Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35440348

by jstx1 • 3 years ago

363 185 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Counting the comments in the who wants to be hired thread and dividing by the number of comments in who is hiring = 0.94.

A year ago it was 0.23. Here's a plot with the data from the past couple of years - https://pasteboard.co/tjZd0PgTI8GK.png

(posting this about a day after the April thread opened)

david927• 3 years ago

I was curious and wanted to put that same data together -- so thanks.

That curve looks terrible and yet it confirms what I expected.

burlesona• 3 years ago

I think you’d have to go further back to have better context, April 2021 was pretty frothy.

But yes, the job market has cooled dramatically.

ed_balls8• 3 years ago

in 2019 it was about 0.32

First who wants to be hired https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7685170

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1350A5KGgmGI3Ed-tC7MP...

madcaptenor3• 3 years ago

seems like it wouldn't be too hard, just tedious, to compile all the data.

madcaptenor3• 3 years ago

Fine, I'll start. These threads are easily found in Google.

January 2020: 244 wants to be hired / 697 hiring = 35%

February 2020: 227 / 677 = 34%

March 2020: 349 / 776 = 45%

April 2020: 521 / 601 = 87%

May 2020: 329 / 686 = 48%

June 2020: 305 / 659 = 46%

July 2020: 280 / 680 = 41%

August 2020: 410 / 828 = 50%

September 2020: 346 / 698 = 50%

October 2020: 295 / 810 = 36%

November 2020: 259 / 807 = 32%

December 2020: 274 / 766 = 36%

January 2021: 286 / 846 = 34%

February 2021: 232 / 1052 = 22%

March 2021: 227 / 964 = 24%

gabrielsroka• 3 years ago

This JavaScript seems to work. You can run it from the browser console or from node.js.

  (async function () {
      // see https://hn.algolia.com/api
      console.clear();
      const posts = {};
      var page = 0;
      var oldDate;
      while (true) {
          console.log('fetching page', page);
          const r = await fetch(`https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?tags=story,author_whoishiring&page=${page++}`);
          const res = await r.json();
          if (res.message) {
              console.log(res.message);
          } else {
              for (const h of res.hits) {
                  var match;
                  if (match = h.title.match(/Who wants to be hired\? \((.*)\)/i)) {
                      var date = match[1];
                      if (date != oldDate) {posts[date] = {}; oldDate = date;}
                      posts[date].wants = h.num_comments;
                      if (posts[date].hiring) posts[date].ratio = posts[date].wants / posts[date].hiring;
                  } else if (match = h.title.match(/Who is hiring\? \((.*)\)/i)) {
                      date = match[1];
                      if (date != oldDate) {posts[date] = {}; oldDate = date;}
                      posts[date].hiring = h.num_comments;
                      if (posts[date].wants) posts[date].ratio = posts[date].wants / posts[date].hiring;
                  }
              }
          }
          if (page == res.nbPages) break;
      }
      console.table(posts);
  })();

iLoveOncall2• 3 years ago

There are quite a lot of people hiring which have multiple job postings though.

It doesn't invalidate that it is the highest but it doesn't mean that it's almost 1:1.

It also doesn't mean that those people are out of a job. My company is mandating RTO 3 days a week, that's a good reason to look for a new position, while still being employed.

0xbadcafebee• 3 years ago

Yep. Large corporate (non-tech) job boards have hundreds of listings open for tech jobs

sohnakukkar• 3 years ago

Can you name some corporate job boards?

karaterobot2• 3 years ago

I think it might invalidate it. At the very least it points out that this is really measuring the ratio of comments, not jobs and candidates.

jasonlotito• 3 years ago

That's what the post says.

Counting the comments in the who wants to be hired thread and dividing by the number of comments in who is hiring.

iLoveOncall2• 3 years ago

I think it doesn't invalidate it because this situation of having multiple job postings for a single comment is not new and I imagine is relatively the same every month.

dudul• 3 years ago

I have to say the amount of spam emails I'm getting from recruiters has decreased a lot - also I took a new job a few months ago so maybe I'm just being filtered out for now.

kilroy123• 3 years ago

I'm getting none these days.

zucked• 3 years ago

Similar experience. Since October of 22' the number of recruitment mail I'm getting has decreased from several a week to a few a month.

tayo42• 3 years ago

I'm getting alot less and the ones I am getting are real low balls in comp often.

dalys• 3 years ago

I quit to run my own businesses in the pandemic and the amount of LinkedIn messages have increased. I'm not even in tech anymore. I'm not getting a huge amount by any means, but during 2023 exactly one per week on average. If anyone in EU willing to relocate to Stockholm with background in backend python / full stack, I guess I can connect you to at least 10 recruiters. Many of them explicitly ask for referrals.

varispeed• 3 years ago

I am getting about the same number of offers, but the pay has dropped substantially.

