Lately, I’ve seen a lot of posts here and there talking about what employers should do and how they should treat candidates, the benefits they s

The Reality of an Employer’s Market

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2024-11-27 15:00:04

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of posts here and there talking about what employers should do and how they should treat candidates, the benefits they should offer, and how they should conduct interviews. I understand where they are coming from. I also relate on many levels as I got ghosted by recruiters and didn’t get proper feedback after a hefty round of interviews in the past. While I value these conversations, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the current reality of the job market in tech: it’s an employer’s market.

Just like the housing market fluctuates between a buyer’s market and a seller’s market, the job market moves between an employer’s market and an employee’s market. Right now, the power dynamic is in favor of employers in tech. It’s hard to deny it. There are many reasons for that. A few of them are a surge of layoffs, economic uncertainty, and an oversupply of workers. In simple terms, there are more candidates than there are open roles. From what I recall, this type of employer driven market only occurred during the 2008 economic crash in tech, and possibly during the dot com bubble. Even then I don’t think it was this bad.

Obviously, this isn’t good news for anyone who recently got laid off, graduated, or is looking for a new job. It means that, for the time being, employers have more leverage. They can be more selective in hiring, take longer to make decisions, and even offer lower compensation than what might have been standard a couple of years ago. There’s simply more supply than demand. You can get a sense of that when you look at jobs advertised. As a result, the behavior changes. Employers aren’t in pursuit of talent, talent is in pursuit of jobs.

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