Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

The tech bubble is bursting, did you miss the memo? Even after the recent dead cat bounce, FAANG stocks are down 30%+ with their revenue growth collapsing and they are laying off workers, and it's a whole lot worse for all the non-profitable zombie companies that have been surviving solely on ZIRP and Quantitative Easing absurdly loose financial conditions that have come to an abrupt halt.

Naive investors in the tech bubble forgot the hotdog stand problem: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4558508-what-hotdog-vendors... so many got burned and they aren't coming back any time soon.

> dead cat bounce

I’m not following the analogy here. What is a dead cat bounce - does it describe the stock curve?

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadcatbounce.asp

> A dead cat bounce is a temporary, short-lived recovery of asset prices from a prolonged decline or a bear market that is followed by the continuation of the downtrend. Frequently, downtrends are interrupted by brief periods of recovery—or small rallies—during which prices temporarily rise.

> The name "dead cat bounce" is based on the notion that even a dead cat will bounce if it falls far enough and fast enough. It is an example of a sucker's rally.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadcatbounce.asp

"if you throw it out the top floor window, even a dead cat would bounce". I shouldn't use the phrase though, as I'm actually very fond of cats. I think it's an example of society's bias against cats. If it were called "dead dog bounce" it would likely be taboo

Oh well; you can't teach an old cat new tricks. It would make a cat's breakfast out of the old metaphors. Let sleeping cats lie. It's a cat's life. Say, this bloated browser runs like an absolute cat. Those catgone web devs, you know?

Oh, about last night's date: she looked nothing like her profile picture. Total cat!

"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy cats."

> "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy cats."

The trouble here is that the sentence no longer fulfills its cat-given goal of representing every English alphabet letter.

Non finance related, but in politics there’s also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_cat_strategy

“There is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat on the dining room table […] they will be talking about the dead cat – the thing you want them to talk about – and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief.”

To create an image, you have to use something. You can't just say 'dead thing bounce'. Maybe it's unfair to cats since I would agree that not all choices for 'thing' are equally acceptable. No 'dead baby bounce'. But still it must be something actual and not purely abstract, else it's not an image and does not do the job an image does.

Cats always land on their feet, they say. I think this idiom is the correlation to the bounce — you think the car has landed like it ALWAYS does, but in fact it’s a dead cat and was a bounce not a sticked landing.

Well cat owners openly acknowledge that some cats are quite evil

People closing short positions causing causing a small bounce in an otherwise dead asset

"Bursting" feels like an overstatement. It's a correction, sure, but tech is still an insanely valuable sector.

Let's face facts most of the FAANG were/are overstaffed. If Twitter can reduce its staff by nearly 50% and still function then the other tech companies can reduce their staff too. They are just resizing. This is a good time, while there's a threat of a recession, to reduce the number while not scaring the stockholders too much. It's not a burst similar to 2000. It's a correction. Tech is too vital for the economy for it to just fall apart. I expect tech stocks to be booming within the next 2 years. But yes, it's sucking right now.

Also, don't expect working from home to be your choice anymore. Now companies will gain the upper hand on the working from home debate since there's going to be many people looking to fill the same position. It was nice while it lasted.

>If Twitter can reduce its staff by nearly 50% and still function then the other tech companies can reduce their staff too.

I'm not sure why this is such a common take. Many functions in a typical business, overstaffed or lean, could be greatly pared back without an immediate impact. UX, UR, product, legal, HR, design, recruiting, infosec, analytics, marketing, sales, facilities, etc. The question is will it have a negative impact 6 or 12 or 24 months down the road.

I have no personal knowledge on whether Twitter was overstaffed but the "we got rid of X, Y, Z and the business hasn't collapsed yet so must not be needed!" is a bad take.

