Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare in 2024
Over the past two years, tech companies have let go of more than 400,000 employees. The level of competition for the jobs that are still available is rising to an increasingly frenetic state.
There were dozens of applications and interviews, hours spent perfecting resumes, and a conference and career fair that was turned into The Hunger Games. Finding work in the IT sector is a nightmare.
The once-unstoppable industry has been forced to face reality over the past year, according to the website Layoffs.
FYI, which monitors the number of jobs lost throughout the business, technology companies all over the world let go of more than 400,000 employees in the years 2022 and 2023.
One year after many of those layoffs began, job searchers are still facing a difficult market, and they are competing for a smaller number of positions in a job sector that once offered great incomes, luxurious amenities, and security. This is despite the fact that there are fewer jobs available.
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Know why Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare
According to Julia Pollak, chief economist of the online recruitment marketplace ZipRecruiter, the labor market in the technology industry “does not show any signs of turning around just yet.”
According to Pollak, the information industry was expanding at a strong pace before and during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak; nevertheless, over the past year, the industry has lost around 2.5 percent of its workforce.
She goes on to say that this prevents more people from being promoted and keeps them at the same job for a longer period.
Even outside of the traditional IT business, such as in government and health care, there is still a demand for tech personnel despite the fact that incomes tend to be lower in these sectors.
Large technology companies such as Google, Amazon, and Meta have eliminated tens of thousands of positions during the past few months.
As a result, several companies have placed hiring on hold. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the 11,000 individuals Meta let go of last autumn, but the company has lately rehired dozens of the people it let off beginning last November.
After that, the company finished further layoffs in its Reality Labs business, which is focused on the metaverse.
The firings followed record-breaking times of expansion in 2020, during which time Covid-19 was in full swing.
Companies took on more employees than they could reasonably support, and workers continue to bear the brunt of this mistake.
People’s job searches are becoming more aggressive as a result of the extended downturn in the technology market, which is leading to increased concern.
The Grace Hopper Celebration is an annual conference and career fair that is geared toward female and nonbinary computer employees who are underrepresented in the field.
In September, males lined up in droves to attend the event, which was held in San Francisco.
Videos taken during the conference showed large queues of people rushing to get into the job expo while employees urged them to take their time and not rush.
The meeting, which was intended to connect and celebrate women in technology, illustrated the desperation that workers experience as they try to obtain jobs after completing majors linked to computer science.
A request for a response was sent to the organizers of the conference, but they did not respond.
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According to Kari Groszewska, a senior at Vanderbilt University studying computer science and economics, she attended the conference.
She arrived at the expo hall 15 minutes early one day, only to discover that the line to talk with companies was already several hours long. Groszewska claims that the atmosphere was different compared to the previous year.
She was feeling disheartened, particularly as a result of the fact that she had not received a job offer for when she graduates the next year.
“I have done ‘everything right’ studying computer science,” she adds, including following suggestions to focus on personal projects, pursue internships, and join clubs. “I have done “everything correctly” studying computer science,” she says.
Groszewska has expressed that she is “disheartened” by the status of the employment market that she will shortly enter.
Other persons who are now jobless are already beginning to feel the strain. Since the beginning of this month, Nia McSwain has been exploring the possibility of leaving the hotel industry and starting a new career in the technology sector with the objective of landing a job as a project manager.
She claims that she spends her days from morning to night submitting job applications, and she estimates that she does this for approximately forty different positions each day. “It’s been a little rough,” says McSwain, who resides in Florida. “It’s been a little rough.” “I’m attempting to gain access to it.”
Philip John Basile, a full stack engineer, recently completed a contract and has been seeking a new one since August. He claims that over the past month, he has averaged approximately three interviews each day.
He has come quite close to landing a position in a couple of different businesses, but he has not been hired just yet.
Basile, who resides in the suburbs of New York City, claims that he has been concentrating on expanding his professional network by engaging in conversation with individuals on LinkedIn and Discord.
Because so many of the recruiters he knew from his former employment are also without work, he has had to establish new connections with others in the industry.
Basile claims that he has also spent his leisure time learning about AI technologies, and he is constantly revising his resume, going from ten pages to two, then increasing the number of pages to twenty-four.
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He notes that although there are a lot of jobs available, there are also a lot of people who are looking for work.
Therefore, he wants to “make an effort to be as distinctive as possible. You have to make an effort to distinguish yourself from the other one thousand people if you want to win.
Foreign workers in the United States have reported particularly high levels of stress as a result of the layoffs since they have been forced to scramble to find sponsorship in order to remain in the country after losing their jobs.
However, the data reveals that a good number were successful in securing new employment after being made redundant.
The supply of workers is strong despite the tight labor market: As of July 31, around 780,000 registrations had been submitted for this year’s H-1B visa applications.
The H-1B visa is the visa that foreign employees require in order to be eligible for tech positions in the United States.
This is an increase of over 60 percent from the previous year, which has led the agency known as US Citizenship and Immigration Services to speculate that some individuals may have submitted several registrations in an attempt to cheat the system. There is a limit of 85,000 H-1B visas that can be issued each year.
Younger workers are also required to overcome additional obstacles in order to obtain employment. Rachel Sederberg, a senior economist with the company Lightcast that, specializes in labor market analytics, has noticed a downward trend in job postings seeking people with entry-level experience and a greater lean toward employees with expertise.
According to Sederberg, this has caused the typical wage for job listings in the technology industry in the United States to increase from $61,000 a year ago to $79,000 this fall.
According to her, businesses “right-sized,” “realigned,” and “readjusted” their operations. They started looking for new employees. They are probably looking for applicants with a variety of profiles.”
Then there’s ChatGPT, which quickly became everyone’s favorite new toy. People are adopting chatbots and other forms of artificial intelligence technology to assist them in writing their resumes and cover letters, which enables them to apply for more jobs in a shorter amount of time. However, this may result in an increased amount of noise for recruiters to sort through.
Because of all of these challenges, hunting for work should be considered a full-time job in and of itself.
Kimi Kaneshina, a product manager based in San Diego, says that she spends her time between the hours of 9 and 5 seeking jobs and that after work, she either networks or makes videos for TikTok to capture her job search experience.
Kaneshina began her job search in July, and although she believes that the process gained momentum in September, she is still seeking a new position and has not been successful in finding one.
Those are talking freely about their layoffs on LinkedIn and TikTok and connecting and those employed at desirable firms as a result of the transition.
Despite this, the move brought about some positive developments in the tech industry. Because there have been so many people laid off recently, it is now more socially acceptable to talk about it.
“I’ve had recruiters tell me, ‘Half of the candidates I’m interviewing have been laid off,'” Kaneshina adds. “I’ve had recruiters tell me.” According to her, that prejudice has been nearly eradicated.
