State of the Market

[Fraidycat]

I
I've seen quite a few agents that have no contact details at all on their LinkedIn. It's almost like they have no interest in speaking with candidates. I can't blame them in some ways. The whole system of recruitment is broken and recruiters get large numbers of unsolicited messages daily.

It like the housing market, is it a buyers or sellers market?


Sellers/Contractors market - Contractors find calls from agents annoying. Agents desperate to fill roles due lack of good candidates.

Buyers/Clients market - Agents not interested in calls from candidates. Candidates desperate to find roles due lack of good roles.

[edison]

It like the housing market, is it a buyers or sellers market?


Sellers/Contractors market - Contractors find cold calls from agents annoying. Agents desperate to fill roles due lack of good candidates.

Buyers/Clients market - Agents not interested in cold calls from candidates. Candidates desperate to find roles due lack of good roles.

It's exactly this - we are in a buyer's market and it seems like we are unlikely to see a seller's/contractor's market (like we saw in 2022) for quite a while.

[tsmith]

I always used to try and speak to the agent before sending a CV for a contract role. Now, many agents don't have their phone number on either their LinkedIn profile or on their company website. If it's a central office number, it rarely seems to get answered.

I've seen quite a few agents that have no contact details at all on their LinkedIn. It's almost like they have no interest in speaking with candidates. I can't blame them in some ways. The whole system of recruitment is broken and recruiters get large numbers of unsolicited messages daily.

Yes whole 'IT recruitment' industry is a total joke - always has been.

A zero to barrier to entry industry

Where any old 'sales person' starts a "IT Recruitment Company" - not because they have any passion or expertise in IT. Its just a 'profitable niche'

Typically they hire recent grads or other random 18 to 21 year olds - most with no background in IT. Get them cold calling and emailing companies all day.

Saw a post with a pic of one of the walls inside of their office recently. said GET ON THE PHONE - all caps. Thats all you need to know about these organisations.

Attrition rate is massive. Most only last a few months.

The companies are constantly hiring for new people to put in the meat grinder.

These people have 'resourcer' as titles - the cannon fodder guys who do all the donkey work to find candidates

Then hand the CV shortlist over to the 'consultant' - a better title would be 'employment telesales executive' - typically somebody older more experienced

The net result as a candidate

1) Theres 1000s of these small "IT recruitment consultancies" - all with one job relevant to you - lets say once every 2 years
2) Difficult to build relationships with these organisations as theyre essentially boiler rooms with a conveyor belt of staff moving in and out

Now everythings moved from job boards to linkedin - lets be real - linkedin is absolute garbage trying to sift through the noise to actually get to actual roles - as most of these jokers put roles in random posts - not in the 'jobs' section.

Linkedin could easily help fix this but they never do.

amazing how the industry has changed. Now you need to call the agent essentially- I remember when I graduated my phone was ringing 10 times a day.

But like you say can you actually get through to them? Assuming these 'no contact details' guys are the resourcers. They dont actually need to worry about being called by candidates anymore as theres a huge pool of available candidates.

The need for any form of 'relationship building' between agents and recruiters is now not really needed - unless maybe youre a niche candidate with low competition- I know Ruby devs used to be in this category - where agents need to keep you sweet long term as they will need you in future to fill roles.

[plutocrat]

Yeah I think the move from old style job boards to linked in has been a disaster. It's not as searchable, dumps you through to application website a lot of the time.

Markjet seems to be picking up though but a hell of a iot of competition, frustratingly getting to final 2 on a couple of jobs but not quite puling it off

[sreed]

I currently have a ringside view of my client (mid sized FS firm) trying to hire a PM on an 18 month PAYE FTC. The pay budget (not disclosed on the listing) was pretty good at 90-110k. An FTC because they have a freeze on permie hiring so need to get around that.

The dept head spent quite a bit of effort into drafting the person spec, put the listing up on LinkedIn and got 57 applications within the day and his LI got bombarded with messages from candidates and agents trying to speak with him. He pulled the listing asap and then we spent time sorting through the apps only to realise that almost 90% of it was from people who didn’t have the industry experience mentioned in the person spec.