The thing is that if the position is vital then they rehire. But at least you know that that person is needed. One thing I've learned, for the most part, is that no one person is vital to a company's success or failure. I worked for a project manager that thought everything he did was very important. So he had files and files to document what was happening. He got fired and the "important documentation" ended up in the trash. A department in the same company was confident they were as lean as possible. They worked long hours and output as much work they thought was needed. The company decided to close the department and every one got fired. 2 years later the company was fine and they were not missed. Turns out they were doing work no one really needed.

People quit all the time and they get replaced. It's the same thing with layoffs. Another thing is that a lot of positions are filled by people that are over educated or experience for the job they hold. They do it simply because that person wants to work for a FAANG and are open to getting any position they can. My suspicion is that a lot of people are going to move jobs as jobs become available and some positions will be merged from say 2 to 1. I'm sure it's crazy now but they will be fine.

This maybe only my personal experience but for me Twitter on Andorid works much worse than before Twitter mass stuff reductions.

I don't think it's 1 or 2 at all. I know that you probably don't want to hear this right now, but there's just not nearly as many companies looking for candidates right now as compared to a year ago. There are many companies who are actively laying people off right now. Public companies are doing it, whether they need to or not. Even more so, startups and any other yet-to-be-profitable companies are not sure when they will be able to raise capital again, so they are tightening their belts to survive as long as possible. If the market doesn't change, some will die.

Meanwhile, there's many companies in a second boat. Companies that are doing fine but are worried about choppy waters ahead. Perhaps they are hiring for key roles or to fill spots of people who leave. But on the whole, they want to protect what they have and don't see this as the time to push for major growth.

The good news is that there is definitely a third boat. Companies that are raising money because they have an outstanding product or idea. Companies that raised large amounts of money before things started going sour. And of course, profitable companies with sound businesses that see opportunities to grow further. It seems to me like there are still a significant number of companies in this third boat, so I wouldn't be too worried yet. That said, if you are swimming around in the ocean right now, the water is definitely getting cold. I'm not saying to get on any boat that comes around, but you probably don't want to wait around for a 100ft yacht.

Another benign explanation: all the recruiters have been laid off.

Mid December is when I started to see my LinkedIn feed full of recruiters being laid off and looking for jobs, and an uptick in being pestered by recruiters about positions I have open. The job market has cooled a bit. It's not very bad, but it's not the crazy hot market of the past few years.

I feel insanely lucky to have a well paying job in this job climate right now.

One thing I suggest trying is applying out of North America, and look towards relocating somewhere like Germany. They've been thirsty for talent for a while, it hasn't died down as much as it has in this bubble bursting in Silicon Valley, and although they haven't exactly been attracting it given they don't pay as much it's probably a sacrifice you should be willing to consider if you want to stay in this industry. [1]

An important first step if you're considering this route is signing up here at EURES. [2] That alone will make you more attractive to recruiters out in that direction if you choose to try and go through them, although personally I don't like them taking a cut and can apply just fine on my own.

[1] https://www.itworldcanada.com/post/germany-set-to-hire-laid-...

[2] https://eures.ec.europa.eu/index_en

From yesterday: "Reject/ghost on all job applications with 8 YoE, what am I doing wrong?"[1]

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34609741

You are out of a job and waiting for recruiters to contact you ? Most recruiters are out of a job right now so keep that in mind. Why not get more proactive and start applying to companies/teams that you would like to work for.

Plenty of companies hire remote and even if they don't have an open role being advertised, this is your opportunity to reach out to hiring managers and start a conversation. If you want to be selective, you also need to be more proactive especially if you are out of a job.

The market right now is a bit cooler as you can see the layoffs happening but if you are good at what you do, you can always find a role. You just may have to look more yourself since the easy days of waiting for recruiters to approach you is over at least for now.

> Why not get more proactive and start applying to companies/teams that you would like to work for.

I’ve been doing this as well, but haven’t had a single interview from either.

Tens of thousands of people are in the same boat.

> or am I just in a very bad market?

