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I’ve said it time and time again:

“The market doesn’t lie”

Some people aren’t a fan of my content because I like to cut to the chase and give you the brutal truth.

It’s easy to say “everyone should work remote”, “everyone should get a 20% raise”, or “here’s how you can break into FAANG easily” and gain thousands of followers.

But simply put, that’s not the reality.

Instead of dangling a carrot in front of my audience to gain followers, I rather give you the brutal - yet honest - truth on how the job market really operates from the employer side.

Because if you don’t want to hear it from me, you best bet you’ll realize it the hard way as you’re applying to roles with minimal progress.

There are still a lot of people out there that think we’re in the ZIRP era.

Fully remote roles. Unlimited budget.

Listen, I would love it if we were still in this era. I never made as much money in my career than I did 2020-2022, and so did most of my peers.

Fully remote roles means it’s easier for me to identify candidates. High budgets means I don’t need to get into bidding wars. Those were some good times.

But the fact of the matter is, we’re back to reality in 2024. If you haven’t noticed, there are hundreds of thousands of layoffs since 2H 2022, and they’re not stopping anytime soon.

Story Time

I was recruiting a super specific niche role in the consumer banking industry back in 9/2023.

I spoke to this one candidate who’s contract just ended approx 8/2023 at the time. He originally started 8/2021 there at his previous client.

We connected and spoke about my client.

We agreed it was what he was looking for professionally, but laughed in my face - literally - at the logistics.

• My role was onsite 2x/week

• My role would “only” give him a 12% increase on his previous rate

Instead of getting bitter and clapping back, I just said “fair enough. Mind me asking how active you are in the market and what your interview activity looks like?”

He said he’s actively seeking and has no interviews.

I then asked “so then why wouldn’t you consider my role?”

He replied “I have enough cash in the bank to hold off for a role I want”.

Fair enough. I thanked him for his time and asked to keep in touch if anything changes.

We ended up filling the role with another candidate and he went on his merry way.

Fast forward to 5/2024, he is still on the market.

He reached out to me this week asking if I had any more roles similar to the one from months back.

I said no, and if he ever found anything.

He said “no”

I asked, so what changed?

He’s running out of savings and he’s not getting any interviews.

So only until he’s about to run out of cash in the bank - which is extremely dangerous in this environment - is he willing to compromise.

Takeaways You Can Learn

Realize that not only is the zirp era over, we are in arguably the toughest job market in 15 years. Most people are going to have slim pickings for the time being.

Cash is king for your job search, sure. That being said, we’re in a tough economy with high inflation and it’s easy to run out esp if you’re in a HCOL.

Employers will hold a gap against you. Even if you have a ton of cash, each day that passes by that gap gets bigger and bigger. In this market, that definitely matters.

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