How to Capitalize on Tech Layoffs by Making Game-Changing Hires

2023-05-11 by Kyle Tothill

How to Capitalize on Tech Layoffs by Making Game-Changing Hires

How to Capitalize on Tech Layoffs by Making Game-Changing Hires

In recent months, tech layoffs have dominated business headlines as many companies, including industry giants like Twitter, Meta, Salesforce, Google, and Microsoft, let go of employees in droves. While this is a dismal time for the more than 94,000 impacted tech employees, it's also opening the door for other companies to snag them. With top-notch talent flooding the job market, technical staffing agencies and technical recruiters have an incredible opportunity to secure some of the best, most highly-skilled individuals. 

Companies that could not previously grow their businesses because they needed more talent can now swoop in to offer new opportunities to recently dismissed tech workers. Here's what recruiters can do to make the most of these tech layoffs.

Adjust Your Strategy

In today's climate, companies must adjust their recruitment strategies and be as adaptable as possible. Compared to the hiring frenzy after the pandemic's onset, the objective shouldn't be to go on a hiring spree to meet company goals. Instead, the aim should be to make high-impact, meaningful hires of people who bring immense value to the table. 

Develop a strategy that draws out a thoughtful process and assesses the company's current and future needs. Whatever the company's goals are for the year, consider what skills are needed and what roles to fill to meet them. Using this approach, you can be intentional about the candidates you pursue. 

Showcase Your Company's Stability

Candidates are selective about the job opportunities they pursue. They want good benefits, job security, flexibility, desirable salaries, and, most of all, stability. While fun and exciting perks like ping pong tables, free snacks and beer, and the like were once a good selling point for companies, more substantial perks are needed to draw in candidates in today's job climate. 

Offering a competitive salary still matters, but it's becoming clear that employees are looking for more than just that. Many prefer a good work-life balance, flexibility, and good benefits. But more than anything, recently laid-off talent want stability. With new rounds of layoffs coming from companies weekly, they want to ensure security in their next opportunity. The best way to handle this is to play into their concerns and be proactive in addressing them. This includes changing how your company markets itself and recruits potential candidates. Adapt your messaging to be clear and transparent while showcasing your financial stability, including your current and future outlook, instilling confidence in potential hires. 

This approach can give them confidence in your company and the potential for growth in the available role. Stability can lead to longevity and many opportunities to learn and grow. Consider how your potential hire can impact your company, how you can support their growth, and how their values align with your organization.

Focus on Skills-Based Hiring

For years, companies and their hiring departments have relied on education level when selecting candidates. However, it may be time to break from traditional hiring criteria depending on the role. Education and previous job experience are only sometimes good indicators of job performance. When you hone in solely on candidates with degrees, you exclude people who may still be highly skilled and qualified. 

Instead, seek candidates with in-demand skills, including cybersecurity, coding, data science, cloud engineering, and app development. Also, consider those with backgrounds in growing industries such as automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Skills-based hiring broadens and diversifies the talent pool for employers by removing education and salary-based barriers. It also creates new opportunities for applicants. 

Don't Wait for Talent to Find You

Along with the surge in newly unemployed professionals, there's a rise in new applicants for open roles. This means there will be plenty of resumes to sift through, and filtering through them will take more time and effort than usual. With that in mind, recruiters may need to get creative about their approach and efforts to connect with the right talent. As applicants prioritize what they're looking for in their job search, so should the companies hiring.

In the past, people weren't as open or were even ashamed about being recently laid off. However, now we're in a time when professionals openly discuss it on LinkedIn and announce that they're #opentowork. They're doing more than airing dirty laundry or bad-mouthing their former employers; they're also sharing and showcasing their skills, experience, and what types of roles they're interested in. Be proactive and use this opportunity to recruit talented individuals who could be an ideal fit for your company. 

Their Loss Is Your Gain

We understand that the current economic conditions have been challenging for many in the tech industry and other sectors of our economy. As we continue to navigate the fallout from the tech industry recession, we've had to make some difficult decisions regarding our workforce in recent months. We recognize that this is a tough time for many in our industry, and we're here to support you in any way we can.

Rather than dwelling on the challenges, we encourage you to take this opportunity to examine and reshape your recruiting efforts, moving towards a more strategic and proactive model. Although the job market may seem competitive with an abundance of talented, diverse, and experienced candidates, it's crucial to note that many of these candidates are being quickly absorbed, and the overall job market remains historically strong and resilient.

We understand that the future looks different than the past, with major geopolitical issues, quantitative tightening, AI disrupting nearly every work stream, high inflation, and the constant threat of a recession. Given these circumstances, it's essential to rethink and reimagine the way we do business for the coming era.

While many of our clients are currently reshaping their priorities, this is an excellent opportunity to examine your Talent Acquisition strategy and process. Many leaders are adopting a model of top grading internally and leveraging their TA resources and partners to target specific talent and upgrade key roles in their companies.

 

We're committed to putting the advice discussed in this blog into action ourselves, and we encourage you to do the same. Let's work together to build strong teams and thrive in this ever-changing industry.

As the job and talent markets continue to evolve, you need experts who can help you build the future of tech. Contact us today to learn more about our comprehensive approach to recruiting top talent for your company.