Is the Job Market Dying?

What's worse about these anecdotes is that they ignore the obvious. I guarantee you some people are still getting hired for those open job reqs, it's just that when you have a big contraction and now have a ton more applicants for each open role, you're going to have many more anecdotes with people lamenting that "AI has broken the process" or "there are a ton of scams" or "insidious tech trends", because the real answer is just a lot more painful: there were tons of applicants for that job, and the person who was picked wasn't you. And (saying this from experience), that can just really, really suck, and when it goes on for a while it can be very difficult to come to terms with.

I worked a decade in the DoD, and then another decade in various tech companies. I was laid off from a startup 12 months ago.

There are definitely pros and cons of both sides. Here's my take on working for the DoD:

- PRO: Having a long tenure means you really get to know the software systems you're developing, and the people with whom you're collaborating.

- PRO: Lack of commercial / profit pressure lets you focus on what seems good for the country, rather than for stockholders.

- CON: Congress is insane. They still haven't passed a defense budget for FY24. The DoD is the only employer I've ever had that missed payroll.

- PRO/CON: Supporting the U.S.'s military might is good or bad, depending on how it's used. A lot of soul-searching may be required to do the work. But working for the private sector can also feel awful, especially in this age of surveillance capitalism.

- PRO/CON: The pay is okay-ish compared to the private sector (PRO), but there's no potential for major bonuses / RSUs (CON).

- PRO: Layoffs are far less common than in the private sector. There's no boom-and-bust cycle tied to interest rates (AFAIK).

- PRO: The hiring process is 10000x better than what I've endured from the private sector since being laid off about 12 months ago. No LeetCode tests, no 5 rounds of interviews followed by being ghosted. And yet, despite the far simpler hiring process, my corner of the DoD generally managed to hire good people.

- CON: Bureaucracy. It can be soul-sucking. But since leaving the DoD, I've learned that it's just a symptom of massive organizations in general. E.g., I encountered a lot of the same frustrations working at Intel under Brian K and Bob Swan.

- PRO/CON: Physical facilities. At least where I worked, the DoD offices were generally run down compared to typical big-corporation offices. On the other hand, the DoD workspaces weren't under financial pressure to maxize programmers per square foot. So there weren't any open-office floor plans. Everyone at least had a cube, more senior people generally had offices.

- PRO: No significant ageism. If you start working for the DoD, and don't egregiously screw up, you don't need to worry about being laid off because of your age. But beyond that, many of these systems / problem domains have long learning curves, so long-tenured developers generally command a lot of well-deserved respect.

**

Right now I'm actually interviewing for private sector jobs (Microsoft) and DoD jobs. I might have to take an offer from Microsoft because of financial considerations. But I'm also kinda hoping I end up back at the DoD.

Where I work we stopped posting jobs publicly and stopped promoting them on job sites. We now get candidates in 4 ways:

• Internal referral – Sometimes a complete miss, sometimes a quick hire.

• External recruiter (rarely) – For some roles their network has been beneficial and we’ve negotiated down to as little as 8% of yearly salary in exchange for a case study or something.

• Direct Targeted LinkedIn Outreach – So much cheaper to pay for LinkedIn Recruiter Lite and reach out to promising candidates. I get a near 100% response rate and it’s been so much faster than twiddling my thumbs waiting and hoping for good applicants.

• Inbound queries through our careers page - We rewrote this to be honest about what it’s generally like to work with us, including what we like and what other people have disliked. Anybody who writes to us directly after reading it is guaranteed a 30-minute conversation to see if they’re a good fit for either now or in the future. I’ve been surprised how many people have found this page and read it.

This has cut our cost to hire for most roles by nearly 70% (also factoring in time cost) compared to promoted posts on job sites. Our time to hire is much faster as well.

Part of the trick is realizing you don’t really need The Best People. Find somebody who you’ve got reasonable confidence can do the job well and make them an offer.

I think it just quickly fell off the front page. (I think I found it on page 3.)