If you know a recruiter, do me a favor and give them a hug. It’s been a rough couple of years for everyone in the world; I’m not going to be that guy who bogs you down with another intro to an article that summarizes the pandemic. I think we are all a little tired of having to read about what we’ve lived through. As essential workers braved the challenges and dangers of continuing to work in-person during a pandemic, those lucky enough to work remotely have adapted and grown accustomed to commuting to their kitchen table. While there’s certainly some folks who can’t wait to return to their teams and coworkers in an office, for a large majority of tech workers who can do their jobs from anywhere in the world, it’s become a requirement that their employer be flexible with how they work. Many people started working remotely for the first time and some say they’re never going back into an office. What does this mean for recruiters and those looking to hire and grow their workforce of tech talent?

I feel like one of those stereotypical people in movies that go, “think of the children!”, but instead of children it’s, “think of the recruiters!”; recruiters are people too! As a journalist, (journalists are famously not people) I’ve taken it upon myself the last two weeks to fill my Google Calendar to the brim and speak with as many people involved in the hiring process as I could. From companies as small as 5 employees to huge organizations with multiple teams of 1,000+ engineers, what I’ve learned across the board is that it’s been harder now more than ever to convince someone to take your money and work for you.

It makes sense that people are enjoying the perks of working remotely, but it’s deeper than that. While it’s being coined as “The Great Resignation” I think it’s more a “The Great Wakeup” in that, people are waking up and realizing that they don’t want to do work that they don’t enjoy or doesn’t provide them more value than just a paycheck. For tech workers specifically, many engineers and product managers have always had recruiters in their inboxes showing them jobs and trying to poach them; that’s not what has changed. What shifted are the reasons why people on a larger scale are choosing where they want to spend their 40 hours a week. Money and benefits are motivators for many, but an increase of demand for flexible work situations and feelings of direct impact and enjoyability of work is what’s making it even tougher to convince someone to join your company.

In the not so distant past, the way the job interview song and dance went was that the talent first had to sell themselves to the company as to why they would make a good hire. In return, the company, once convinced, has to turn around and sell why working for them would be a good choice for the candidate. That’s still how we do things, but that second part where companies have to showcase why a candidate should work for them is becoming so much harder to do when tech workers have a fruit basket of offers to choose from, with money being important but meaningful day-to-day work being more-so. Top talent, especially hard to find specialized technical talent, has always had multiple places to choose from to work at, so why is everyone saying that recruiting has gotten so much harder? Well, the answer is, the challenges are different for everyone. So, I did my best to speak with, well, everyone.

I asked 56 recruiters, VPs of talent, chiefs of staff, founders, venture capitalists, and private equity partners about their biggest challenges and experience with the difficulties of hiring tech talent in the current market. I’m a different kind of writer in that I don’t know how commas work or enjoy the actual writing part of writing. So, what I’ve done here is I’ve summarized all 56 perspectives into little bite-sized snippets that highlight the unique insight and most interesting answer. I really strived to create a wide lense into the world of tech recruiting, and not just for the companies my mom has heard of. Okay, I’ll stop rambling and just get into the quotes now. READ FULL ARTICLE