Behind the Scenes with a Tech Recruiter - Transcript of Live Event

We recently hosted a live event with tech recruiter, Bruce Barlow. We discussed several hot topics in the job marketing including:

💡 Should I still apply to jobs even if there is a high number of applicants?

📉 Are you seeing people have to regress in their careers? For ex: taking a role with less scope or a lower salary? Any suggestions?

🏢 What is happening with return-to-office (RTO) and thoughts here?

⛰ Any tips for staying motivated in such a tough market?

We also answered some live Q&A from the audience. Take a look at the transcript below to learn about his insights and advice.

You can also watch the full recording here.

00:00 Alright, well, it’s 11.30 Central, so which is start time, so I’m going to go ahead and get us kicked off.
00:08 Um, we’ll start with a couple of quick intro and then we can dive into why we’re here. So I’ll go first.
00:16 My name is Molly Wheaton. I’m a co founder at Earnbetter, which is a company that uses AI to help people in the job search.
00:24 So job search sucks, not, uh, not something that is much of a secret. but we’re trying to make it easier for job seekers by giving them a lot of different free tools.
00:36 Before Earn Better, I spent about 10 years at various tech companies across a bunch of different functions, including recruiting, operations, client management, etc.
00:48 I’m based in Austin with love to know where people are tuning in from, so comment with your location. And yeah, I’m excited to be here today with Bruce from Quantum Search Partners.
01:00 Bruce, do you want to do a quick intro? Yeah, yeah. So I’m nice to meet everybody. Name’s Bruce originally from Philly, living North Carolina now.
01:08 I’ve been in the recruiting space for probably like five, six years now. I’ve always been at Quantum. We’re like a small niche technical recruiting firm, you know, doing everything across cyber security.
01:21 Data engineering. But yeah, before that was doing tech sales back at Garner. So yeah, it’s been a fun journey of transitioning from that role into this, where we get to help a lot of people.
01:35 So it’s fun. 
01:43 thank you so much for being here Bruce.
01:48 We really appreciate it. And so a little about why we’re here. So Bruce obviously has an interesting perspective on the job market and the job search given that he is a tech recruiter.
02:00 And so I was asking if he would do an event with me that could really help job seekers. So we got together, discussed some questions that we both here frequently from job seekers and then picked the top ones to address with you all today.
02:15 Go ahead and comment and ask questions throughout the event. I’m going to try to stay present in the conversation with Bruce, so I might not be able to review questions in real time, but we’ll definitely look at them at the end, because we’ve saved some times at the end for live Q&A.
02:33 And we’ll try to get to as many questions as we can. If we don’t get to yours apologies, you can follow up with us, and we’ll try to address those one-on-one.
02:43 But without further ado, we’ll go ahead and get started. Um, so the first question, I hear this one a lot, and I see a lot of commentary on LinkedIn.
02:52 Um, it’s, should I apply to jobs, even if there is a high number of applicants? And I’m sure you’re aware of what, where this is coming from, like, on LinkedIn, if you see that there’s already a thousand people who have applied, should somebody still get their application in and kind of follow up question
03:11 ? Is there a number where you’re like, it still makes sense versus it doesn’t? Any guidance there would be helpful. Yeah, yeah, no, I think, especially in this market, right?
03:21 You see, a job’s posted an hour ago and it’ll have 1000 applicants. I think a lot of it is like sticker shock of why people are not applying.
03:31 I always recommend candidates, right? Whether it’s a role I’m working on or they’re looking at to apply because before the call, I was running some data then it’s like, everybody that applied for the software engineering post that I, that I had up two weeks ago, 10% of the candidates were actually a 
03:49 fit, right? A lot of the times, you know, people, and we’re all in different situations, right? Where there’s lots of layoffs, right?
03:56 People are eager to get jobs. And it’s something where they’re just mass applying to roles that might not be a fit, right?
04:03 Whether it’s your seniority, technical sack, whatever it may be. So if it is truly a match, right? And you have a resume that is that’s this is a big thing like tailored to the job description I can’t emphasize that enough yes 100% apply because I can guarantee most of the people that have just clicked
