The filtering systems designed to flag people with impressive company experience and specific coding skills were sometimes ignoring and rejecting the less obvious talent. Suddenly, some companies didnвЂ™t have enough qualified recruiters. All this additional investment meant an unprecedented demand for new hires, and more companies willing to pay higher rates.ДЄnd when the wave of demand crashed into rising worker empowerment, the little nagging flaws in recruiting processes all ballooned into real problems at the same time. Public companies saw their stock prices skyrocket private companies found themselves flush with an unexpected wave of VC cash. While the rest of the world could barely stay above water financially, most tech companies absolutely thrived. Tech worker unions took off for the first time in a serious way, starting with the Alphabet Workers Union in January. The Great Resignation made more workers feel comfortable quitting, as well as more willing to say no to less-than-satisfactory job offers. The emphasis on Bay Area living, while still valuable for some, suddenly felt downright silly for those who would rather live somewhere more affordable or far less politically progressive ( ahem, Texas).

The last 20 months of remote work taught most people in the industry that their physical offices, so revered for years, are basically useless. It mostly boils down to tech workers feeling empowered in manifold ways. A combination of pandemic-related changes has created a great mat of recruiting hair that will take more than some extra financial conditioner to fix. One completely obvious, totally unintentional theme has bubbled up in our reporting over the last few months: 2021 has been an absolutely brutal year for tech recruiters and tech hiring.

Never back down amber heard