Why developers should care about recruiters

Nobody likes recruiters

• they ghost you

• they sell you a dream

• they always have ‘competitive salaries’

• they hide who they are recruiting for (guilty as charged)

So why should you care about them?

Well, I love this tweet from The Random Recruiter and it’s the inspiration for this post

How do recruiters make money?

From you

We only make money when a company wants to hire

So if we don’t make money

1. companies aren’t hiring

2. candidates aren’t finding new roles

The Past

Well the recent past, has been terrible

Mid to late 2022, 2023 and 2024, has seen double-digit declines

Hays, one of the largest recruitment firms in the UK, saw it’s profits drop 92%

It’s been brutal for companies of all sizes, but the smallest shops are those hit the hardest, as they don’t have the treasury (savings) and cashflow (clients) to weather the storm

The Present

2024 started with a bloodbath - created mainly by 2 forces

1. Restructures/Layoffs

2. RTO - Return to Office

Restructures and Layoffs scares the more risk averse types, so people want to try hold on to their jobs and not look for work, those that are already laid off, they have a severance package that needs to get them through to their next job

But how do you indirectly reduce headcount? How do you fire people without firing them? How do you lay off people without giving them severance?

Well, enter, RTO - Force people to quit

Many people will return to the office, happily or otherwise - but there will be a decent chunk that will hate this move, and want to leave - not immediately, but they are hunting for remote work

Side note, this is why you should love recruiters, we probably have some remote roles available

Regardless, of whether they leverage a recruiter, job boards, LinkedIn or their network - they will be looking for new jobs and they will be leaving their current ones

The Future

What do you get when you add:

• Scared Candidates

• Return to Office

• Slow Growth

Well, it’s not pretty

• Scared candidates don’t want to leave

• RTO means a reduced pool of candidates to source from

• RTO also means a reduced total number of available roles

• And Slow Growth means, companies aren’t going to be hiring

But I am tired of scaring you - so let’s give you some hope

1. Layoffs and restructuring is massively slowing down - 2024 numbers are half of 2023

2. RTO will mean companies have to hire, as employees quit to seek other opportunities

3. Tech and staffing industries are expected to grow in 2025

So it looks like the worst is behind us, and we can see a light at the end of the tunnel

Takeaways for those of you entering the job market

1. Have your resumes and cover letters ready, draft them now, save different versions of them and be prepared to tailor them to roles

2. LinkedIn - you should know by now how much I love it - Update your profile, experience and make sure you are active there, create content, network - connect to professionals in your industry, experience and geography, connect with recruiters, with chief people officers, founders, CTOs, etc

3. Research companies and opportunities you are interested in so you can figure out what you want and then leverage linkedin and your CV, to get in

It’s a buyers market (you are the seller), so make sure you have whatever leverage you can get, doing the above 3 things gives you that levarge

Good luck out there

See you next week!