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I joke that “people always ask me” is code for stuff no one ever asks you. It’s great clickbait copy.
So today I had a FML moment: I really do have something people always ask me. For the last 6 months anyway. Every person I meet when they find out I’m a recruiter:
👉How’s the hiring market right now?
Lately my answer has been a rambling, waffling “It’s not bad but it’s not good I mean I guess it depends what industry you’re in and what you’re hiring for…” aaaand they’re asleep.
👉Today I have a (potentially) better answer: hiring demand is still strong, but with less urgency.
Recruitment agencies are not an indicator of hiring demand. We're an indicator of urgent hiring demand. We can argue back and forth if building an internal TA department is more cost effective than using an external partner that specializes in scale-based work. But in any event: companies come to us when they’re stuck. And they need results, quickly.
We don’t get every job. We get the ones that are hard, specialized, or need to be filled right now.
Which is why this market is so hard to pin down: despite all the layoff noise and Big Tech flaming out, we’re still doing very well.
And two stats illustrated this perfectly:
Net new clients (by quarter) are DOWN 25% between Q1 2022 and Q3 2022.
BUT
Large scale client engagements are UP 44% in the first 3 quarters of this year compared to ALL 4 QUARTERS of 2021 (everyone’s banner year for hiring).
In layman’s terms:
More companies are trying to go it alone. Filling positions themselves, if they can.
BUT
More companies need to hire lots of people. And they need our help doing it.
That dichotomy is not a contradiction, but a function of urgency. You can take your time to fill the 2-3 roles you’d normally outsource. But that 30 person build out can’t wait.
So that’s my new stock answer. Feel free to steal it. If people actually ask you…
You can follow me on LinkedIn here and Twitter here. Join the discussion on this LinkedIn post (or give it a 👍) here.
Finally, an answer for this hiring market