State of the Market

[edison]

how do you use premium? whats the benefit?

ive got linkedin sales nav £80p/m + linkedin automation on the go. that gives me access to the full 1 billion LI database of people.

been running a campaign last 3 weeks to 1000 - 'heads of xxx'

only circa 3 so far said they had an open role. 1 x blockchain something. must have blockchain experience which i dont have

interesting to go this route to bypass the recruiters - i mean thats the way they operate - theyre going direct to employers

lots of 'we've just hired in the last couple of months' - 10+ of these responses - doubting its a legit response now- especially as ive never seen the roles advertised on these companies saying this.

also interesting roles i was rejected for ages ago - couple saying those roles are still live - probably ghost jobs

the rest is all 'not hiring' - a very insightful experiment thats for sure - also paints an uber bleak picture and explains why youre probably getting nowhere with job apps

Those stats are very illuminating and illustrate how bad the market is.

To contrast, a friend who's big on LinkedIn automation ran a campaign over 3 months in 2022 and contacted around 3000 recruiters seeking an IT Director role. Made lots of new connections, had numerous initial calls and ultimately plenty of interviews. Ended up with four or five job offers.

He ran something similar last autumn and all those metrics were way down. Still ended up with three job offers but he said it was so much harder work second time.

[tsmith]

IT has been in slump for 20 months now, started middle of 2022. What industry is that linked in thread about, have they only started to really feel it now?

Thats to be expected from the 18 month delay from interest rates hikes to really hit the economy, but the IT contract market saw the effect after just 6 months.

Although 18 months ago interest rates were only 3%, so thats what the wider economy is feeling at the moment, just 3% interest rates, it might still require another six to nine months before the economy feels the full effect of 5% interest rates.

Those stats are very illuminating and illustrate how bad the market is.

To contrast, a friend who's big on LinkedIn automation ran a campaign over 3 months in 2022 and contacted around 3000 recruiters seeking an IT Director role. Made lots of new connections, had numerous initial calls and ultimately plenty of interviews. Ended up with four or five job offers.

He ran something similar last autumn and all those metrics were way down. Still ended up with three job offers but he said it was so much harder work second time.

Interesting. I know the LI automation space well. LI has been clamping down on it in the last year significantly. Most of the tools will all suffer the same caps

So 2022 he may have had broader reach than now so maybe not a like for like comparison but probably proves the kind of volume some people will need to get job offers.

Pretty much resigned to leaving the IT industry now - planning a complete change in direction.

Relying on any kind of 'career' moving forward seems ridiculous to me now. Cant see any kind of meaningful 'recovery' - especially as Im in the senior roles space at my age.

Its either run a business or nothing. and by business I dont mean be an IT contractor

I believe broadly where we are currently is this eg. Freeze all hiring, invest in AI - then see who we need after that

"IBM’s CEO, who froze hiring for thousands of back-office jobs and predicted A.I. would take up to 50% of new jobs, just piled into a $4.5 billion tech unicorn’s massive new $235 million funding round"

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ibm-c...20five%20years.

[eek]

In other news - someone who knows the recruitment market is saying that Contract work is doing way better than permanent recruitment

Interesting. I know the LI automation space well. LI has been clamping down on it in the last year significantly. Most of the tools will all suffer the same caps

So 2022 he may have had broader reach than now so maybe not a like for like comparison but probably proves the kind of volume some people will need to get job offers.

Pretty much resigned to leaving the IT industry now - planning a complete change in direction.

Relying on any kind of 'career' moving forward seems ridiculous to me now. Cant see any kind of meaningful 'recovery' - especially as Im in the senior roles space at my age.

Its either run a business or nothing. and by business I dont mean be an IT contractor

I believe broadly where we are currently is this eg. Freeze all hiring, invest in AI - then see who we need after that

"IBM’s CEO, who froze hiring for thousands of back-office jobs and predicted A.I. would take up to 50% of new jobs, just piled into a $4.5 billion tech unicorn’s massive new $235 million funding round"

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ibm-c...20five%20years.

Problem is current AI is just autocomplete on steroids - it may get you somewhere but I have a suspicion that a lot of it is taking us down a cul de sac towards a dead end

[Fraidycat]

In the old days there were plenty of fake jobs on JobServe or ones that were resubmitted.

I'm getting some success in terms of interviews via linked in and a lesser extent Jobserve, combination of the market in my area picking up slightly and totally rejigging my CV which I'd used successfully for many years but wasn't working in the current super competitive market. Removed a lot of older jobs not related to my current skill set, wrote a lot boosterish linked-in style blurb about my jobs and skills without actually lying and reformatted into a more modern style and I'm getting 50% strike rate in terms of applications to interviews. It was more like 10-20% with my old CV.

Tailoring the CV is very important as well.

Not just copy and paste the job spec.

Write about related skills as well. eg. If a Job advert wants skill X, which is has a related sub skill Y. But Y isn't mention on the advert, you should also mention skill Y. Shows deeper knowledge.

[tsmith]

IT has been in slump for 20 months now, started middle of 2022. What industry is that linked in thread about, have they only started to really feel it now?

Thats to be expected from the 18 month delay from interest rates hikes to really hit the economy, but the IT contract market saw the effect after just 6 months.

