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Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

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Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#101

Post by the_af »

dgb23 wrote: post #63
the_af wrote: post #60

As an aside, I'm not currently looking for a job (knock on wood) but people close to me are and... the interview process seems harder than ever. Now you get recorded, told you cannot alt-tab, take home assignments are very strict for companies that aren't even close to a FAANG (I mean, if you're applying to Google it comes with the territory, but why is your random startup so strict?), you are automatically graded on…

Which professions hire like this? I can’t think of any.

Sorry, I worded it badly: I didn't mean other professions hire like this, only that we in software development lived in a microclimate where finding a decent job was easy. Now it's getting harder, I guess.

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#103

Post by version_five »

SilasX wrote: post #97
colmanhumphrey wrote: post #90

Here is a chart going back to 2014: https://slight.run/graphs/colman/ratio_of_seekers_to_hirers_... Not quite as drastic as yours, but still not ideal. The underlying query and data source: https://slight.run/apps/colman/job_seekers_vs_job_hiring_hac... I'm restricting to top-level comments here, because those seem like a better proxy than all comments (excluding some discussion on a given post for example).

To answer what you were probably going to look for in the link: peak was March 2020 (1.19), when Covid got real, bottom was April 2018 (0.067), don't know any particular significance of that month.

April 2018 sounds about right for the tech bubble peak - iirc softbank was still in full swing, everyone was "blitzscaling", it was peak exuberance. Not that the music stopped right after that, but even into 2019 things were starting to decline and the VC industry was getting slightly more conservative.

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#104

Post by madcaptenor »

ritzaco wrote: post #93
ed_balls wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Date | Who is hiring? | Who wants to be hired | ratio Jan 2018,911,84,0.09 Feb 2018,1070,76,0.07 Mar 2018,1187,85,0.07 Apr 2018,1084,142,0.13 May 2018,1198,69,0.05 Jun 2018,911,90,0.09 Jul 2018,860,122,0.14 Aug 2018,1025,83,0.08 Sep 2018,922,73,0.07 Oct 2018,1110,113,0.10 Nov 2018,1057,162,0.15 Dec 2018,954,182,0.18

Added (blindly) the above data to a spreadsheet with a graph here[0]. If anyone wants to add the 2019 data in a comment, I'll update the sheet. [0] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bjPl3a0ciH6U9-OaLXGQ...

There's already a comment from ed_balls with the 2019 data.

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#105

Post by [deleted] »

ritzaco wrote: post #93
ed_balls wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Date | Who is hiring? | Who wants to be hired | ratio Jan 2018,911,84,0.09 Feb 2018,1070,76,0.07 Mar 2018,1187,85,0.07 Apr 2018,1084,142,0.13 May 2018,1198,69,0.05 Jun 2018,911,90,0.09 Jul 2018,860,122,0.14 Aug 2018,1025,83,0.08 Sep 2018,922,73,0.07 Oct 2018,1110,113,0.10 Nov 2018,1057,162,0.15 Dec 2018,954,182,0.18

Added (blindly) the above data to a spreadsheet with a graph here[0]. If anyone wants to add the 2019 data in a comment, I'll update the sheet. [0] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bjPl3a0ciH6U9-OaLXGQ...

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#106

Post by projectazorian »

There’s an odd dynamic in the market right now. In addition to layoffs, people who are subject to RTO are trying to find jobs at remote employers, so there’s an abnormally high number of already-employed folks on the job hunt right now. Not to mention all the juniors having trouble finding work at the moment.

Meanwhile remote employers are seeing less employee turnover, so don’t need to do much hiring, especially since many grew headcount considerably in 2021/2022. Which means many of those people looking for remote jobs aren’t finding a lot of success. (We’re remote and hiring for backfills only right now, not that there are many of those - and I suspect a lot of other companies are in the same spot.)

Remote roles are likely over-represented on HN, so if there are a lot of candidates chasing those roles, you’d expect a lot of growth in “who wants to be hired” posts.

I’d expect this dynamic to shift in the back half of the year. People are finding out about promotions and comp changes around this time and many will be disappointed. This will likely cause a lot of people sitting tight at remote companies to get back on the market. Some will find roles elsewhere, creating more backfills and more hiring.

Not to mention that there’s a glut of late-stage companies seeking to IPO when the IPO market reopens, likely later this year or early next. When companies IPO they usually hire a lot beforehand to tighten up processes, then do even more hiring a few months later as existing employees get their exits and decide to move on or take a break.

So the medium/long term outlook is still positive, at least.

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#107

Post by soneca »

willmeyers wrote: post #102

Doesn't the whoshiring threads get filled out throughout the week. Shouldn't a better analysis be done this weekend?

This happened last month too, a data analysis of Who Is Hiring one or two days after it is published with a pessimistic conclusion.

Then, one week later, you realize the number of posts is back to an ok level (even improving)

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#108

Post by leonidasv »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #61
mortenjorck wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs I would definitely not read that from the data. I don’t know what percentage of current seekers post in the wants-to-be-hired thread, but as a potentially-outlying anecdote, I didn’t until I had already been looking for three months. I would hypothesize that there’s a psychological barrier to posting in WWTBH, even if you’ve been laid off…

I've definitely resisted posting in the past. The primary reason was I simply didn't want to post while I had a job. The second is that you can't delete old HN comments, and I don't feel like having an "I need a job" comment on my permanent record. I'm not opposed to posting, but I haven't felt the desire to post.

FYI, you can get old posts deleted by contacting the moderators via email.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623557

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#109

Post by 71a54xd »

projectazorian wrote: post #106

There’s an odd dynamic in the market right now. In addition to layoffs, people who are subject to RTO are trying to find jobs at remote employers, so there’s an abnormally high number of already-employed folks on the job hunt right now. Not to mention all the juniors having trouble finding work at the moment. Meanwhile remote employers are seeing less employee turnover, so don’t need to do much hiring, especially sin…

It also seems like the market has strongly skewed to the senior side of things (8+ yrs exp).

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#110

Post by richarddeasis »

bumby wrote: post #92
richarddeasis wrote: post #87

I definitely regret not interviewing for jobs right away when I graduated a few months ago. At the moment I was thinking that in a few months the job market would still be hot. A few months ago, recruiters were reaching out to me. I started applying last week and a single job posting would have more than 1k applicants which was not the case months ago. On top of that, as a new grad, finding early career positions is…

Don’t be afraid to apply for jobs that are (slightly) outside your experience range. Often, these posts are “pie in the sky” wants, not hard requirements.

Good to know! Now I just got to keep grinding to be competitive against more experienced devs applying for the same position. Seems like its gonna be really difficult when theres gonna be at least a few hundreds of them applying for the same position.

Not sure what would motivate an employer to hire early career vs someone with 5 years of experience. Maybe paying new hires less than experienced ones?

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