Market is destroyed at the moment. Everyone is working around the absolute essential/core with less resources.

Market is also flooded by hi-tech professionals at the moment. Probably thousands or more of them.

I imagine it could be for many reasons, one, which other people have mentioned, is simply the seasonality and cyclicality of recruiting. These things can literally change over the matter of weeks so I wouldn't sweat it too much. The other potential reason, and admittedly the one that might be more cause for alarm, is the fact that there are many layoffs going on so there is a supply of engineers hitting the market . Based on my own anecdata, I don't think there's a reason to freak out. It could very well be that there is more supply than there was before, but the hiring market is still quite strong and there are roles out there. You just need to keep looking and connecting. I know that a lot of people like to rag on recruiters ( myself included) and there are a lot of annoying recruiters out there because there is such a low barrier to entry, but every once in a while you will come across a very helpful and industrious recruiter. They're usually happy to jump on the phone and you can view it as an opportunity for you to get information from them. Ask them what they're seeing in the market, which places are hiring, what roles are they seeing? A lot of demand for, etc. Never hurts to establish a relationship, assuming they aren't an annoying recruiter, that is going to pester you. And if you do establish a relationship with such a recruiter, you can send them your resume and give them an open mandate to search for a role for you, or have you in mind when one comes across that fits your criteria.

I have a bunch of other thoughts. Happy to chat or hop on a call if you're looking for some feedback (no, I'm not a recruiter). My email is in my profile.

You need to re-adjust your reality. I have 12 years of professional experience and to be honest I hated the last two years until now. The market got flooded by junior software developers who got paid a lot of money and delivered very little results. The reality is that work sucks. Sometimes, as a developer, you get to work on something you like, with people you like and in a place that you like (remote). But for the most part, that's not an option.

1. Re-Adjust your reality. If you have had a very high salary with 2-3 years of experience, that was an exceptional event. You'll need to re-figure out how much you are worth.

2. Accept to work on some company that doesn't necessarily check all your boxes.

I happen to be in this particular position: I am both hiring and also looking for a job. It's very difficult to get anyone senior right now. It's also very difficult, for me, to find a position that checks my boxes and still pays a reasonable salary vis-a-vis my skill set. Part of the problem, many companies have difficulty making a value assessment of my contribution's worth.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/31/netapp_layoffs_8_perc...

210,000+ people in IT now lost their job since start of 2022

Weren’t those mostly recruiters and product managers, not IT per we?

This is very interesting question that I cannot find answer on. It will be interesting to see which exactly kind of professionals lost there job.

I haven't been looking but the volume of inquiry has dropped off a cliff. As others have said, recruiters are being let go and I think the other element is companies are not in hiring mode.

The important thing here is: its not you.

Since you're in the enterprise world, consider this. Larger orgs have a budgetary process where funds for the year are allocated to various projects and divisions. Most of the time these orgs don't get their budget straight and finalized before the middle of March. It takes them 3 or so months of doofing around before they get their ducks in a row.

So, no budget means no funds to pay for new initiatives, no clear staffing requirements, hence no open job reqs and no engaged recruiters seeking to fill them. For this time of year, thats a pretty rational explanation.

It has slowed down some on the return call - last month out of the few dozen, about half came back stating they were reconsidering the role with a few interviews and a few more than that stating it wasn't a match for them.

Which is funny as a few recruiters called in December asking what I was looking for - even weirder was the interview loop that failed to call back after we got the interview done and was in salary negotiation phase as they were wanting to chisel me down due to lack of one skill they used but I obviously had experiences all around it and parallel to it. I said fine and came down then no communication since.

I just think that everyone is all bunched up about inflation as costs have gone up across the board.. ask anyone who does the grocery shopping or eats out all the time.

It's a good time for fintech and healthcare who've had to play second tier with all the FAANG-like companies as now there is a flood of talent who have had a long need of people who have the skills and experience - and people still need to pay bills.

