Is the situation really this bad?

neverminder · 1 May 2023 at 22:10

First time in over a decade I'm struggling to find a new gig. Being a JVM dev in London, you'd think that wouldn't be so difficult. In the last months I've been contacted at least 20 recruiters, but they all end up disappearing with no interviews lined up.
Is the situation really this bad? Is it because all the recession propaganda and the fact that Big Tech dumped hundreds of thousands of devs back in the market?

android-fan · 2 May 2023 at 16:28

JVM - Java Developer ? Looking for contract roles only or perm?

As a developer interested in the current market

neverminder · 2 May 2023 at 16:40

android-fan said:
JVM - Java Developer ? Looking for contract roles only or perm?

As a developer interested in the current market

Java/Scala. Doesn't matter contract or permanent. I was just wondering how other people are finding the market at the moment, if I'm the only one struggling to find something.

peterwalkley · 3 May 2023 at 10:10

Over the last couple of months I'm getting less random recruiter spam than usual on linkedin, so yes it does seem quieter. The quality has improved though: far less idiocy where they've clearly not read the profile at all or ones smelling like a scam.

jaybee · 3 May 2023 at 10:18

I've not noticed much change tbh but it is the cutover from year end to year start which can be slow initially. Although....we in May now so

FishThrower · 3 May 2023 at 11:14

Normally the market picks up from April after people get their bonuses and pay rises in their bank account. it does seem to be very quiet in the infrastructure space as well this year.

HangTime · 3 May 2023 at 12:12

peterwalkley said:
Over the last couple of months I'm getting less random recruiter spam than usual on linkedin, so yes it does seem quieter. The quality has improved though: far less idiocy where they've clearly not read the profile at all or ones smelling like a scam.

Same here although I wouldn't say the quality has improved that much, I still get a fair proportion of irrelevant nonsense.
In terms of unsolicited approaches I'd say it breaks down roughly as:
40% irrelevant
30% kind of relevant but pay/location/seniority is misaligned
25% relevant but contract roles when I'm not currently looking for a contract opportunity
5% worth discussing

CapitalOne · 3 May 2023 at 12:14

From the other side of the fence (hirer) our company has a full on recruitment freeze as do many others in Finance. I would expect this year to be tough but budget season is in Q3 so would expect an indication on what 2024 holds then.

Hope that's useful to someone!

neverminder · 3 May 2023 at 23:32

CapitalOne said:
From the other side of the fence (hirer) our company has a full on recruitment freeze as do many others in Finance. I would expect this year to be tough but budget season is in Q3 so would expect an indication on what 2024 holds then.

Hope that's useful to someone!

I suspect many companies froze their hiring. Question is how long can they maintain it.

CapitalOne · 4 May 2023 at 05:51

neverminder said:
I suspect many companies froze their hiring. Question is how long can they maintain it.

Well for us, at least until Q4 this year.

chrismscotland · 4 May 2023 at 06:22

I'm an IT contractor and found myself terminated unexpectedly in Feb. It's been really quiet so far this year in Edinburgh with very few roles appearing either here or in Glasgow.

I ended up taking a crap role in Feb which has me commuting to Cumbernauld most days and it's crap but 3 months on and the market is still dead so I'll probably stick it out.

Semple · 4 May 2023 at 07:04

CapitalOne said:
From the other side of the fence (hirer) our company has a full on recruitment freeze as do many others in Finance. I would expect this year to be tough but budget season is in Q3 so would expect an indication on what 2024 holds then.

Hope that's useful to someone!

In software engineering too, my company hasn't announced a hiring "freeze", but comms on recruitment/open positions have gone quiet. They're normally quite vocal about recruitment.

neverminder said:
I suspect many companies froze their hiring. Question is how long can they maintain it.

I would say that comes down to the current employees whether they stay or go. If everyone remains then there's no positions that need backfilling.

We had quite a number of devs after the pandemic choose to go for early retirement, which drove a lot of recruitment. That seems to have settled now too.

CapitalOne · 4 May 2023 at 08:41

chrismscotland said:
I'm an IT contractor and found myself terminated unexpectedly in Feb. It's been really quiet so far this year in Edinburgh with very few roles appearing either here or in Glasgow.

I ended up taking a crap role in Feb which has me commuting to Cumbernauld most days and it's crap but 3 months on and the market is still dead so I'll probably stick it out.

Good luck to you!

FishThrower · 5 May 2023 at 15:01

chrismscotland said:
I'm an IT contractor and found myself terminated unexpectedly in Feb. It's been really quiet so far this year in Edinburgh with very few roles appearing either here or in Glasgow.

I ended up taking a crap role in Feb which has me commuting to Cumbernauld most days and it's crap but 3 months on and the market is still dead so I'll probably stick it out.

bit irrelevant to the thread starter, I was contracting for 7-8 years or so at various places, its amazing how each company has its different cultures in working.... some of them are absolutely awful with long hours and average rate, while others are much higher pay and much less stress. Contracting made me look into the whole work life much more differently, but been perm for the past eight years.

one of the best things about contracting as well, if you are in a crap gig for 6 months, theres always light at the end of the tunnel which is a motivator so you learn to "suck it up" a lot easier.

Hope you find something decent soon

delta0 · 6 May 2023 at 20:26

Tech market has slowed a bit and a lot of places are not hiring at the same levels they were before. It’s likely to come back but with the forecasted recession it could be a little slow.

Dis86 · 6 May 2023 at 20:28

Commercial construction/management market is circling the drain with a lot of firms going under recently. Major cause seems to be as a result of more people working from home therefore less office space needed. Same goes with increase in online shopping vs stores.

MissChief · 6 May 2023 at 20:29

chrismscotland said:
I'm an IT contractor and found myself terminated unexpectedly in Feb. It's been really quiet so far this year in Edinburgh with very few roles appearing either here or in Glasgow.

I ended up taking a crap role in Feb which has me commuting to Cumbernauld most days and it's crap but 3 months on and the market is still dead so I'll probably stick it out.

NCR?

mid_gen · 7 May 2023 at 08:35

delta0 said:
Tech market has slowed a bit and a lot of places are not hiring at the same levels they were before. It’s likely to come back but with the forecasted recession it could be a little slow.

Same in gamedev. Market has slowed but still active, plenty of movement.

gazref · 7 May 2023 at 14:55

Thoughts with those contractors looking for a spot to open up. Mirror the market and if companies are looking to cut overheads then do the same as much as you can. Hopefully you won't have to tap into the warchest for too long.

Take the time out to upskill and chalk off a few relevant industry certs so you're better placed to deploy when things start picking up.

HangTime · 8 May 2023 at 00:00

FishThrower said:
one of the best things about contracting as well, if you are in a crap gig for 6 months, theres always light at the end of the tunnel which is a motivator so you learn to "suck it up" a lot easier.

Yeah you get a lot of freedom in the sense that you can just move on if you don't like what you are doing, it's harder as a perm due to notice periods and just the general stigma association with changing jobs frequently if you are not a contractor. Even allowing for the fact it's less tax efficient than it used to be I still think contracting is appealing, you can basically float around re-rolling the dice until you get something you like. Part of me wonders if I made a mistake going back to perm, to get the same money you need a lot more seniority/responsibility, and if you stay in the same job long enough you get involved in more and more stuff so people come to you more and more for different things. Being able to press a reset button is a luxury you don't really have a perm (although in consulting it is a bit different as you get partial resets from changing client/projects).