04:20 like quick apply Probably aren’t the best fit Yeah, I’ve heard similar feedback from other recruiters about I’ve actually heard that 10% number thrown out And there’s also a lot of people who apply who even outside of not being a fit, they could also be disqualified from knockout questions.
04:40 So if they aren’t located in the right area or might require sponsorship, something like that. And so when you see that huge number, know that a large percentage of applicants are probably not qualified or might not be considered for a different reason.
05:00 And I agree like if you’re if this seems like it’s a very good fit and you’re really interested in it, you should still throw your hat in the ring.
05:10 I see one comment from my view as an applicant, you can only see up to 100 applicants. Yeah, I think like didn’t just change that from like a UI perspective, because I think they got a lot of feedback that people were just applying after a certain number.
05:26 So yeah, I think that’s a good thing that you know, it’s they’ve limited it to a certain amount of use.
05:31 Yeah, that’s a good point and that changes from job board to job board. Yeah, I’ve also heard that for LinkedIn, it’s anybody who clicks apply.
05:43 And so somebody could click apply and not actually submit an application. So that’s just another thing to take into consideration.
05:50 Yeah, when you are applying, what we’re hearing a lot is take the time to answer those questions. I know when you’re doing a lot of applications, it can be kind of a time suck, right?
06:02 But rather than having like a cover letter that you’re using the similar one for multiple jobs, these jobs now are posting requirements that have specific questions around them.
06:13 and a lot of what we’re hearing from our candidates is people are just using like chat GPT, right? So essentially, like copy and paste answers.
06:21 It is so beneficial to put like your exact experience of what they’re looking for in those questions because that really helps people stand out.
06:29 Yep, that makes sense. And quick plug as far as resume and cover letter, if you are looking for help in customizing your resume and cover letter for a specific role, we do help people do that for free at Earn Better.
06:44 So just an option if anybody hasn’t tried to do it or is looking for a tool there. All right, second question.
06:53 Obviously, it’s an employer’s market. There’s a lot of job seekers out there right now struggling. And one question we got was, are you seeing people have to repress in their careers?
07:07 For example, maybe taking what some people might call as like a band-aid role, maybe that means it’s less scope than they’re used to or potentially with a lower salary.
07:19 And yeah, just I guess anything that you’re seeing on that. Yeah, and this will tie into like the next topic a little bit as well, but I’ve been seeing a lot of this because of return to office policies, right?
07:34 Where, I mean, we all did it, you know, a number of years ago, we all, some of us, right, were who were in expensive areas, California and New York, wherever, moved to areas that were more affordable, right?
07:46 And with that, they want to maintain those areas, they have families in those areas. So we’ve seen a lot of folks who have taken those positions be open to taking a step back with having the flexibility of remote, right?
08:01 But it’s also a scenario where, you know, there’s been a lot of layoffs, it doesn’t have to be the big companies that small companies running out of funding, whatever it may be, and other people are in a little bit more of a dire situation.
08:12 So that is another thing where we have seen folks take a step back. And but companies have also been really flexible, like we’ve worked with a couple of, you know, really great clients who are like they’ll post a role for a manager, right?
08:26 we’ve submitted Senior Manager candidates. And even though the Senior Manager candidates were willing to take that step back, the companies, well, we’ve seen are doing some great things when it comes to bringing the rules up, bringing the expectations from a salary perspective up.
08:40 Obviously, that is a couple of handful of examples there, but we have seen some companies getting really creative in how they’re matching the candidates’ expectations as well.
08:51 That’s super helpful context. And yeah, I agree there’s a couple different buckets here and for people who, you know, maybe have been looking for a job for a while and are considering taking something that might be, you know, with less scope or with a lower salary, the job search is really personal and
09:11 it all depends on like what you need and what you’re looking for. And if you need to take a certain job to kind of get you from point A to point B, that’s totally up to you.
