State of the Market

[willendure]

I'm just seeing the same pattern, over and over and over again. Agent makes contact on LinkedIn, we have a text chat, it looks a real goer, then...... NOTHING. This happened the last two Fridays running. Take the latest one. Friday had a screening call with internal 'talent acquisition specialist'. Went really well and he's talking about scheduling the next round and it sounded like it would have been same day, except the interviewer was out of office, and they'd be in touch with details of next round. Nothing. It's now Wednesday lunchtime. But this is just the latest example, it's a recurring theme the last few years. LinkedIn chat - "Hey Caminito, take a look at this contract, it's a perfect match for your skills. Fancy a quick chat?". Response goes in within 10 mins, including phone number. Nothing. Rinse and repeat, over and over.

Do you think your response even goes to a human ? Could just be AI on the other end ?

I actually got an interview through LI about a month ago, the thing that made it real is that the agent called me and she was serious and professional and in the UK. But that was the exception, all other LI contact has been as flaky as you describe. Its just not a platform I want to invest any time in as a result.

[budgetastronaut]

Do you think your response even goes to a human ? Could just be AI on the other end ?

I actually got an interview through LI about a month ago, the thing that made it real is that the agent called me and she was serious and professional and in the UK. But that was the exception, all other LI contact has been as flaky as you describe. Its just not a platform I want to invest any time in as a result.

LinkedIn is really a story for itself, everyone has great opportunities reaching out to you, but in the end, it ends up being a waste of time if you give everyone a chance.

[gables]

7 and 9 page CVs....😀
Noone in the world will read that.

You are applying for a job, a contract.They have a position available due to a current resource constrait.

They are not your friends, you are not going to their weddings. It's business. Your CV is like a poster, a business card not a book about your life story.

They look at your CV to see if you have the skills, interview to see if you can talk the talk and not disturb the current setup.

I've never had more than 2 pages. If it is, I cut it back.y roles from 2000-2010 are just one line. Why would something from 15yrs ago make any difference today?

They don't have to read it all, they can stop at page 3, but if they want to it's all there. It's not like I've faxed it across and they have a ream of paper to gather up.

In 2003 I developed a set of high performance mountain lights sold across the UK as part of retail business, you don't think the soft skills used in that endeavour are now suddenly irrelevant because it's 23 years later do you? Back in the 90s I was working in roles what we would now call Technical\Solution\Enterprise Architecture in the Infrastructure space - you don't think the skills gained then are now not relevant do you?

Oh just for info; I've not been out of contract\permie roles in these hard times or at any time since 1989 (except for my own choice) whereas you with your slimline CV seem to be having a different and difficult experience.

I won't laugh like you did, as I don't have to.

[SchumiStars]

They don't have to read it all, they can stop at page 3, but if they want to it's all there. It's not like I've faxed it across and they have a ream of paper to gather up.

In 2003 I developed a set of high performance mountain lights sold across the UK as part of retail business, you don't think the soft skills used in that endeavour are now suddenly irrelevant because it's 23 years later do you? Back in the 90s I was working in roles what we would now call Technical\Solution\Enterprise Architecture in the Infrastructure space - you don't think the skills gained then are now not relevant do you?

Oh just for info; I've not been out of contract\permie roles in these hard times or at any time since 1989 (except for my own choice) whereas you with your slimline CV seem to be having a different and difficult experience.

I won't laugh like you did, as I don't have to.

Skills which are 20yrs old are not relevant for today's market place.

As I said, you have to move with the times. Anyway moving on, market is dead. 😀

[caminito]

Skills which are 20yrs old are not relevant for today's market place.

As I said, you have to move with the times. Anyway moving on, market is dead. 😀

That was the view of ChatGPT with my initial rewrite. It removed 10+ years of Lloyds Banking Group x 2, RBS, EDF Trading, Barclays x 2, BNP Paribas, Schroders, KPMG, etc., gained between 2007 and 2018, and replaced it with literally one sentence including those company names. That's it. Engagement on LinkedIn dropped like a stone, if that were even possible. I had Claude take a look and that's the main thing it criticised, so we added those companies back in, minus the bullet points of skills, just adding what I delivered there, a short paragraph. The names were important, the skills of yesteryear were not. Within a few days, engagement returned. Massively.

[Bluenose]

State of the market for June 2026 was much worse than 2023, is my view.

HAYS share price has appeared to have bottomed for now, until the 20th August full yearly results release i would suspect. I dont expect them to be good but they might offer some positivity for state of the market FY 2027.

[TheDude]

Skills which are 20yrs old are not relevant for today's market place.

The obsolete hardware and programming languages you used 25 years ago and the waterfall methodology you followed are pretty much irrelevant today unless you are lucky enough to be one of those people paid a fortune to maintain legacy stuff.

Remove them from your CV and highlight what you have been doing for the past five or so years.

[TheDude]

Back in the 90s I was working in roles what we would now call Technical\Solution\Enterprise Architecture in the Infrastructure space - you don't think the skills gained then are now not relevant do you?

Yes.

[ensignia]

and highlight what you have been doing for the past five or so years.

That might not go too well for him.

[avonleigh]

Saw some stats on LinkedIn - a recent operations manager role had 5,629 applicants. And 100% of the applicants have a degree, so isn't made up of chancers trying their luck. We all know the market is bad but this is off the scale.