Recently I have spoken with several people in the industry (design/product/dev) who either aren’t recruiting at the moment and/or are very comfortable in their roles and not looking elsewhere. As a result they aren’t aware of quite how bonkers the job market is at the moment.
The best analogy I could come up with in the moment to explain what’s going on to them is that of a giant game of musical chairs. Bear with me…
In this game the music stopped playing sometime around the end of 2022 and the game ground to a halt. Those in the game with a chair (job) are staying right where they are. There are nowhere near enough chairs to go around for everyone else. Very few brand-new chairs are being put out.
Those stood on the periphery without a chair are anxiously waiting for the music to start, a chair to become vacant or someone to put out some new chairs so they can rejoin the game.
Every round of tech redundancies sees more chairs taken out of the game and the numbers stood on the sidelines swelling, all poised to sprint en masse towards any chair that becomes available.
To extend the analogy to near breaking point; hopefully more chairs will be put out soon, or even the whole game gets a reboot – the music starts up, jobs are plentiful and people start flowing around more naturally again.
Luckily for me someone recently put out a new chair that is just right for me, which means I am going to be starting a new role in August.