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It’s been such a crazy market the past 18 months.

It’s the first employer’s market in nearly 15 years (at least in tech), and employers are certainly taking advantage.

I mean, who wouldn’t?

We came off the hottest candidate market of all time (in tech) aka The Great Resignation where people were quitting in droves for 20-50% raises and consistently fielding multiple offers.

Now the power is back in the employer’s side and their taking advantage.

What employers are doing

Essentially employers are willing to wait longer to find the perfect match, or as close to it as possible.

It’s not just about the qualifications & requirements anymore, it’s also about soft skills, the amount of “risk” a candidate has, and potential.

You may see this through some activity like:

• Long periods of time before next steps, i.e. application to interview, first round to next round, final round to offer

• Long periods of time before receiving feedback (if any)

• Being rejected from jobs that are a great match (on paper)

• Being auto-rejected from jobs where you’re still a 70-80% fit

What’s going on

Simply put, the market is recorrecting itself. It’s extremely saturated.

You had big FAANGs increasing headcount 30-50%. We all know tech is a copy-cat game, so other companies were following suit.

It was a feeding frenzy in terms of hiring from 2020-2022.

Now that money is more expensive, the focus for orgs is to get leaner and more efficient.

That’s why you hear the word “right size”. They are trying to find the “right size” for their org for max efficiency, prioritizing revenue per employee.

So if you get rejected from an opening - whether it’s at the applicant stage or final round, it’s not necessarily because you’re a “bad candidate”.

There are simply “more qualified” candidates in the eyes of the beholder.

Story Time

Here’s a perfect example.

We were recruiting for a leading mid-sized tech company. Cutting edge, tons of tech & workplace awards. These guys are very hard to break into.

They’re known for hiring for some of the best SDETs in the country.

We had a great SDET candidate with an amazing background. Java, JS, Typescript, Playwright, Selenium, Gatling, AWS, the whole 9 yards. Great references, too.

We sent them to one manager and made it to the final round. The feedback from this candidate word for word from the manager was “He Bombed”.

Now we spoke to the candidate and debriefed him. He felt like he answered the technical/behavioral questions correctly, but they asked him some tricky logical questions (pretty much brain busters) that came out of left field.

Why they asked these? No clue. I guess because “they can” in this type of market.

Instead of getting frustrated and discouraged, we both decided to keep applying to this company because other managers had similar openings.

We sent him to another client - who didn’t end up asking any brain buster questions - and he eventually landed an offer.

Conclusion

So don’t get discouraged. These are some weird times.

This isn’t the first time this has happened by the way. I’ve been consistently placing candidates not on the first role we submit them to, but the 2nd or 3rd at the same client!

So reframe these “rejections” as “learning opportunities” to see where you can improve on the interview process and take it from there.

…..

By the way, if you’re looking for some career advice or to review your resume/linkedin, you can book a call below

If you’re hiring and need my recruiting support, let’s book a call here