It's depressing, as if I would be looking for a job now, I'd rather look for non-tech job that is paying less than selling my knowledge so cheap.

Alternatively I'd go off the market completely and use any safety nets I've been paying massive amounts of tax for years.

Ancalagon• 3 years ago

Idk if it my experience is abnormal, but I'm still getting a shit ton of recruiter inmail. When I look into the salary ranges, they are about what I was seeing in 2021.

Maybe I'm just lucky. But for anyone else looking - chin-up, I think there are more opportunities out there still.

muzani4• 3 years ago

I'd like to see data go all the way back to 2020, which was when some people said had the worst job market, because of the global lockdowns. But thanks for the data anyway.

It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs. It's a stark contrast to other industries, where the power is normally in the hands of employers.

Another thing to consider is that we've had layoffs recently, i.e. people without jobs encouraged to find new jobs. In the past, wants-to-be-hired may be a little low because usually people don't want to be seen looking for a job while employed.

red-iron-pine2• 3 years ago

It had the worst job market -- if you weren't able to work from home. Most of the world ain't in STEM.

Many of us, myself included, already did that. I had to wear a mask to do my "morning commute" to get coffee, but otherwise my 9-5 was mostly the same.

dimitrios1• 3 years ago

Most of STEM isn't at home, either.

prottog• 3 years ago

It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs. It's a stark contrast to other industries, where the power is normally in the hands of employers.

In my area, many businesses outside of the tech sector is actively hiring and can't find enough people. I think Covid triggered a demographic shift with many Boomers retiring (or dying) and that gap has not been filled.

incone123• 3 years ago

This is an interesting contrast with another comment that said it should be possible to find another tech job if (among other factors) the candidate was not too old.

ShadowBanThis017• 3 years ago

Given that Boomers are around 80, I suspect most of them were already retired.

dayvid• 3 years ago

A few months into the pandemic was one of the best job markets for tech as more people were online than ever. A lot of my coworkers jumped to different companies or startups with huge salary bumps.

muzani4• 3 years ago

I benefited from that too, but The Great Resignation happened in 2021 I believe. Which was followed by layoffs from the overhiring, lol

But there was some data on HN about how the start of the pandemic was terrible, worse than last year, at least. And there were some sales graphs that reflected this too.

peruvian• 3 years ago

I think a lot of people don't post on who wants to be hired and instead just browse who's hiring.

TheGeminon• 3 years ago

Thats also balanced by the fact that many postings are for multiple positions (though I would probably still tip it towards more job seekers)

muzani4• 3 years ago

I did both but had much better responses on WWTBH. A lot of the companies that approached were really good, paid well, respectful, etc. Funny enough, I had actually applied for one of those companies elsewhere and they didn't process the application until they realized I was on HN.

throwawaysleep• 3 years ago

It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs. It's a stark contrast to other industries, where the power is normally in the hands of employers.

Is it? Unemployment is still incredibly low and labour shortages continue to be reported.

ChuckNorris89• 3 years ago

Incredibly low unemployment doesn't necessarily mean all good news for all workers. You can cut or reduce unemployment benefits, and with the massive increase in CoL, energy and food in the last couple of years, people will desperate enough to accept any job or even several jobs in parallel, no matter how bad they are, and boom, you have almost no unemployment.

Sure, there isn't a shortage of jobs, but they also don't pay terribly great either considering the CoL increases.

So, IMHO, some unemployment is good. It means people have options and are not desperate enough to quickly jump to places with bad pay or poor working conditions, as those will always exit, even when the economy is doing good.

Herval_freire• 3 years ago

It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs. It's a stark contrast to other industries, where the power is normally in the hands of employers.

No 0.94 is a sample that comes with a huge margin or error.

