After two years in which the workers dominated the market: the power is beginning to return to the employers

by time news

“Recently the market conditions are changing. We are seeing the beginning of a trend in which the market is no longer a distinct market for employees,” says Liat Ben Torah Shoshan, director of the career management department at AllJobs. “On the one hand, we are now seeing more candidates for each position, and on the other hand, employers are more selective and considerate more in the process of recruiting and finding the right employees. This reflects the trend of the times.”

Job interview, illustration (photo: Inimage)

Is the party over?

According to Ben Torah Shoshan, we are now after two crazy years that included Corona, extraordinary growth after the epidemic and extraordinary difficulty in recruiting employees from all fields, both high-tech and low-tech. “During the growth period, we saw increased recruitments and adaptation of the recruiters to the period: shortening of recruitment processes, recruitment on broad platforms such as social and business networks, diverse websites.

“We have seen employers invest greater resources in funded recruitment processes, really invest in employer branding and do as much as possible to recruit employees at all levels and ranks. There were also organizations that, when they had trouble finding employees, then compromised on education and experience requirements, and sometimes raised the salary levels they intended to pay in the first place. This is what characterized the last year.”

What will 2023 look like in terms of recruitment?
“The year 2022 was an excellent year of growth, but already in the last quarter we witnessed rounds of layoffs. It started in the technology companies, and today it is not only in technology companies. Now we see the market starting to correct itself, as it were. When there is very large growth and massive recruitment of employees, at the end of It is natural that a slowdown comes afterwards. This is how the market behaves naturally, and a decline began.

“The decrease was also affected by global and local factors: the increase in interest rates in the US and Israel, there was also an increase in quite a few raw materials and products. There is also a lot of talk about the liquid and fast money of the investors, which they now handle in a calculated way and do not invest as easily as they did a year ago, for example.”

Ben Torah Shoshan adds: “No one can say exactly what 2023 will look like, if it will be a correction or if it will be a crisis and a recession. But currently, we see employers who are laying off workers, who are tightening their belts, who are acting with discretion and thinking carefully about every standard that is introduced in companies Yes, they continue to recruit even in the current period, but I hear from colleagues in technology companies that they recruit strictly, selectively.”

What does this actually mean?
“This means that you will look for the talents you really need, and the examination of the candidate will be more thorough. It also means that if you can save on the standard and delegate authority within the organization, you will do it. On the other hand, if you are now looking for talent in the areas of development in the worlds of software, then that these talented candidates with the specific education and experience are still in demand. Today, organizations are truly focused on talent, without compromise.

“If in the past they compromised on experience or education, now this is reversed, and companies will mainly look for the talents. By the way, if you look at low-tech for a moment as well, then there too you see rounds of layoffs in very diverse fields, and there is a feeling of belt tightening and a home inspection to prepare What do you fear will come down the road – a recession, a crisis. There is such a fear, we don’t know if it will actually materialize, but smart organizations prepare themselves in advance. This of course also manifests itself in fewer jobs offered.”

Liat Ben Torah Shoshan, Director of the Career Management Department at All JobsLiat Ben Torah Shoshan, Director of the Career Management Department at All Jobs

The missing candidate

Ben Torah Shoshan adds: “In a survey we conducted very recently, we saw that more than 50% of employers have no intention of mass layoffs of employees and even plan to continue recruiting, but with the same caution and discretion that are compatible with the times and the economic strength of the company. It is still impossible to say that the market is of employers, it’s not yet an employers’ market, but we’re definitely seeing the beginning of a trend in which the market is no longer a distinctly workers’ market.”

The emerging trend will probably also affect the behavior of job seekers. A recent study conducted by ZipRecruiter, which deals with the digital employment arena and develops and manages an artificial intelligence-based platform that actively connects people to jobs that may suit them, shows that one out of five job candidates “ghosts” and disappears to potential employers in the middle of the hiring process.

21.6% of the research participants admitted that they disappeared on their own initiative and stopped responding to inquiries from recruiters with whom they were in contact and did not bother to inform them that they had found another job. The study indicates that people who are looking for work for the first time in their life tend to do ghosting at a higher rate of over 30%, compared to those who have already experienced and are in workplaces and know how to appreciate the importance of preserving their professional name and long-term relationships. Also, in age segmentation, young people up to the age of 34 tend to do guesting 3 times more than workers aged 55 and over.

“Guesting is a spoken phenomenon, and it is the result of an abundance of job offers, the result of a ‘market of candidates’. It is also the result of a recruitment process that is not sufficiently packaged and adapted to the candidate,” explains Ben Torah Shoshan. “Now this phenomenon is going to decrease for the very simple reason that there is a decrease in the number of job offers, and the candidates understand the mindset. Also, always when there is an atmosphere of layoffs and fear of a correction or a crisis, then the job seekers will prefer old, stable places, which will guarantee them continuous employment and occupational stability.

“I think that the job seekers in this period understand the challenges on their side as well, so this is exactly the time to define an action plan, create a road map, write excellent resumes, manage the job search process actively and responsibly to produce the desired results.”

