We don’t know why but we have a few ideas.
Hirewell’s tech recruiting team saw a 86.5% increase in LinkedIn InMail responses in 2023 YTD compared to 2022.
A massive increase. But I’d be making sh*t up if I told you exactly why it happened. (And contributing to the Dubious Data on social problem.)
But we do have two best guesses. And it’s probably a combination of the two.
1. We made a concerted effort to improve our messaging outreach. Evaluating what people are sending and coaching them up is an active process.
Not everyone is a naturally great writer. It’s a skill that takes time and effort to develop.
2. The hiring market for software developers softened dramatically.
I wish I had a good data that on that second piece, but I can pull some anecdotal observations from our team.
At the market’s peak, an experienced dev could get a virtually unlimited amount of offers. Their main constraint was the amount of time needed to interview.
Talking to software engineers with 4-6 offers in a short period of time was common. Now? 2-3 is what we see and it requires more time and effort on the candidate’s part.
We’re not at the point where things have dried up completely. But the demand isn’t as high. (Everyone working in the tech space knows this.)
As we theorize that job seekers are less choosy in what they respond to. Stated differently, they have time to make more responses and get back to a higher percentage of their inbox.
Breaking that down further, coastal companies aren’t throwing offers at everyone remote like they were a year ago. Because they want to get as many local people as they can.
The FAANG and next tier down (e.g. Stripe, FTX looool) were on remote hiring binges. Now they’re not. One software engineer we knew at Meta was laid off, then hired back at the same salary 3 months later. But had to move to the Bay area.
People working in the middle of the country looking for full remote jobs don’t have as many options as a year ago. So they respond at a much higher rate when those come in.
On the flip side: remote is becoming a bigger differentiator again for mid sized orgs. So if you’re hiring and had a hard time competing with the Meta’s and Google’s of the world, you have a better shot now.
Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.