It very well could be that the actual ratio is that there are more programmers then jobs.

ghaff• 3 years ago

Jobs and salaries are also not interchangeable. One can believe (rightly or wrongly) that many developers who have mainstream skills/experience, a good resume & network, aren't too old, etc. can land a new job in a reasonable length of time--while acknowledging that it may be at a total compensation dip if they were with a high-paying company.

mortenjorck3• 3 years ago

It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs

I would definitely not read that from the data. I don’t know what percentage of current seekers post in the wants-to-be-hired thread, but as a potentially-outlying anecdote, I didn’t until I had already been looking for three months.

I would hypothesize that there’s a psychological barrier to posting in WWTBH, even if you’ve been laid off and have no current employer you wouldn’t want seeing it – there’s a certain vulnerability in putting yourself out there versus privately applying to jobs. For me, it took a certain level of desperation with my search to make the jump from browsing the hiring thread to finally posting in the other thread this month.

onionisafruit• 3 years ago

This is my first month looking. I thought about posting yesterday, but I am very shy about putting my name on the internet. That insecurity won the day. I hope you get good results from your post.

jrochkind1• 3 years ago

Did you get anything from your "who wants to be hired" post? It's not been clear to me that it's a useful thing to do.

devoutsalsa2• 3 years ago

I've definitely resisted posting in the past. The primary reason was I simply didn't want to post while I had a job. The second is that you can't delete old HN comments, and I don't feel like having an "I need a job" comment on my permanent record. I'm not opposed to posting, but I haven't felt the desire to post.

chucksmash• 3 years ago

That's basically my outlook, I wouldn't post in the WWTBH thread. In addition to the reasons you listed, I'd also add that while my identity certainly isn't hidden and I'm not out here being controversial, my HN posts are decidedly more of the "my thoughts are my own" variety and not something I'd link a hiring manager to otherwise.

klyrs• 3 years ago

I wouldn't call it a psychological barrier so much as a game-theoretical one. If an employer knows that an employee is looking for jobs, their continued employment would be at risk, they could be silently passed over for promotion, etc. I suspect that most people posting in WWTBH are currently unemployed.

ryandrake• 3 years ago

Also, I believe that, like official job postings, a lot of "Who's Hiring" posts are just kinda-serious fishing expeditions. A lot of companies say they're hiring but in reality it's because they always have their bait in the water, waiting for some outlier good deal on a top talent, but otherwise not really hiring.

EDIT: The same is probably true for job seekers, too, now that I think about it. As another commenter noted, a lot of people are being frog-marched back to physical offices at gunpoint, and are probably low-key fishing for a sweet remote-only gig.

comfypotato• 3 years ago

Also consider that HN isn’t exactly indicative of any typical job market. This is a pretty niche forum even in the context of software and tech. It’s still interesting, and there’s insight to be gained. (For example, I expect a lot the the high-powered developers who were affected by recent layoffs in big tech are over-represented here.)

roncesvalles• 3 years ago

people don't want to be seen looking for a job while employed

IMO this is the biggest factor causing the slowdown in tech hiring. Right now people just want to stay put wherever they are. In the past when someone jumps to another company, it opens a headcount where they were, which gets filled with someone who also jumped another company, which caused a headcount to be created there, ad infinitum causing a constant cacophony of job postings, like a "velocity" of jobs akin to velocity of money.

The combination of slack in the system (unemployed people being hired), low attrition, and some backfills not being done creates a giant dampener on the velocity.

ipaddr• 3 years ago

1/2 the companies posting jobs are not really hiring. There may be positions available if someone wows them or if they can find talent for cheap.

The languages in demand change is probably more interesting. Less react positions, rails holding strong, python over taking, first time no php jobs offered.

jonnycoder• 3 years ago

I suspect this is the case as well. I've been applying for senior software engineer positions since mid January and I have way more auto-declines the next day after applying than I do initial phone calls with the company recruiter. I have a decent mix of experience and results in Python, C++ embedded, NodeJS, NoSQL dbs and CI/CD and I typically match 80% of the requirements+bonus requirements. One company even said last week that they liked my background because of the scope of work/results compared to faang resumes (I only have 2nd tier tech company experience).

UlisesAC4• 3 years ago

It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs. It's a stark contrast to other industries, where the power is normally in the hands of employers.