Neta Shelf, director of human resources at Bionic (photo: Yeh'ach)Neta Shelf, director of human resources at Bionic (photo: Yeh’ach)

Growing, but slowly

“During the peak period after the corona virus, the recruitment process was very fast and the pursuit of talent was great,” says Netta Shelf, the human resources manager at the Israeli start-up Bionic, which developed a platform for control and management of corporate applications. “Candidates had several offers in hand, which created pressure from the companies and caused them to speed up the recruitment process and even waive certain tests and assignments in order to prevent the candidate from fleeing to competing companies.

“Each candidate had a lot of offers and the processes were very short and fast. Many companies gave up, for example, the homework stage, and we also had to adapt to that. It is very important for us to match people precisely to the position, but because of the enormous competition we had to do faster processes, For example, giving up the homework phase in order to keep up with the recruitments, and the recruitment could have been carried out at the weekly level as well.”

What’s going on these days?
“The processes changed depending on the period. We were able to bring back, for example, the homework phase, the recruitment processes can be much more in-depth. We see that the candidates also much more want to understand the essence of the company, that it has stability, that there is a real business. The candidates are much more asking and want to understand in depth the the society they enter.

“Nowadays there is more patience on both sides. Both the candidate examines and the recruiter. Also, today the headhunters also have more ability to pinpoint the candidates and there is a large variety of candidates. The headhunters also more carefully choose the companies they will work with and to which they will attract candidates.”

Shelf adds: “We plan to double ourselves in the coming year, and today, as mentioned, the challenge to recruit is different. If until recently we faced the challenge of the rapid pace of recruitment and where concessions can be made, then today the challenge is to fully understand who the people we are recruiting, and also the candidates from their side, as mentioned more They ask, they check more. Recruitment processes adapt themselves to what is happening in the market. Today the recruitment process returns to a certain routine which is less fast.”

Daganit Feller, manager of the recruitment system at Pentera (photo: Yeh'ach)Daganit Feller, manager of the recruitment system at Pentera (photo: Yeh’ach)

“Nowadays, candidates ask many more questions than was customary in the past, such as the company’s revenues, its growth rate, customer recruitment, and more. They want to make sure that they are entering stable ground and a place to grow,” Daganit Feller, director of the recruitment system at the cyber company Pentera, also points out. which developed a software platform for automatic penetration testing of corporate information systems, with the aim of assessing their degree of immunity to cyber attacks, and in early 2022 became a unicorn.

Do you feel a difference in your recruitment processes?
“Our recruitment processes remain very precise as they were in 2022, very suitable for our needs, but the inspection stations, i.e. whether this staffing is really necessary, are done more frequently. If it used to be once a quarter, today it is done once a month or two. Also Before, we did not recruit inappropriate or inaccurate profiles, but today, because we are attentive to the market and the processes that happen around us, the strictness is very high for the needs and we check more the necessity of the position.”

wide profile

Do you recognize any change among job seekers?
“The profiles have greatly expanded. Despite our precise career descriptions, those who apply for the position have broader qualifications, the resumes are not always the most accurate match as they were in the past. Even at the senior levels, more people present themselves as candidates, contact me on LinkedIn. But the market has not yet turned 180 degrees. I don’t see, for example, a change in the competition for the Core employees, on whom the technological companies are based.”

Emil Rosenblatt, expert in recruiting senior executives for high-tech and startups (photo: Shibulat Shahar)Emil Rosenblatt, expert in recruiting senior executives for high-tech and startups (photo: Shibulat Shahar)

“Nowadays, the power of the employers is in the selection of seniors and juniors, but in R&D positions, research and software development, the power is still in the hands of the employees,” says Emil Rosenblatt, an expert in recruiting seniors for high-tech and start-ups. “Today, the world of juniors is very affected, because the less standards there are, the more I would prefer to recruit someone who has experience. That’s why their search requires more networking, more networks, more investment in portfolios.

“But it is still impossible to say that the power lies with the employers. There is still a demand for good and experienced employees in the world of software development. It is true that they will have fewer offers and instead they will receive 5-8 contracts in hand at the same time, 2-3 contracts, and it is possible that the recruitment processes will be longer and take longer A month to find a job, but they will find it.”

Rosenblatt adds: “If we refer to the arena of recruiting high-tech executives, there is a ‘bloodbath’ there, a harsher place in terms of the job seeker. Those who are senior today and looking for work, then the number of open positions is smaller, fewer headhunters approach them, and 90% Some of the jobs will be closed by word of mouth. Most of the work will be on the seeker. This means a lot of networking, especially on LinkedIn, which is a change from what was before.

“Now, by the way, even fewer companies send their recruitment out to us, to the headhunters. Companies are celebrating in terms of new recruitments. I, for example, have tens of thousands of followers on LinkedIn. I receive many inquiries from job seekers and feel an increase in inquiries, with an emphasis on senior executives.”

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