So hang in there, apply where you can, up your skills - remote work isn't going away immediately but workers should be aware if mgmt uses this as a way to force their will - I think most mid-managers however also see the benefit of remote and hybrid work even if the C-Suite would rather see people being micromanaged... :)

Been "looking" since November. I'm still averaging 1 recruiter message every few days on LinkedIn, but 95% of them are from agencies with vague pitches for contract roles I'm not interested in. The daily messages I used to get from recruiters hiring directly for permanent positions at medium-to-large US tech companies dried up sometime last year. I'm applying directly to open roles on those companies' websites instead, and usually hearing nothing back.

Yeah that sounds pretty close to what my experience has been recently. The most disheartening part so far has been getting ATS-rejected from a job, only to see the same job freshly posted again a few weeks later.

Yeah, it's been an interesting emotional experience to flip from years and years of "I should have no problem getting a job at any tech company if I don't screw up the leetcodes" to "I'm not even worth a 30 minute recruiter chat for this role, let alone a technical phone screen or a full interview loop" :)

Everyone is saying that the market is bad, which I would not dispute. But many internal recruiters have been on Winter holidays until early January. Now that they are back, they have bigger priorities than headhunting - for example, to catch up with a lot of resumes which have come in over the holiday period.

I have noticed a period with no recruiters reaching out to me since around the start of December, too. But now I'm back to the usual volume of InMail, emails, and so on.

I'm having a similar experience. I turned off my “looking for jobs” status a few weeks ago, and just turned it back on, expecting a flood. Never came ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's slow season wait till the budgets refresh in March.

Yep - I just now saw this but that was my similar reply too.

Recruiters were one of the first groups to be laid off?

Because there are now 100k+ people with a similar resume and 20k+ people with a better resume than yours looking for work.

Recruiters are no longer in hunting mode, they are gathering. You need to take an active role and not wait for a recruiter to reach out to you if you want a dev position in this economic climate. You need to do the work now.

> I was being very selective with who’d I’d talk to. If a recruiter wanted me to jump through hoops, or refused to give me any information about the role/company/etc. they were hiring for id just ignore them.

So you burnt some bridges and are wondering why you can’t cross a river?

FWIW I've started getting messages from recruiters since last week.

As others have said, the market is just not in the right place for now. How about directly applying via their websites/LinkedIn/AngelList (cant remember their new name)?

I wish I could say the same. The ones I've been harassed by I usually respond telling them to give me their salary information and I'll get back to them. They don't like that and usually don't return.

On LinkedIn you have to reply to the recruiters to get more to contact you.

If you reply to every recruiter who contacts you, even if you mention you're not interested, you will have a higher rate of recruiters contacting you.

Devs are the 'product' on LinkedIn, I think this could be possible. It could make sense de-rank "inactive" profiles in recruiter searchers to better connect recruiters to candidates that will engage.

I could also see LinkedIn tweaking the algorithm to respond to the changing labor market. When the labor market is tight, get the recruiters any dev profile that meets their criteria, even if it's unlikely to engage. When the power shifts to the employer, it could make sense to de-rank inactive profiles and focus on getting recruiters in-touch with candidates that will engage.

As a side note, I know that LinkedIn gives me a lot more engagement when I engage with other people's content, and it gives me less engagement when I don't engage with my feed.

"2) Weird internal ranking system."

I thought this was a given?

I realised years ago that if I visit LinkedIn I appear in more searches and seem to get more connection requests.

I've gone through periods of not using LinkedIn, and I get nothing, then I log back in, flick through my feed and within a day I've usually got at least one new connection request from a 2nd degree connection..

LI does seem to reward engagement, so I'd suggest you start engaging and see if it helps (though as per all the other responses, there's also a few good reasons that it's quiet at the moment).

Yeah, it's like seventh time is the charm; this time the Amazon goons might finally have meant it when they said "this will be our final attempt to contact you".

