Never in my 15 years in recruitment have I ever seen more qualified people looking for work. By qualified, I refer to people who would ordinarily not find themselves unemployed in a traditional marketplace. The other variable is the length of time they find themselves in the market. Good people find jobs, and find them quickly. This has been the expectation for years, but not the case anymore.
The market isn’t just candidate heavy, but it’s ‘top-tier’ candidate heavy, and this worries me. The caliber of talent that I am witnessing enter the market is mind-boggling and lends itself to deeper reasoning and investigation.
The market has changed drastically over the past 5 years. We’ve lived through a global health pandemic that changed the landscape of how we perform our jobs. We learned quickly that we were capable of being just as productive working outside of the office – the ingenuity of the human race was in full display. This opened up an entirely new marketplace for organizations. They could now explore talent outside their geographic limitations, not to takeaway from the heightened level of safety we all felt as a result of working from the comfort of our homes. Working from home was not only more convenient, but it quickly became the norm, and some have never looked back.
With everything in business, there’s always a trade-off. Companies were granted access to a wider and more diverse talent pool, but at what cost, and how has that impacted the future of work, employment, unemployment, and the next generation of workers? Did decision makers over-extend on hiring out of excitement or fear? Did they over-forecast or underestimate the work from home phenomena? Were execs so ‘hire-happy’ that they failed to properly plan for the future?
Let’s explore 2 reasons for the rise of unemployment amongst senior leaders.
Cost Cutting Due To Redundancy
The surge in hiring during covid resulted in widespread redundancy within the workplace. We are currently going through a workplace refresh, with leaders facing tremendous pressure to bring people back into the office. This is hinged on the belief that too much influence has been given to workers. After all, employees now demand/expect to work remote or on a schedule that fits their needs. Many roles were also created during covid to provide the necessary leadership and technical coverage during a moment of great unpredictability – roles that under normal circumstances would not have been necessary.
A “swing for the fences because we don’t know if we’ll live to see tomorrow” mentality was now prevalent in the workplace, and this caused a period of irrational behaviour amongst leaders. Consequently, we have an over-populated workplace with no chemistry. This disconnect, coupled with the hires of those with similar skill sets & competencies, has forced decision makers to trim their workforce, starting naturally with the highest paid. Only the 1% have weathered the storm.
AI/Technology Has Made Key People Expendable
This is a sensitive subject because AI has become integral to how we work and do business. The influx of senior talent entering the market in search of a new career is deeply concerning, but what role has AI/technology played in this shift?
Companies are opting to retain their technical gurus with the latest software under their belt over the detached C-Suite professional, primarily because employees are smarter, self-sufficient, and self-managed. Technology after all needs to be managed by someone, and it definitely won’t be by the Director or VP who has little to no contact at the ground-level. The approach is now to automate where & what you can, and trim what is (who is) left.
If you’re a Senior Leader in today’s workforce, it’s imperative to remain closely tied to the technical aspects that govern the organization. The days of leading a technical team without understanding what they do or being able to do it yourself are over. We expected hybrid as a type of work, but what we didn’t expect was a movement towards a new hybrid style of leadership – leaders who can teach and also do – this is the 1%.
Your leadership style is great (who doesn’t love servant leaders), but tell me the last time you wrote (or understood) a clean piece of code? What are you doing to remain relevant technically?
I’m concerned, but optimistic. Good people always land on their feet, and wherever they land it’s for certain that they will replicate past success & cultivate high performers and future leaders.
Let’s Sum This Up
For anyone who is thinking about changing careers or switching to a new company during a period of great instability such as a recession or another pandemic, make the transition with caution and qualify the legitimacy and future of the position in question. Ask probing questions to better understand the vision the organization has for the role. That new Chief Of Something may sound great on the surface, but is it a role designed to address an immediate leak or a position they believe will be intricately woven into the fabric of the company for years to come. Try these:
- In 5 years, how do you see this position evolving and what is the trajectory that I can expect?
- If the position were to dissolve within the next 5 years, what would be the organization’s plan to manage that transition?
- As the organization continues to hire and evolve in this area, what is the chance that this role could experience dilution?
These questions are circumstantial, but listen for the answers. The more you hear, the more secure you should feel one way or another. Every role should have at minimum a 5-year outlook, a vision of relevancy that extends beyond the short-term. This is especially true for a position that is being created or has not existed beyond the 5-year mark.
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