the job market is a matching market. my desires vary from my ex-coworkers’ desires. out of every 10 companies, there are 9 that i won’t tolerate working for. fortunately, my favorite options probably vary from that of my ex-coworkers’, so that doesn’t mean 90% of companies are destined to be suckers. but it does mean that if you randomly recruit engineers, you should expect a low follow-through rate (you want a good match, don’t you?).
now throw a pandemic into the mix. everyone’s lifestyle has been disrupted to a lesser or major degree. everyone’s rethinking certain key aspects of their life, whether intentionally or emotionally. relevant to this: employees are just a lot more discriminating in their job evaluation than they used to be. the pool of jobs i’m willing to take has shrunk by 2-3x. again, that doesn’t mean the total matches must fall. but it does mean that it’s going to take more effort to locate matches. i.e. “it’s harder to hire engineers”.
now throw a pandemic into the mix. everyone’s lifestyle has been disrupted to a lesser or major degree. everyone’s rethinking certain key aspects of their life, whether intentionally or emotionally. relevant to this: employees are just a lot more discriminating in their job evaluation than they used to be. the pool of jobs i’m willing to take has shrunk by 2-3x. again, that doesn’t mean the total matches must fall. but it does mean that it’s going to take more effort to locate matches. i.e. “it’s harder to hire engineers”.