I am sure that there is a huge margin of error. I have been looking a job for 5 months. Granted, I have not used Who's hiring threads religiously and I am sure that there are positions that I applied where something with better qualifications was chosen.

ed_balls8• 3 years ago

I've compiles a list from 2015 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1350A5KGgmGI3Ed-tC7MP...

pcthrowaway• 3 years ago

To post in the WWTBH thread, you need to share your contact info, and probably some information about yourself, so it can't be an anon account.

Which means, if you're employed and looking elsewhere, you have to be comfortable with your employer potentially discovering your eye is wandering. Which I for one, definitely wouldn't want to do right now.

So I imagine the WWTBH posts are really just the tip of the iceberg (there may be more than one employed person looking for every unemployed one that feels comfortable posting there)

Compared to the Who is Hiring posts which companies have no reason to be concerned about posting (well, maybe if they're simultaneously laying off and pretending that they need to reduce headcount when it's really about reducing the average wage)

bilsbie• 3 years ago

That seems like a good signal to track.

Btw does anyone ever get hired from the who wants to be hired thread?

nati0n• 3 years ago

I got hired from that thread, for what it's worth. Love my job.

alain94040• 3 years ago

Yes. I think of 5 people I contacted over 3 years, one got hired. (and it was a very successful hire)

red-iron-pine2• 3 years ago

Anec-data but I found this site via a friend who frequented here, and he had previously gotten a job with a start-up via one of those posts.

He rapidly left -- maybe 6-9 months? -- but got a job nonetheless.

steve_adams_86• 3 years ago

I’ve been contacted through who’s hiring a lot, though ultimately I was hired at a company where I knew the team well and was aligned with their goals/methodology/comp/etc.

I have the impression that who’s hiring is an excellent place to put yourself out there, though. I had a lot of exciting leads (a few of which I still follow because I liked the people I interviewed with and what they were building).

ativzzz• 3 years ago

+1 for current job being from that thread

bryanlarsen• 3 years ago

I did.

hnrodey• 3 years ago

I've received several responses from Who Wants Hired posts.

newbie578• 3 years ago

The few times I posted, my email got scraped and I received some offers which were all not job offers..

ShadowBanThis017• 3 years ago

But you were awash in “hrony MILFs,” Vi@gra, and mortg@ges, right?

matttb2• 3 years ago

This was my experience as well. Not a single real inquiry, just spam. I asked the mods to delete my posts on those threads and the spam email vanished

bradlys• 3 years ago

I’ll balance it out because you’re getting selection bias with how you asked this question.

I never got contacted. For me, I assume it’s because every employer in SV is overloaded with candidates and doesn’t need to seek them out on HN. (I work in the bay)

amelius• 3 years ago

That seems like a good signal to track.

It doesn't take into account who currently has a job.

Lichtso• 3 years ago

I did. My first "real" job (as in not an internship). Two and a half years and counting.

Edit, found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24038518#24042409

nfriedly• 3 years ago

Adding one more voice to the chorus: I got my current job from posting in the who wants to be hired thread.

(It was about 3.5 years ago in my case, but presumably it still works today.)

SCUSKU• 3 years ago

I got my current job via a post on Who's Hiring. The company is wonderful, and it turns out the past 3-4 newest engineers were also hired this way!

xtracto• 3 years ago

I was contacted by several people (including 2 YCombinator startups) in the past. In the end we didn't close with any of them, but they were good "leads". And for one of them I made a friend/acquintance in the other side of the world (I'm in Mexico, he is in Australia) which I think is cool :).

Letter4742• 3 years ago

I did.

raydev• 3 years ago

Yes, but it was 2019 and I think the thread I posted in maxed out around 100 total comments.

ginger_beer_m• 3 years ago

It would also be interesting to know the reverse question: anyone ever got a job from who's hiring thread?

krembanan• 3 years ago

It might even be >1 considering many postings in the Who's hiring have multiple comments (some 10+).

atwebb• 3 years ago

Who's hiring also has many positions in each listing though, if that is consistent across time it wouldn't seem to matter as much.

nico• 3 years ago

People are realizing that AI is changing everything and they don’t want to do BS work that can be automated.

They are getting inspired by the coming revolution.