09:21 And like nobody else should be like judgemental about that. A lot of people during the pandemic picked up different service jobs or might have, you know, done something in retail to help hold them over.
09:32 And I think if you do that, because one another question we’ve gotten is, will I be judged in the future for, you know, taking a quote-unquote step back, even though it was something that I just needed to do to kind of make ends meet.
09:45 And I think everybody, after the last few years, understands that there’s no one who hasn’t been impacted by, you know, what’s happened in the job market in the past few years.
10:00 And so I think hiring managers are more and more open and flexible on that. Would you agree? Oh, yeah, if you’re comparing this to like 2019, right, when people had, you know, layoffs, gaps, and resumes, there was always, you know, you had to really dig in and get on, you know, a whole story for the 
10:16 hiring manager, essentially, and now, I mean, it’s just you had COVID, and then you had like the mass hiring, and then with the hiring companies, obviously hired a little too much, and then they did these layoffs.
10:28 So now it’s more something where companies are really understanding, which, you know, there’s really great candidates out there. So they’re willing to, I don’t say willing, that’s the wrong word.
10:38 There are a lot more open when it comes to seeing these gaps in the resumes because they understand that it’s been really challenging for the last three years because people have taken risk.
10:46 The startup space is something that exploded three years ago and a lot of those companies unfortunately didn’t work out. So yeah, it’s one of those things where hiring managers are very open.
10:56 Totally. And nobody is immune to layoffs. I know some of the most talented, amazing professionals who have been laid off, and some of them more than once, and it has nothing to do with their performance, or them as an employee.
11:16 So that’s just become part of the norm. So it’s where, you know, as long as, you know, people have, these people have these great track records, these really good companies doing great things.
11:32 So as long as that’s presented in the resume, which will dive into a little bit later of like a tip when you’re applying, that’s the big thing that will stand out at ready thing.
11:42 Before I move on to the next topic, I see a comment from Tanya that says that is, is or isn’t.
11:50 So Tanya, if you could just opine on what the comment is, we can get to that. And in the meantime, I’ll move on to the next question.
12:00 Okay, so what’s happening with Return to Office or as some people refer to it, RTO, and what are your thoughts there?
12:09 Yeah, I mean, this really depends on this is kind of a controversial topic right now, right? Because coming back to the mass hiring that happened two or three years ago, I think what’s happening now is every company is trying to become like a lean mean machine, right, when it comes to some of these larger
12:28 organizations that had some folks sitting on the bench. So I think a return office for some of these organizations is a way for them to either have people find new positions, right, and get the people back into that area where they’re coming into the office.
12:46 They obviously pay these big real estate investments, right? So it’s something where I think that’s a major reason driving some of the larger shifts for return office.
12:58 Return office for newer grads and newer positions, I think are really beneficial, right? In some areas, especially from a networking perspective, I’m a big fan of like you grow so much as an early candidate being in office This is important, but for some of the season folks, it’s a different situation
13:19 where it gives you more flexibility to be more efficient. You can flex the work hours around, like some person things to really be the best you can in a position.
13:30 So yeah, it’s really interesting. And it’s something where we see a lot of startups getting more competitive when they’re giving those flexibility, when they’re giving the flexibility to be remote.
13:42 It’s something where these larger organizations that are doing return to office. It’s something where they are a lot more aggressive when it comes to the compensation, but kind of as we touched on last time, having that flexibility has been something that stood out for a lot of these candidates and been
13:58 able to get some smaller organizations that typically wouldn’t stand out to really great people. Yeah, that makes sense. And I do think it is kind of tale of two cities, and there’s some people who enjoy being in the office, and that’s where they thrive, and they enjoy the in-person interaction and collaboration
14:20 . And then there’s some people who are like, I’ve been doing this successfully for three or four years, so it kind of feels like a slap on the wrist.