Finally interviewed 3 people and offered one the job. He accepted, 1 month notice and then he pulled out two days before joining. He’s not updated his LI profile yet but I’m guessing he just used this FTC as insurance and must have got something else.

So now it’s back to square one! Hiring can be an absolute pain in the ass, especially when 3 clicks can submit your application to a job.

I’m not unhappy as this delay probably means my contract gets extended beyond summer.

[edison]

I currently have a ringside view of my client (mid sized FS firm) trying to hire a PM on an 18 month PAYE FTC. The pay budget (not disclosed on the listing) was pretty good at 90-110k. An FTC because they have a freeze on permie hiring so need to get around that.

The dept head spent quite a bit of effort into drafting the person spec, put the listing up on LinkedIn and got 57 applications within the day and his LI got bombarded with messages from candidates and agents trying to speak with him. He pulled the listing asap and then we spent time sorting through the apps only to realise that almost 90% of it was from people who didn’t have the industry experience mentioned in the person spec.

Finally interviewed 3 people and offered one the job. He accepted, 1 month notice and then he pulled out two days before joining. He’s not updated his LI profile yet but I’m guessing he just used this FTC as insurance and must have got something else.

So now it’s back to square one! Hiring can be an absolute pain in the ass, especially when 3 clicks can submit your application to a job.

I’m not unhappy as this delay probably means my contract gets extended beyond summer.

It's never been easier to search for roles online and apply for them with a couple of clicks.

Paradoxically, it's never been more difficult to secure a role advertised online because it is so easy to apply and recruiters/hiring managers get bombarded with applications. On a lot of applications now, there are one or two knockout questions e.g. 'do you have experience in X industry?' So applications can be filtered this way.

I saw a role recently at 5pm on LinkedIn that had been posted an hour earlier at 4pm. By 930 next morning it was already taken down due to the number of applicants.

[dsc]

[...]On a lot of applications now, there are one or two knockout questions e.g. 'do you have experience in X industry?' So applications can be filtered this way.[...]

In theory, but people know that they will get ignored if they don't tick those boxes on the knockout questions, so they just say yes. It's like with most applications, majority of people lack experience in a certain field, lack certain skills etc. they apply anyway. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to filter CV, unless you look for keywords, but if those keywords are fairly standard, like React / Java / Angular / Git / Jira / Agile etc. then you end up with a huge stack of CVs post filtering anyway. Niche positions seem easier to fill, at least in principle, but then you have people who just stick whatever was on the job ad, on their CV and try to blag their way through.

My biggest issue with LI is the fact that recruiters often ignore messages and yes I realise there's a valid reason, but it's still annoying af. When I find a job ad and there's a name listed on the both for questions / details, I often connect to that person on LI and ask whatever questions I have, but 90% of the time they cannot be bothered. So you apply, wait 3 months only to find out that for example German is required for this position (which isn't listed in the job spec) and it's a no go. What a bloody waste of time.

[PCTNN]

What I find hilarious about LinkedIn job ads and posts advertising the job is that it doesn't matter how many times you write in CAPS that you're only looking for candidates that are based in the UK, you always get dozens of comments from the likes of Dipesh, Raj, Balaji based in India and with zero relevant experience

Must be fecking annoying for hiring managers and recruiters

[avonleigh]

What I find hilarious about LinkedIn job ads and posts advertising the job is that it doesn't matter how many times you write in CAPS that you're only looking for candidates that are based in the UK, you always get dozens of comments from the likes of Dipesh, Raj, Balaji based in India and with zero relevant experience

Must be fecking annoying for hiring managers and recruiters

It's amazing how stupid people are. We have a cleaning company and sometimes advertise for cleaners. Had people from Brazil and African countries apply and one of the questions is 'Are you able to relocate for this job' and they respond no.

[krytonsheep]

linked in has been a disaster.

Whenever I go on LinkedIn I need a sick bucket after scrolling through the posts. Hard to tell if people are trying to sell their own 'Personal Brand' our writing their own obituary.