Interesting times we are living in.

setgree• 3 years ago

The true ratio of would-be-hired to is-hired on HN is lower than 0.94. Many (most?) posts in the who's hiring thread mention multiple positions, e.g. the word "engineers", plural, occurs 91 times on the first page.

jstx12• 3 years ago

Sure but the same consideration applies to previous months too and the point of the post was about the trend (being so much higher than usual), not about the actual value of the ratio (which on its own seems irrelevant and hard to interpret).

Kranar• 3 years ago

Much like looking at an exchange rate between two currencies, what matters isn't the exact ratio at any one moment but how that ratio changes over time.

myth_drannon• 3 years ago

April was the lowest count for "Who is hiring" ever.

abledon• 3 years ago

matches the jobs available trend in NA: https://www.trueup.io/job-trend

23B15• 3 years ago

I'm a CRO/CGO – a suit. My biggest struggle with HN wants-to-be-hired threads is that I desperately want to work with small and midsize startups who are serious about growth – but most of the JDs are for technical jobs.

Besides the usual job boards, is anyone aware of a good place to connect with founders who want a healthy hockey stick and holistic, healthy growth?

perlgeek• 3 years ago

I'd try the Acquired community, https://www.acquired.fm/

23B15• 3 years ago

Thanks a ton, genuinely appreciate it.

el_nahual• 3 years ago

One avenue is to go through the VCs.

1. Choose industries you like (fintech, hospitality, consumer, whatever) 2. There are ~5 or so VCs in each industry that are absolutely leaders 3. Often these VCs have roles for "Platform" or "Portfolio services" 4. Message that person (I like twitter for this over LinkedIn and even over email), sell yourself. 5. Usually this can result in an email that is sent to the entire portfolio telling them you're looking.

23B15• 3 years ago

I feel like an idiot for not thinking of this sooner. Thank you, great advice.

ayewo• 3 years ago

There are a number of job boards you could try including the ones run by DemandCurve and MKT1

https://jobs.demandcurve.com/

https://www.mkt1.co/marketers

23B15• 3 years ago

Amazing, thanks a ton.

hv23• 3 years ago

We’re hiring a Head of Growth, how can I get in touch or share more?

23B15• 3 years ago

Thank you, that's very kind of you: 05-trivet.turner@icloud.com

the_af5• 3 years ago

As an aside, I'm not currently looking for a job (knock on wood) but people close to me are and... the interview process seems harder than ever.

Now you get recorded, told you cannot alt-tab, take home assignments are very strict for companies that aren't even close to a FAANG (I mean, if you're applying to Google it comes with the territory, but why is your random startup so strict?), you are automatically graded on your command of English, etc.

There are still the garbage job offers where they'll hire anyone with a pulse, but unless your situation is dire you don't want those.

It all feels vaguely dystopic and depressing. The only consolation is that only now we realize what it felt for people outside our industry. We had it easy!

dgb23• 3 years ago

Which professions hire like this? I can’t think of any.

asynchronous• 3 years ago

Yeah genuinely that reeks of someone who has never worked outside of tech. Job hiring sucks in a lot of fields but I would say the trades as a whole have this completely figured out and the process is nowhere near as obtuse as in tech.

jpgvm• 3 years ago

Pretty much none that I'm aware of.

My brother is an actual engineer. They get hired on past relevant experience and simple interview. Of course he also needs the relevant credentials and professional membership so there is that... you can't keep those if you mess up and you won't get recommendations if you are an ahole.

A lot of my friends are doctors. If you are qualified and want the position it's yours. Demand > supply very much so.

Hospitality is as cut-throat as always, everyone is welcome to try - it's up to you to survive. Though I guess the first few trial shifts are the most similar to programming in that way but it's still very much "can you do the job" not "can you remember this esoteric thing you might have done once in college but otherwise not touched in a decade".

So yeah. Programming stands alone in this sort of gauntlet hiring system in my experience. Other fields are happy to take past experience and recommendations as they are instead of devising some sort of "test".

I would say outside of programming there is a bit more of the personality test sort of things though - especially big corporates, you could probably screw one up badly enough for HR to block you.

the_af5• 3 years ago

Sorry, I worded it badly: I didn't mean other professions hire like this, only that we in software development lived in a microclimate where finding a decent job was easy. Now it's getting harder, I guess.

thegabez• 3 years ago

Haven't done any interviews but did talk to a recruiter who was asking upfront if I was okay with a 6 day work week. Just a single data point, but I would assume employers are also trying to leverage the situation to get more out of their employees.

arealaccount• 3 years ago

So too thorough is dystopic and depressing, not thorough enough is a garbage offer.

the_af5• 3 years ago

Yes, but if you are interpreting my comment in the best possible light it makes sense, right?

