emails that I delete without responding has become less flood-y in the last month or so.

steve_adams_86 4y ago
Same here. My flood of emails has cut down by roughly half, and LinkedIn has far fewer notifications about matching in searches, in mails, people viewing my profile, etc. Two months ago it was extremely busy and noisy. It might be even less than half the activity today.

Xenoamorphous 4y ago

I'm also in Europe and my concern is that this, like many things, starts in the US and then we get the same at a few months down the line.

weinzierl 4y ago

Data from indeed seems to support your anecdotal datum: "Employer demand for workers remains strong, with Indeed job postings as of June 24, 2022 54.2% above their pre-pandemic baseline. New job postings, defined as those on Indeed for seven days or less, are also well above their pre-pandemic baseline, up 68.3%. While job postings growth has slowed, the leveling out has been moderate." https://www.hiringlab.org/2022/06/30/june-2022-us-labor-market-update/ https://www.hiringlab.org/2022/06/30/june-2022-us-labor-mark...

ItsMonkk 4y ago
Job listings is a terrible metric because it has never been cheaper to have a listing. Listings are nearly double pre-pandemic norms while actual hires are only up slightly from pre-pandemic norms. This implies that each job listing is much less effective than it was. If companies would stop throwing away 90% of resumes because they didn't exactly match the keywords for the job, perhaps this would be better. The bottom line though, is we shouldn't factor listings into any metric in much the same way that me putting a $100 trillion price tag on an item doesn't increase inflation. Track actual transactions.
- supernovae 4y ago
  I don't see this at all in the tech industry. Companies are actually scouting for talent. Heck, my family in service industry says anyone with a pulse is hired these days.

gkoberger 4y ago

I'll start by saying that overall I agree. For engineers, specifically, things are still pretty good and companies are actively hiring. That being said, be careful with this assumption. Recruiters aren't going to stop recruiting; that's their job. At many companies, they have a certain amount of outreach they're required to do. If they stop emailing, then all of a sudden they stop doing their job, and that means they're personally going into layoffs with bad numbers. The jobs still exist, but behind the scenes it's likely things are changing. Companies are hiring 2 engineers instead of 10, or increasing their hiring bar significantly. The difference between "we're desperate to hire" and "we're open if someone great comes along..." is huge, but you won't see a difference in how recruiters treat you. tl;dr = if a company cuts their hiring plan from 10 engs to 1, they still send the same number of recruiting emails.

vasco 4y ago
Exactly this, recruiter messages volume might actually increase because they also know companies are tightening and so they need to lock in those placements asap before roles dry up outright. A bit of my job ends up being a hiring management and the amount of recruitment agencies that want to send developers our way increased a lot. They are getting desperate.

rongenre 4y ago

That´s my hope as well, however in 2001, I was getting flooded with recruiter messages at the same time that layoffs were going on. For a few months people were having pink-slip parties because they just assumed it was always 1999. It was pretty scary, to be honest. Eventually the recruiter messages tapered off until about.. 2005.

asdajksah2123 4y ago

The fact that there was so much hiring over the past 5-10 years meant that there was also a lot more recruiters. And now that the hiring is reduced, the number of recruiters haven't (especially since they tend to work on commission, rather than on a fixed salary). Since they now have fewer jobs to connect people to, even they are likely to get more desperate and send more recruiting pitches to candidates, because they aren't filling as many jobs as easily and earning as much commission. IOW, seeing an increase in recruiter activity can be completely consistent with reduced hiring (and is also consistent with increased hiring), so in itself it doesn't tell you much.

varispeed 4y ago

> salaries I'm seeing are really good for the area too. That I don't get. It should rather be good for the skills you have on offer, not where you are based. From my experience the offers are pretty sh*te and only gone up slightly. You also need to take into account being caught in the higher tax bracket. So if the offer is £120k you'll only get £73k, which these days isn't that much considering costs of living are not the same as 10 years ago. That being said, I have received a couple of offers for over £150k recently so at least the trend is upwards. Still not enough for me to consider.

bastardoperator 4y ago

Same, I currently work at fortune 10 and while I actually appreciate recruiters reaching out to me unlike many other folks, I've had to start ignoring everything on LinkedIn because I'm getting upwards of 1-5 people asking me to talk/interview per day. One company was claiming 400K salary too, so I really have no idea where any of this stands.

randomsearch 4y ago

You’re just way down the domino chain. VCs react first, in the most savvy and farsighted places. That’s why we’re seeing symptoms already. There is literally a geographical delay. Things like house price crashes take time to spread. The more remote you are, the less connected you are to the global economy. Scotland is relatively isolated. The tide has gone out, make plans.

disgruntledphd2 4y ago
Actually, I'd suggest that bootstrappers react first, and VCs react somewhat after the public markets do.
- randomsearch 4y ago
  > bootstrappers react first, Interesting! What is it they react to? I agree VCs react to the markets and/or anything that is likely to affect them.
  - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
    Business signals.
    - randomsearch 4y ago
      Like sales or engagement? That’s way behind VC signals.
throwaway71271 4y ago
> The tide has gone out, make plans. chill bro, things will be fine, planned or not the wheel keeps turning

zerr 4y ago

I believe it is about weeding out mid-high 6-figure (and sometimes 7-figure) staff. It is understandable that 5-figure (underpaid) European devs are not affected.

jedberg 4y ago
Google, Meta, and Amazon are all actively making 7-figure offers, according to levels.fyi.