It took seven goes for Google recruiters to leave me alone!

Maybe things are different now, but last year, it took me six months of telling them I wasn't interested before they finally stopped bothering me.

The thing about Amazon recruiters is that if you reply to them, they will ghost you; then you will be contacted by other Amazon recruiters who don't know anything about that one, and so it goes.

Are you actively looking? For example, jobs on LI? What about Indeed or similar?

LI could be seeing a lack of activity and interpreting that you're working. For example, I browse LI jobs and occassionally apply. Eventually, I get recommendations from LI Learning that are job search oriented.

Yes, the market is different. But if you don't look active the algorithm isn't going to waste time with you either.

It’s possible, I did put things on pause around late December figuring it was better just to wait for the new year, but have only recently started to actively apply to things again. I suppose this may be it if I see things improve in the coming weeks.

LinkedIn has been enhancing their recruiter search.

Have you made your profile meet the LinkedIn guidelines.

Job title in headline. Tagline. Summary. List of technologies you have worked with. Have you filled your experience because the search can drill down further now.

Do you have your certificates listed. Those are also filterable with other add-ons.

I've noticed that making a small edit to my LinkedIn seems to activate recruiters looking at my profile and sending me messages.

Yes, this is a little trick I learned last year. It can be something as simple as deleting a letter from word and adding it back. This basically puts you at top of results for recruiters.

It's a recession and still happening. I think expecting things to improve in Q2 is too optimistic. It will probably take at least 9 months before a bottom. And probably a couple of years before a blooming job market again. (Obviously this is just my personal opinion)

You can reach back out to the recruiters who previously messaged you ask ask what their openings look like now. Apply to jobs, let your contacts know you are looking. Even if the market is slow, there are always openings.

That's assuming the recruiters haven't also been laid off - most of my big-tech recruiter contacts lost their jobs well before their engineering coworkers did.

But here we are with another fantastic jobs report. Hiring did not stop. The jobs are out there!

Well, if you have been to mars or other side of the moon for last few months, things have changed on the market and maybe its a time for a bit less arrogance now and starting to show actual interest. People who look like they actually want job have priority, and there is plenty to choose from.

Also 5 years is nothing and still in +-junior category unless you are top 1% of devs but then we wouldn't be reading this. Nobody wants juniors when times are not OK, for very good reasons.

TBH this is a bit surreal read and shows how entitled some software devs are, I'm keeping it polite but it ain't easy. Maybe whole field needs some hard reset and align it more with rest of engineering.

I think it's 2 issues.

1. Some recruiters are told to prefer candidates with jobs or newly out of jobs because on average they are usually higher quality.

2. More importantly the market has softened quite a bit.

Dropping by to add that I've not been contacted at all by recruiters since mid December, which is something completely new to me. :)

So from my point of view, it ain't your fault.

I've been doing this stuff professionally for 40 years. Never used a recruiter once. On either side of the trade.

I suppose it's good to know that one can successfully obtain employment without the use of a recruiter, but how is this responsive to OP's question?

Not the person you're replying to but I would guess since the OP is concerned about not getting contacted by recruiters, I would assume he is looking for work and can't find it via the recruiter route. The alternative is talk to people you've worked with before and ask them if they are hiring at their company. If you did good work with them and there is indeed an opening, that's another avenue to find work.

I also haven't landed work via recruiters since probably ~2001 but have worked the entire time.

For sure

its bad market. wait for q2

That’s what I was told about Q1, but I suppose I’ll have to keep waiting.

[deleted]

If you're not already, start contributing to some open source projects (particularly of the high impact or popular variety). That way it doesn't look like you've forgotten everything. Who knows, you may also get a job offer through that work -- I've worked at places that have offered jobs to contributors who work on the open source code we had. It was rare, so don't exactly expect it, but you never know where opportunities come from.

This is just plain untrue and unhelpful.

edit: parent removed part of their comment I was replying to