Market Signals (Week 34)

The art of interpreting signals (precursors of trends) is - and always has been - important in navigating financial markets and economies. If you are an experienced manager or executive who wants to manage their career and/or job search processes wisely, look at the signals of the job market which are inseparably embedded in the VUCA landscape of today's world.

We usually keep the collected data to ourselves. But these are not usual times, so we decided to share our insights at the end of each week. If the country / context is important, we’ll add them. Otherwise, we’ll keep it general for confidentiality.

This is not a full version of this week’s report. View the complete presentation here:

We’ve continued reaching out to CEOs, HR Directors, investors, board members and candidates that we know personally, to take the temperature. Below you’ll find their shortened quotes in no particular order.

However, we’ll start with a KPI that gives a quite good feel of the overall trend on the job market:

Number of published job ads on LinkedIn

Note: some job ads might have been taken off LinkedIn, not because the recruitment process was put on hold or canceled, but because they are costly, especially if you have dozens of them. A company might have wanted to simply cut costs and move to more cost effective alternatives. Some local job portals are offering substantial discounts.

Initial list of 18 countries

Sorted

Extended list to 38 countries

Sorted

Note: the numbers are collected at the beginning of each week, on Monday afternoon. In the full version of the report, you can find separate data for regions such as: Visegrad, Baltics, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Iberia, SEE, BENELUX, DACH, Western Europe and EU.

Worth mentioning

First an overview of the indices:

Index18: This week, only 3 countries published more job ads on LinkedIn than in Week 13: Lithuania, Slovenia, & Estonia.

Index36: 36% of the countries published more job ads in Week 34 than in Week 15, which is a -11% decrease compared to last week. Since last week, 17% of the countries saw an increase in the number of published job ads.

The European Union: The European Union noted a decrease in the number of published job ads on LinkedIn for the first time in 7 weeks. The difference between the initial Week 17 and Week 34 was -2.37%.

Winners of the week: This week, every region noted a negative difference between Week 34 and Week 15. The region with the smallest drop in the number of published job ads on LinkedIn was Northern Europe (-1.40%). This was achieved thanks to Norway – the country experienced the biggest increase in the number of published job ads on LinkedIn since Week 15: 152.72%! When it comes to weekly changes, this week’s winner is Visegrad – after experiencing the most significant decrease last week, it was the region with the highest number of published job ads (+2.74%).

Losers of the week: In Week 34, Southeastern Europe noted the worst decrease in the number of published job ads out of all the regions: -34.98%. After weeks of stability, Iceland experienced the most significant decrease in the job ad level out of all the countries: -41.03%.

A candidate quote:

Global Role / Retail: After more than 10 years with the company, I am now one of the 30% laid-off employees. I understand that it had to happen because of our industry, but I am saddened by how it happened: HR came in one morning and gave me 6 hours to clear out my desk.

Useful observations & tips for candidates from one of our contacts:

Head of Talent Acquisition / International public organization

Before CV-19, sometimes we'd have only 20 applicants for a post. Now, there's a massive increase. For some roles it's double the amount of candidates – for HR roles, even more! A recent posting received 50 applicants within 12 hours! I can see that online interviews are more stressful for candidates because of all the technical challenges. Consequently, their performance is different. The overall candidate experience is also different – not worse, just different.

I still see two struggles for now and beyond CV-19: to formulate proper remote working policies, and to design appropriate digital onboarding processes.

About the future: everything will depend on the success of developing a vaccine. However, there are definitely elements that are here to stay: remote work if physical presence is not required (it currently saves me 5 hours per week, 20 hours per month on commuting – why would I voluntarily want to go back?) and online interviews!

Tips for candidates:

• Cover the basics: our ATS "enforces" as complete applications as possible. Having said that, it still surprises me that approximately 30% of the candidates still don't get the absolute basics right!
• Don't apply to everything. Constant rejection affects your motivation. Keep applying to the job ads where you see a fit and don't give up!

If you want to discuss your professional situation confidentially or if you are considering hiring Career Angels for support, contact [email protected] who will personally match you with the most appropriate consultant. For efficiency, add your CV and availability for a Skype call.

If you want to contribute, email your signals to Sandra (everything will be kept confidential).

Market Signals published thus far:

• Week 33
• Week 32
• Week 31
• Week 30
• Week 29
• Week 28
• Week 27
• Week 26
• Week 25
• Week 24
• Week 23
• Week 22
• Week 21
• Week 20
• Week 19
• Week 18
• Week 17
• Week 16
• Week 15
• Week 14
• Week 13