I don't see much talk of it here, but are we in the depths of a serious tech recession? VC world seems to have been decimated, massive layoffs at most tech firms, IT consulting and contracting also decimated.
Have you been affected? Is there any end in sight? Sharing your experiences can help others to know they're not alone.
My advice is to hang in there. Often we have 3 strong candidates per open position. The people we reject aren’t getting rejected because they aren’t a good fit or lack skills - it’s just that someone else was a little better. If I had the budget I’d hire all the great people I have the privilege of interviewing.
For what it’s worth I think the industry is starting to run a little too lean. Teams are getting pushed to their limit, there’s no “slack” left for additional output. Contrary to the buzz you see on sites like HN, in the real world AI coding tools are completely underwhelming. The pendulum is losing momentum and I suspect orgs will realize they either need to grow their headcount or downsize their product offerings - meanwhile they’re letting certain products languish because they don’t have the headcount to work on it. And risk appetite for entering new markets is waaay down. The business culture is becoming more conservative (not politically/culturally, but rather in terms of its approach to operations and product development)
This means more opportunities for entrepreneurs and new companies soon. “What if big tech company X just copies you?” — oh you think they’re going to get budget to do that? You think they’re going to hire 50 devs to just copy your random startup? In THIS market? With THIS amount of Wall street scrutiny against quixotic projects? Hah! If you see a gap build it and fill it. The big dogs are all tied up in meetings with finance trying to save their datadog subscription from the chopping block - they won’t notice you until it’s too late.
It definitely feels like it's time for next wave of entrepreneurship, but the current environment may make it difficult to realize it.
I was laid off in the summer and tried some smaller ideas for a few months, but it is very hard to be a solo founder in my experience - way too much work wearing all hats. Fortunately I bagged a job to get income stream back in line, but in my gut I feel like I'm missing an opportunity.
I found that I just have too many financial responsibilities to take the leap without either/both a co-founder and seed funding (despite desperately clutching to the notion that bootstrapping is better). And that's hard for many right now.
yes and no. I was just hiring as a founder of a small company. I just filled in that role after receiving like 250 resumes in 1 month. Now, 235 of them were totally irrelevant and people just applying. Remaining 15, I was able to interview 7-8 for Round 1 and then 3-4 made it to Round 2. Out of those, we really like 2 candidates and it was close and since we could only hire 1, we had to say no to the others. Tough but no choice.
It is tough for candidates right now but honestly, majority of people applying are lazy and don't do any homework. Yes it is hard and you cant spend time on every company but if you are applying to small/startups, you have to research a bit. It is harder right now but as an employer, I wouldn't respond if all you did was send a generic resume and worse, applied to a role you have no qualifications for.
This is one of the most disheartening negative impacts for looking for work when you have decades of success in your career:
"We appreciate you applying, but we found others who are better than you. Thank anyway, loser"
These emails, are lose-lose-lose; You lose by getting the email, you lose by the feeling it imbues, you lose because you dont have RHFL to your actions.
I would like a reverse RHFL - an AIRHL (which is what AI is meant to do) (AI Reinforced Human Learning)
Dont tell me I am rejected, I want to know where to improve...
This would be a wonderful triage app for AI going forward - is just a site such as linkedin, should have a GPT that reads your profile/CV and just constantly asks you Continuous Education questions, and gives you credits for answering correctly, and builds training modules for you...
I send out my resume and barely get any answers. I don't even get a chance to interview.
That being said, I had a good luck streak in December! I'm waiting to hear back from several companies right now.
I'm still saving money in case layoffs happen, especially because I'm remote and moved far outside of tech markets and bought a house last year.
I have a large amount of anxiety looking around my network at folks who I know are competent and have been out of work for more than 6 months. I'm very glad I didn't follow the trend and stayed at a more stable company.
It's still valuable data - it tracks that it's harder to land an interview these days.
Almost every job I've ever landed I interviewed in December. Just last month I interviewed a dozen people or so for roles in my company. My recruiter friends that I talked to all landed a bunch of offers last month.
Everyone is about to get swarmed with resumes right now but there's a pool out there with a three week headstart and less competition because of the reasoning I mentioned.
Anecdotally, I'm hearing lots of stories of companies laying people off and then there are new openings very similar to the position that was let go, but with lower salaries or where one person would be expected to do the work of 2-5 previously laid off folks.
In particular, a person I know from EA Games saw half their department let go, and then replacements appeared a couple months later. All of them had lower pay and were less skilled. This all reads like quarterly profit optimizations by a bean counter up top looking to make the shares look good.
This is just the regular course of business in the games industry. They like to scale up and down according to need (games in development) and would largely prefer to employ contractors, but laws prevent them working contractors like dogs and studios go where the tax credits are & tax credits require having employees typically.
so only $300k total comp and 20 hrs of work per week?
I haven’t seen much of this, but I’m constantly getting notifications about jobs I was reject for months ago being reposted. I’m not sure if it’s resume fishing or if company’s have delusional standards. And I’m not talking about too their tech companies either.
I don't live near a major city. This wasn't a problem when remote work was the norm, or when I could wait for the right remote job to open up. But in the current environment it's a major headwind.
I'm also starting to get concerned about how employers will perceive this long of a job gap.
And the psychological aspect of this long of unemployment is no joke either.
I'm adding two dozen to the team this year and will start working through that thread tomorrow. I can't be the only one.
Who Wants to Be Hired? A bunch of similar people to me or better, with that same tech stacks as me, looking for remote.
Who is Hiring? Companies with tech stacks I don't use, looking for on-site.
I didn't think there was any point until you mentioned that you'll be looking for candidates there.
Sure seems recessionish to me.