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Hiring During A Recession: Where Have All The Good Candidates Gone?

Posted by pramatr on January 7th, 2009

Over the past year, it has been very interesting to see the increasing number of articles regarding the impact of the global recession on IT. Most of these have focused on how to make yourself recession proof, or what to do with the increased downtime between contracts. One problem that does not seem to appear however, is the lack of good candidates when hiring during this time.

Over the past six months the IT job market seems have all but disappeared (in some regions). Projects have been postponed, contracts have dried up within a hundred mile radius and the number of advertised permanent roles has drastically reduced. This isn’t really a surprise given the current economic climate, but for companies who are actually still looking to hire, the problem seems strangely just as familiar.

Many of the candidates currently looking for work simply do not have the skills required and the good developers seem to be holding on tight and riding out the recession. The current raft of resumes are frequently from contract developers, most of these developers are quite honest about their reason for seeking a permanent role, they simply can not find contract work. These developers aren’t typically looking for a permanent role in the longer term however, so should the market conditions improve, hiring a new developer might be a problem all over again.

Joel Spolsky said that the “best people in every field, are quite simply never on the market” and during a recession that seems even more true. With the recession forecast to continue well into 2009, it looks like the good developers are going to stay in their current role and hiring will continue to be a problem. Which leaves the question, the right developer, or the developer right now?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 23:06 and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Allen Brooks
    You're not on your own here. We are based in Boston and are having EXACTLY the same problem. Money and conditions weren't an issue this time last year, but at the moment, I just can't find the people for my vacancies. If the problem continues, I might have to turn to freelancers. They seem to be the only people with enough skill, but they also want top dollar.
  • There are a lot of communities and blogs out there ;-).
  • @Thomas Hansen

    I'd be interested in hearing the ways in which you seek out developers.
  • Peter
    I don't think it's true that good developers aren't going to apply for a job. There are plenty of good developers out there so the odds are that some of them are going to apply for jobs. I think the problem atm is that people are just scared about what has gone on and what is going on. They aren't sure what's going to happen, so what they do is follow a basic instinct and stick with what they know. It is very similar to the old adage, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
  • Good developers don't apply for jobs, jobs applies for them ...

    If you think some good developer is going to applyf ro work in your company, then you're not very realistic. Maybe if your name is Yahoo, Google or something you might get lucky and have a couple of good candidates applying for a job. Other then that - FORGET IT!

    The way to find good developers is to seek them out yourself and give them an offer...
  • Interesting point.

    Recently I was trying to hire a new C# / SQL developer. In the area where we are based, there were no other companies visibly hiring for similar skill sets. We only had two people interested in our vacancy even though the salary was above market rate and the projects are good.

    It seemed almost as if the job market for the skills required was perfectly balanced in the region. There was pretty much nobody wanting a job and pretty much nobody hiring.
  • What are your offers concerning payment, tenure and working atmosphere? The market is simple: exceed what is expected and you'll find your candidates.
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