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Tech Job Postings Are Down 40% On Popular Job Boards (medium.com)

Posted by msmash on from the what's-happening? dept.

Tech job postings are down 40% year-on-year, says Cameron Moll, founder of job board Authentic Jobs. He says that job volume for April 2016 was nearly half the volume of April 2015, and currently, annual job posting volume is 63% on the platform compared to 2015, and 59% compared to 2014. But wait, there is always a chance that it is only his website that is getting less popular, right? Mr. Moll adds that it's not just his job board, but several of the competitors' as well. From a blog post: On one hand, we're cautious to assume that fewer jobs posted = fewer jobs available. We recognize companies have many avenues for advertising available jobs -- social media, recruiters, employee word-of-mouth, company websites, etc. Companies may choose at any time to broadcast jobs through these channels instead of a job board. So, for all intents and purposes, it's feasible the same number of jobs are available this year compared to previous years, just not on job boards. On the other hand, our volume trends have been very consistent the past four years. However, these trends are suddenly meaningless in 2016. It's anyone's guess what our volume will be each month regardless of what the historical data says.

16 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Dammit Trump! by CajunArson · · Score: 4, Funny

    None of this bad stuff would have happened if that Donald Trump hadn't fooled those idiot 'Muricans into voting to leave the EU!

    If there's one thing that's a confirmed fact from reading Slashdot's editorial spin: If you aren't in the EU you might as well kill yourself now because you either live in the utopian paradise of the EU or you live in Somalia and there's literally no shades of gray.

    Just look at the third world hellhole that is Switzerland compared to the economic powerhouse of Greece if you don't believe me!

    --
    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
  2. Posting jobs is so 2000 by technomom · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm a senior level developers and it seems to me that recruiters are going straight to the source instead of posting.

    I get at least 5 to 10 emails or linked in posts per week pumping my ego and trying to get me to join the latest hot startup!!! Bean bag chairs!!! On site dry cleaning!!! Ping pong!!! Stock options that may actually be worth something.... Or not!!!!

    1. Re:Posting jobs is so 2000 by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 2

      I've been told recently by several recruiters that no one ever follows up on any resumes that come in from job boards, or even their own job posting websites. I do get many calls when the recruiters find my posted resume off Careerbuilder etc, but never any response from applying to anything on them. A trick I picked up was updating my resume every week, even just shuffling stuff around as that puts it back up to the top of "fresh" resumes lol.

    2. Re: Posting jobs is so 2000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      As a recruiter, I'd say that the problem with job boards is that 95+% of applicants apply for jobs they've never done before, and would not be considered for by the hiring manager. Searching for and contacting people who are qualified, and hoping that they'd be interested in the job on offer, is more likely to result in a hiring

  3. Looking for a job? by WarJolt · · Score: 4, Informative

    Qualified individuals are hard to come by. It's not the fact that there aren't jobs. We just don't have time to interview 20k practically worthless applicants to find that one hotshot that knows his stuff. There are alternatives. I research github accounts.

  4. The article, and the headline, are bullshit. by cunina · · Score: 5, Informative

    RTFA, and you'll discover the following:

    - The 40% figure is based solely on the author's job board (which this article was meant to promote).
    - He makes some vague claims that he's "been tracking a few of our closest competitors for a couple years," and that data "trends along" with theirs, but he offers no concrete numbers, and the the plot he provides actually shows no such thing.
    - The author provides no real, provable explanation as to why this is (supposedly) happening.

    He may still be accidentally right about the jobs market, but this article really says only one thing: that 40% fewer people are using Authentic Jobs. And I'm more willing to conclude from that that they're getting their asses kicked by Indeed and LinkedIn.

    1. Re:The article, and the headline, are bullshit. by Shadow99_1 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Having been looking (and not finding) a new tech job in my area (within 100 miles of my home) for over a year... He's probably not wrong. I just don't see the jobs on 'job sites' anymore.

      And everyone says it's all moving to social media, but even there I just don't get much interest. I get hits on things like linked in, but since I'm now 37 I regularly get asked why I'm still in IT. When I say I still want to work in it because I like it and I'm good at it I never hear back.

      --
      we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
    2. Re:The article, and the headline, are bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      I work on the network / support side of things. I live in Vermont. I rarely if ever see temporary IT positions posted. Dice.com is nearly dead, - the same jobs are still posted months later, the same is true of a few local IT recruiter pages. The interviews I've attended are still hiring 6 months later, for the many positions I've interviewed for. A good friend of mine had to move to Arizona to get into the programming side of things, as everyone here apparently wants him to have 2+ years of programming experience before they'll hire him.

      I'd say there's definitely an atmospheric change at least in my immediate area.

    3. Re:The article, and the headline, are bullshit. by fluffernutter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So why don't you move?

      Because people who have other priorities in life such as proximity to family shouldn't automatically be excluded from having a career. Sadly, the US seems to be reminiscent of the old days where pa would leave his family to go work in a mine to put food on the table. This, in days where telecommuting is easier then it ever has been.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    4. Re:The article, and the headline, are bullshit. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Based on my job hunting experience, "urgent requirements" means that the hiring manager went on vacation. I shocked more than a few recruiters when they check with the company to find out that the hiring manager went on a one-week, two-week or month-long vacation. And I always follow up our conversation with, "Please explain how urgent this position is when the hiring manager is on vacation?"

    5. Re:The article, and the headline, are bullshit. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

      I agree that it's strange that hi-tech jobs can't be done remotely in this day and age because management wants warm butts in seats - unless those jobs are being done overseas for a lot less money per butt.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    6. Re:The article, and the headline, are bullshit. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wait until you hit 60. Or even 50. Too old for tech, too inexperienced at anything else.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    7. Re:The article, and the headline, are bullshit. by Khyber · · Score: 2

      "Dice.com is nearly dead"

      That and Glassdoor and Monster and CareerBuilder and many of these other job/professional sites are just bullshit. Half of the jobs posted are really just a means of information-gathering for survey companies or resume stealing fucks, there was never a job available in the first place, but spending the meager one-time listing fee to get all that information under the guise of a job offer makes financial sense.

      You have better chances of finding actual work on Craigslist, and even then you still face the same issue, but at least it's a bit easier to spot.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    8. Re:The article, and the headline, are bullshit. by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Really??? Maybe it's where you live that's the problem. I live in Houston (not exactly a tech Mecca), and have found NO shortage of tech jobs, even though I'm 50.

  5. What happened to this profession. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wait until you hit 60. Or even 50. Too old for tech, too inexperienced at anything else.

    Ain't that the truth!

    And folks who aren't in the business still think things are like they were in 1999 and wonder why you can't get work. And folks who are but either still in their 20s just brush you off because "if you were any good and have the skills, you'd have a job."

    My brother just hit 50 and he's afraid of losing his job - he's training H1-b replacements with a promise of an eventual promotion. He sees the writing on the wall since his last promotion was canceled due to a reorg and is looking for another job. There isn't anything out there.

    WTF happened to this business? When I got into it in the early 90s, I thought I would be doing this until I retired - like the 'old timers' I worked with at the time. You used to be able to retire as a tech person - I knew people who did.

  6. or there are simply twice as many job boards? by moglito · · Score: 2

    It may just as well be that the number of competing job boards doubles ever year and the postings distribute equally. Reminds me of TV channels: they kept increasing until eventually no one cared anymore and cut cable all together and became more selective again about what they subscribe to (netflix, hulu, hbo, etc.). With this constant increase in job boards, they may all become collective irrelevant eventually and maybe people are indeed no longer posting jobs on them. So maybe both of these effects are at play? a job-boards bubble?