State of the Market

[edison]

I had an interesting chat with a recruiter last week who worked for a sizeable firm before moving to a startup. Ironically he said the market had made his old firm take on some dubious recruitment practices and there was a lot of infighting amongst different teams who were trying to steal each others business in order to hit their targets. As it was, the general level of bonuses fell sharply.

This is a firm that I know as one of the more successful ones out there over the last few years. If they are struggling, some of the smaller ones will be in dire straits soon.

[Eirikur]

Although I'm still in a contract until January, I keep an eye on the market and for my little niche it has never been this quiet, bar the first 4 weeks of Covid. Normally 3 - 5 perfect matches per week would pop up at jobserve, now it's maybe 1 per month or even less. As an EU passport holder I'm also keeping an eye on the EU and the situation is the same, only Germany is slightly better. The only place that seems to have regular matches is the US.

[dsc]

Although I'm still in a contract until January, I keep an eye on the market and for my little niche it has never been this quiet, bar the first 4 weeks of Covid. Normally 3 - 5 perfect matches per week would pop up at jobserve, now it's maybe 1 per month or even less. As an EU passport holder I'm also keeping an eye on the EU and the situation is the same, only Germany is slightly better. The only place that seems to have regular matches is the US.

Can you share what industry you are in? most seem to be in fintech here and apparently that is dead atm.

Personally I can see some activity in the defence industry, most likely due to the war in Ukraine. Apart from this, there's a fair amount of work in the wind industry (outside UK), again understandable due to the green energy boom, outside of this there's absolutely bugger all. Roughly 6 months ago there was data centre projects and automated warehouses in the UK, but that died a death as well.

[rocktronAMP]

Two things have happened, there was a scandal at one of the big Indian outsourcers with regards to corruption and recruitment (news hyperlink?) I do wonder whether this has contributed to the sudden silence on the 'Indian Recruiters Operating Out Of The U.K' thread and general lack of cold calling from dodgy land-line numbers in south west London

There is also big negative news coming out of one Indian outsourcer with regards to attrition rates and taking on new graduates. All in all, the analysts that cover the Indian outsourcing sector are now saying that FY2024 (from now until next April) is a wash as customers have placed big projects on hold.

I think both of these are a bell weather of the current situation closer to home.

Who is it? InfoSys? Cognizant?

[edison]

Who is it? InfoSys? Cognizant?

TCS.

I worked with them on a project about 15 years ago, they were OK but nothing special.

There have been allegations about corruption and scams in Indian IT recruitment going back many years. This case might be notable for the firing of many executives.

[edison]

There is also big negative news coming out of one Indian outsourcer with regards to attrition rates and taking on new graduates. All in all, the analysts that cover the Indian outsourcing sector are now saying that FY2024 (from now until next April) is a wash as customers have placed big projects on hold.

I think both of these are a bell weather of the current situation closer to home.

It's not just one Indian firm slashing hiring. As reported recently by Reuters, there is quite a bit of over capacity in the big firms as a result of over hiring in the pandemic.

[Eirikur]

Can you share what industry you are in? most seem to be in fintech here and apparently that is dead atm.

I'm not bound to a specific industry, my skills can be used across many different industries, so far I've done contracts in Finance, travel, energy, retail, betting and gaming, telecoms, (local and national) government and charity. And atm it's dead for all of them. Unfortunately defence is one of the exceptions where they don't need me

[dsc]

[...]there is quite a bit of over capacity in the big firms as a result of over hiring in the pandemic.

I always wondered, what was the reason for over hiring in the pandemic? cause I've heard about this many times and it actually makes little sense.

[TheDude]

Can you share what industry you are in? most seem to be in fintech here and apparently that is dead atm.

I doubt many are in fintech.

A fair chunk including myself are in financial services.

[krytonsheep]

And atm it's dead for all of them.

I was thinking it can't be that bad, however looking at the job boards, I can say I've never seen it this quiet (in my area).