- On one extreme, you have employers who are abusive during interviews. They record you, treat you like a cheater, forbid you from alt-tabbing or anything that you would normally do while on the actual job, ask for trivia knowledge you'd normally google, and when reviewing take home challenges they are very strict. I assume this is because they have droves of candidates and can mistreat candidates till they find the perfect one?

- On the other extreme, you have garbage consultancy/software factory work. Low quality, outdated tech, low pay, and they'll hire anybody who can demonstrate minimal expertise since they aren't interested in quality work but in selling billable hours.

I expect what reasonable people want is a decent job which pays well, is not mind-numbingly boring and that challenges you, but also they don't want to be subjected to the humiliation of abusive interview processes that quiz on trivia and treat them like cheaters?

I'm seeing more and more of the first kind of process, sadly.

ShadowBanThis017• 3 years ago

I’m approaching 30 years in software development, and I don’t remember having a “technical” interview until this week…. in which I had two.

Both were with large, well-known companies. But the nature and outcome of the two were quite different. In one, the interviewer just dumped some code on the screen that had been clumsily obfuscated, and its intent and strategy rendered indecipherable.

In the second, I was asked to provide code that did something, and then add an additional feature to it on demand. This is much more in line with what I expected, and to me more valid. And the whole interview was far more satisfying and invigorating.

The first interview was so disappointingly “douchey Leetcode” that I dreaded all that would follow. It created conflicting feelings of, “I’m kind of over this type of work anyway; this may be a beneficial tipping point” vs. “I don’t want to wuss out and run away from uncomfortable experiences.”

Now that I’ve had two opposing experiences in technical interviews, I feel more confident in judging their validity and my role in their outcomes… and calling out ones that are disrespectful.

the_af5• 3 years ago

Agreed that the second seems more reasonable!

It matters a lot if the interviewer is not quizzing you on trivia or waiting for you to trip and fall.

I feel more confident in judging their validity and my role in their outcomes… and calling out ones that are disrespectful.

I wish we could all do that! One overlooked aspect of this humiliating process is that it saps your confidence. I've seen it happen. After a bunch of failed interviews, the person starts feeling it's their fault and that they cannot possibly be good, and this informs their attitude for the next challenge, which they fail, and so on.

cowvin• 3 years ago

The interview is a two-way interview. You can also identify crappy companies you don't want to work for by crappy interview processes.

WinstonSmith842• 3 years ago

I'd like to see a bit more data pre-covid, but this is a very insightful and concerning chart. Btw, to me it's not relevant whether we still see more comments into the is-hiring vs. wants-to-be-hired, this ratio doesn't mean much, there are other variables to consider. It's rather the uptrend which is meaningful.

TradingPlaces• 3 years ago

Still under parity, which is amazing

wesnerm2• 3 years ago

This post is not valid because most companies post jobs in Hackernews after several days. In addition, the is-hiring post opened on April 3, 2023--a little over 24 hours ago.

As other people have noticed, April appeared to be the lowest month in new jobs, but the true numbers won't be evident until the month is over. The ratio will likely fall lower with the reasonable assumption that a greater proportion of people seeking work post earlier in the month than of companies seeking employees.

rossdavidh• 3 years ago

Very interesting chart, thanks! One comment, is that it is probably more a measure of "which way is the balance of power tilting" than it is "what is the actual ratio". Many employers who could not find anyone would post the job everywhere they could think of, while people looking just read the "who is hiring" posts and then applied to the employer rather than post in the "who wants to be hired". Now the shoe is on the other foot, but that doesn't mean the ratio has shifted all that much in reality. It is a definite sign as to which side has the surplus, however.

tempsy• 3 years ago

Can a once trendy tech company like Birds scooter (stock at 22 cents down -98%) really be considered to have the upper hand?

I think if you're a FAANG employer that is considered "safe" definitely yes, but there's a pile of zombie companies that have been wrecked by end of ZIRP and have a hard time understanding how they retain or hire anyone.

jacooper• 3 years ago

ZIRP?