Although 18 months ago interest rates were only 3%, so thats what the wider economy is feeling at the moment, just 3% interest rates, it might still require another six to nine months before the economy feels the full effect of 5% interest rates.

Problem is current AI is just autocomplete on steroids - it may get you somewhere but I have a suspicion that a lot of it is taking us down a cul de sac towards a dead end

Not sure about that. Had a similar convo about this on this forum recently. I agree AI is not some silver bullet but I think its not as much "replacement of jobs". But a dumbing down of tasks/automation to make it easier to offshore.

I quoted End of Year reports of digital agencies where AI and Offshoring were consistently mentioned together in the same document by the senior management whos mouths the words came from.

This story below comes from Resumebuilder - some kind of ai tool by the looks - so vested interest - but if this is true then the job deaths are already here

What are these AI tools are replacing these jobs isnt clear to me. Theres the challenge that many startups use AI to get more funding if though theyre not "AI"

I saw a hilarious glassdoor review of a company I applied to where the feedback from existing employee was "This isnt AI - their product is just a chatbot!"

• More than one-third (37%) of business leaders say AI replaced workers in 2023, according to a recent report from ResumeBuilder.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/16/ai-j...ull-story.html

[sreed]

Not sure about that. Had a similar convo about this on this forum recently. I agree AI is not some silver bullet but I think its not as much "replacement of jobs". But a dumbing down of tasks/automation to make it easier to offshore.

I quoted End of Year reports of digital agencies where AI and Offshoring were consistently mentioned together in the same document by the senior management whos mouths the words came from.

This story below comes from Resumebuilder - some kind of ai tool by the looks - so vested interest - but if this is true then the job deaths are already here

What are these AI tools are replacing these jobs isnt clear to me. Theres the challenge that many startups use AI to get more funding if though theyre not "AI"

I saw a hilarious glassdoor review of a company I applied to where the feedback from existing employee was "This isnt AI - their product is just a chatbot!"

• More than one-third (37%) of business leaders say AI replaced workers in 2023, according to a recent report from ResumeBuilder.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/16/ai-j...ull-story.html

Earlier this week I was chatting with a Polish sub-contractor firm that is doing most of the dev work on a data project. He said that their boss-man is big on AI and all his devs have all been made to use github copilot to write code since late last year. Since then apparently his devs are able to deliver in 30-40% less time. No one's lost their job but it has meant that the boss-man can take on more contracts!

On a smaller scale, I've been able to use chatgpt as an 'expert-resource' to help prep/tweak much better quality PowerBI reports than I used to, simply because I can now write measures without knowing the ins and outs of DAX and ask more tailored questions when I get stuck. For context, I'm a generalist PM with limited tech knowledge.

AI tools might not replace knowledge workers but I do think some jobs/tasks are going to see significant productivity/efficiency jumps, which in effect could reduce the number of people required to do that job and/or widen the pool of people who could potentially do that job.

[dsc]

Earlier this week I was chatting with a Polish sub-contractor firm that is doing most of the dev work on a data project. He said that their boss-man is big on AI and all his devs have all been made to use github copilot to write code since late last year. Since then apparently his devs are able to deliver in 30-40% less time. No one's lost their job but it has meant that the boss-man can take on more contracts!

On a smaller scale, I've been able to use chatgpt as an 'expert-resource' to help prep/tweak much better quality PowerBI reports than I used to, simply because I can now write measures without knowing the ins and outs of DAX and ask more tailored questions when I get stuck. For context, I'm a generalist PM with limited tech knowledge.

AI tools might not replace knowledge workers but I do think some jobs/tasks are going to see significant productivity/efficiency jumps, which in effect could reduce the number of people required to do that job and/or widen the pool of people who could potentially do that job.

So the devs are safe as long as he can secure more work, but we all know that scenario isn't guaranteed.

AI definitely speeds up some tasks, sucks at other tasks (for now, or maybe always) and simply cannot do some unless you train it using a very specific set of data.

[BritishLad88]

...

Write about related skills as well. eg. If a Job advert wants skill X, which is has a related sub skill Y. But Y isn't mention on the advert, you should also mention skill Y. Shows deeper knowledge.

in theory yes but most recruiter won't have this deep knowledge of skill Y is sub skill and relation of skill X- so there's still a high chance your CV might get filtered out first place before it reaches the hiring company.

[plutocrat]

Your cv has to go through two filters: HR/Agency non specialists so they are looking for keywords and presentation/phrasing. Then the hiring manager/team who is looking for evidence of skills. So it’s got to appeal to both audiences.

[hungry_hog]

Tailoring the CV is very important as well.

Not just copy and paste the job spec.

Write about related skills as well. eg. If a Job advert wants skill X, which is has a related sub skill Y. But Y isn't mention on the advert, you should also mention skill Y. Shows deeper knowledge.

The problem with this approach is you end up with 50 versions of your CV
You then have to remember which version of the CV you used for each job
And the interviewer says - oh yeah your said you were a specialist in "Power BI super duper turbo" and you try and remember what utter tripe you wrote for version 34 of that CV, submitted in x month of y year whilst doing a Morris Dance under a Full Moon.