Onto the newsletter!
This will come out every other Wednesday with market updates. Let me know what you're seeing and I'll add it to the next one. Reply to this email with hiring trends, how you're feeling, and your overall experience. Let me know if you want me to share your name or if you want to be confidential.
This is what I've been hearing from folks in the past week:
1: They love me, they love me not
– "Businesses aren't sure about who they want to hire. I've gone through three successful initial interviews, they say yes, but after 3-4 weeks the executive recruiter calls and says they changed their mind."
– "At the end of the day what they wanted was not well defined, though their needs were very apparent. After several rounds I was not selected."
2: Is it hot or a freeze? It's complicated.
– "On one side you see lots of layoffs. Then today unemployment is at 3.5%. What is going on here? At the senior level, the level I'm going after, positions will always be few and far between."
– "I'm seeing interest in what I would call the tried and tested, the somewhat boring companies. They don't have a lot of digital talent."
– "It's slowed down compared to a few months ago. I was getting more unsolicited approaches."
– "I can't hire fast enough. I'm losing people at a faster rate than I'm hiring. I've given more counteroffers this year than I've ever done before."
– "There's definitely a slowdown for senior level roles. Companies want to see how the market will act."
– "Organizations are in a confused state. They've opened these roles but are being very careful and sensitive with a looming recession coming up. It's a transition. They can't completely shut off or ramp up."
– "I haven't seen a slowdown at all."
– "I have had an uptick in recruiters looking for CTOs/CDOs/CIOs for early stage startups. I had traditionally seen those roles filled by founders, but I am seeing an uptick in going to the open market for those roles to fill out the leadership team as early stage firms set themselves up for growth."
3: Geographic flexibility
– "There's a mindset change with Covid. The team doesn't need to be there in person and this opened up the job market. This also helps with offers being accepted. In the past people didn't check with their spouse until it was too late and then changed their mind!"
– "Hybrid work means managing teams differently. Companies are competing for talent so they need executives that think differently about creating a destination for employees. This change has not settled on any sort of new-normal; companies are still looking for the right mix of location, work types, investment strategies, and technologies strategies. New incoming executives need perspective, the ability to manage this change, adjust, and help define what a company will become."