Tade0• 3 years ago

For a few months now, whenever I looked at the "Who is hiring?" thread I couldn't help but think "truly, who is?"

richarddeasis3• 3 years ago

I definitely regret not interviewing for jobs right away when I graduated a few months ago. At the moment I was thinking that in a few months the job market would still be hot.

A few months ago, recruiters were reaching out to me. I started applying last week and a single job posting would have more than 1k applicants which was not the case months ago.

On top of that, as a new grad, finding early career positions is difficult. Most of the opening are SR level.

siftrics• 3 years ago

You should be applying before you graduate, regardless of the status of the job market.

richarddeasis3• 3 years ago

I was offered some jobs and a few internship. But a few months ago I was considering going to get my masters, mba, or law school. My parents algo got sick during that time and i had to take care of them. So it wasn't really a priority for me at that time to get a job vs other urgent matters.

bumby2• 3 years ago

Don’t be afraid to apply for jobs that are (slightly) outside your experience range. Often, these posts are “pie in the sky” wants, not hard requirements.

richarddeasis3• 3 years ago

Good to know! Now I just got to keep grinding to be competitive against more experienced devs applying for the same position. Seems like its gonna be really difficult when theres gonna be at least a few hundreds of them applying for the same position.

Not sure what would motivate an employer to hire early career vs someone with 5 years of experience. Maybe paying new hires less than experienced ones?

colmanhumphrey3• 3 years ago

Here is a chart going back to 2014: https://slight.run/graphs/colman/ratio_of_seekers_to_hirers_...

Not quite as drastic as yours, but still not ideal.

The underlying query and data source: https://slight.run/apps/colman/job_seekers_vs_job_hiring_hac...

I'm restricting to top-level comments here, because those seem like a better proxy than all comments (excluding some discussion on a given post for example).

SilasX• 3 years ago

To answer what you were probably going to look for in the link: peak was March 2020 (1.19), when Covid got real, bottom was April 2018 (0.067), don't know any particular significance of that month.

version_five• 3 years ago

April 2018 sounds about right for the tech bubble peak - iirc softbank was still in full swing, everyone was "blitzscaling", it was peak exuberance. Not that the music stopped right after that, but even into 2019 things were starting to decline and the VC industry was getting slightly more conservative.

qqqwerty• 3 years ago

FED started raising interest rates in 2017[1]. The market didn't really start reacting until 2018, and by 2019 the FED got cold feet and was lowering rates again.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFEDTARU

ppaattrriicckk• 3 years ago

If anybody is interested, maybe this should be considered along with the core inflation rates - which is high in the US (peaked at 7% within the last 12 months and currently at 5.5%) and possibly still rising in the EU (12-month peak [now] at 5.7%).

If the central banks are going to stick to their declared purpose of keeping this around 2% we're still in for further rate hikes, I would imagine.

* https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/core-inflation-ra...

* https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/core-inflation-rate

I know it's not within the desired behaviour on HN to simply write "thank you!", and I hope I did provide a bit more than just that. That being said: Thank you! Also to ed_balls and madcaptenor for collecting data in the other thread.

neffy• 3 years ago

Hopefully they are not quite that stupid. Inflation is a lagging indicator, so expect it to start dropping fairly quickly as the -12 months price delta normalises, against the M2 injection 2 years ago.

M2 continues to drop (this is a bad thing for stability, but will feed into prices dropping over time):

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

carabiner2• 3 years ago

Looks like your chart only goes up to 2022 October? Whereas OP's goes up to today.

colmanhumphrey3• 3 years ago

It includes the Nov 1 post, you can see the data here: https://slight.run/apps/colman/job_seekers_vs_job_hiring_hac... (Vega reads 2022-11-01 into your local timezone, hence why you're possibly seeing 2022-10-31).

They claim they update it daily (https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/details/y-combi...) but they only update it every few months it would appear.

Of course you can manually get this data from the HN API and create a query built on https://slight.run/apps/colman/job_seekers_vs_job_hiring_hac... by adding the extra few rows manually (but unlike OP, I recommend you exclude non-top level comments).

willmeyers• 3 years ago

Doesn't the whoshiring threads get filled out throughout the week. Shouldn't a better analysis be done this weekend?

soneca• 3 years ago

This happened last month too, a data analysis of Who Is Hiring one or two days after it is published with a pessimistic conclusion.

Then, one week later, you realize the number of posts is back to an ok level (even improving)

projectazorian• 3 years ago

There’s an odd dynamic in the market right now. In addition to layoffs, people who are subject to RTO are trying to find jobs at remote employers, so there’s an abnormally high number of already-employed folks on the job hunt right now. Not to mention all the juniors having trouble finding work at the moment.

Meanwhile remote employers are seeing less employee turnover, so don’t need to do much hiring, especially since many grew headcount considerably in 2021/2022. Which means many of those people looking for remote jobs aren’t finding a lot of success. (We’re remote and hiring for backfills only right now, not that there are many of those - and I suspect a lot of other companies are in the same spot.)

Remote roles are likely over-represented on HN, so if there are a lot of candidates chasing those roles, you’d expect a lot of growth in “who wants to be hired” posts.

I’d expect this dynamic to shift in the back half of the year. People are finding out about promotions and comp changes around this time and many will be disappointed. This will likely cause a lot of people sitting tight at remote companies to get back on the market. Some will find roles elsewhere, creating more backfills and more hiring.

Not to mention that there’s a glut of late-stage companies seeking to IPO when the IPO market reopens, likely later this year or early next. When companies IPO they usually hire a lot beforehand to tighten up processes, then do even more hiring a few months later as existing employees get their exits and decide to move on or take a break.

So the medium/long term outlook is still positive, at least.

71a54xd• 3 years ago

It also seems like the market has strongly skewed to the senior side of things (8+ yrs exp).

Workaccount2• 3 years ago

Our entry level guy is GPT-4.

dangwhy• 3 years ago

thats why i am seeing. And it was mostly young people that YOLO relocated to hawaii and breckenridge that are now looking for remote jobs so its double whammy for them

wyclif• 3 years ago

Yep, I'm currently on the market and I'm seeing a lot of requests for impossibly high years of experience if you're a junior.

UncleOxidant• 3 years ago

I still see plenty of remote jobs to apply for on LinkedIn, but I have noticed that there are a lot more applicants now. A few months back it would often be single digit numbers of applicants. Now it will often be well into the double digits of applicants.

atraac• 3 years ago

Those numbers mean nothing. They are borderline rand() sometimes, in most cases when there's an external application form it will count you as an applicant right after clicking. Whether you actually applied doesn't matter.

WinstonSmith842• 3 years ago

I'm afraid it's not the only explanation (economy), but it's still a very good reason. Looking at myself, I've been working remotely for the last 7 years and there is just no way back, even if another company would pay me 2x or 3x more. Remote working is a massive perk and thanks (due) to Covid, a lot of people became aware of this.

mythrwy• 3 years ago

Yes. Additionally I'm not moving across the country to live in a strange and expensive city to work on your CRUD app.

There is no way back, even at 2X or 3x more.

thomasahle• 3 years ago

Still below 1 though.

ed_balls8• 3 years ago

Here is the data from 2015 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1350A5KGgmGI3Ed-tC7MP...

Ratio Who wants to be hired?/Who is hiring?

2015 0,20

2016 0,21

2017 0,14

2018 0,10

2019 0,32

2020 0,44

2021 0,26

2022 0,40

2023 0,83

mtnGoat• 3 years ago

I’ve always found the who’s hiring threads to be interesting. I don’t think all of those companies are actively hiring, but rather like to look like they are for some reason I don’t understand. My reasoning is two fold: I applied to some a couple years ago while job hunting and got worse response rate than most other sources. And some seem to be hiring for the same position for many months in a row. Though the second reason could be due to having extremely high set of requirements, but is usually a sign of a company to avoid in my experience.

giraffe_lady• 3 years ago

To placate overworked employees begging for relief.

hollaur• 3 years ago

Many companies post jobs just for backlinks or to get more traffic to their site.

93po• 3 years ago

a few reasons to list job ad when not seriously hiring:

1. collect resumes for when you are hiring

2. to look like a healthy, growing company even if you aren't

3. to find people who are desperate who you can underpay (smaller owner-run companies are more guilty of this)

4. to lure in people with a more interesting job ad than what the company really needs, then try to convince the candidate to fill a position for a less desirable or lower paying job

quickthrower22• 3 years ago

A sentiment analysis of threads like this vs. a year ago would also be interesting

Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

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