14:27 So like I totally understand where both of those come from. And it’s funny you mentioned about the kind of like more recent grads.
14:34 I was talking to someone just a few weeks ago, not exactly, I don’t know, it’s exact age, I think around 25 or 26, and he’s never worked in an office.
14:43 And he was like, I really want to work in an office. Like maybe not five days. Yeah, and he was like, maybe not five days a week, but I feel like there’s so much I could learn and there’s a lot about corporate life that I feel like I’ve missed out on because I have never been in an office environment
15:00 . So it’s interesting to think that there’s people who have never worked in an office. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there’s so much you learn and pick up on.
15:08 It’s like some of my best mentors were people who, like, I literally sat right next to them and, you know, picking up those skills is something that I would never take.
15:18 I am fully remote now, but I do miss, you know, going to the office and getting some face time. Yeah, that’s how I’m fully remote now as well.
15:25 And my old role was hybrid. And so you could choose a few days to go in each week. And I like that setup because you got some in-person interaction and then on the days that you needed it, you could be remote, which I think is a good mix, but I can understand why folks that have been remote are fully
15:45 remote and are being asked to RTO relatively quickly. Like I saw one, I think it was last week Dale gave people like less than a week to return to office, which it’s like a lot of parents were in a tizzy, like trying to figure out like after school care.
16:00 I can totally understand why some of those are not as well received. Oh, yeah. I mean, how do you uproot everything in a week?
16:07 It’s impossible. Yeah. Totally. All right. And then let’s see, I think I saw, so Tanya came back, oh, okay, I see the question now.
16:20 So when we were talking about people being a little bit more empathetic about resume gaps, she says that’s not what she’s been encountering.
16:29 because she has a two year gap and it has not been received well. I guess any advice do you for folks that might have resume gaps on like best way to address those or like any tips on like how to potentially like is there a way to incorporate that on the resume or cover letter.
16:53 Yeah, that’s something where I think the cover letter is more important and then if you’re just applying expressing excitement about a role, right?
17:02 Because inherently that’s what a lot of cover letters end up reading like. So to use the cover letter to explain not only how you were matched for the role, but also how you do have gaps in your resume and whether it was for personal reasons or the companies you were working at didn’t work out, that’s
17:21 something that stands out a lot more, or I would say and helps just on paper show that, okay, like I just didn’t step away for no reason, right?
17:30 There was some purpose right behind it. Yeah, and I’ve also heard from some recruiters, you know, if you’ve been doing anything during your gap that you could highlight as far as like building transferable skills for volunteer work or project work or anything that could highlight what you’ve been doing
17:52 during that period could also be helpful. Yeah, because after layoffs, like I’ve talked to a number of candidates who have taken personal time because we all, you know, work hard, right?
18:03 It’s pretty rare you get to spend some time with your family, and that’s fine, right? There’s nothing wrong with that, but you’re just communicating like, hey, I’m staying fresh up on skills, right?
18:12 If you’re an engineer going through like certifications, whether, you know, whatever it may be, right? It always shows, or working on personal projects, right?
18:20 There’s always ways that you can communicate that through just like a quick cover letter. Yeah, totally. Before I go to the next question, we’ve gotten a few more comments.
18:28 I’m just going to keep rolling with the live Q&A if that works for you. Let’s do it. OK, so next question is from Matthew.
18:37 Do you feel like RTO equals silent dismissal? You kind of touched on this. Yes, no, it just depends the company.
18:47 I yeah, I think some companies that is the case, but others, I don’t think so. I totally agree. I think in some cases, they’re hoping for some folks to sort of self-select out.
19:02 And then in other cases, you know, they’re making it for like legitimate business cases. I think that kind of spans the gamut.
19:10 Yeah. Next one is from Kevin, interested in hearing your view on the health of the tech job market, especially for more senior roles.
19:19 And what you’re hearing from clients on hiring now versus waiting until early 2025, that’s a good question. Yeah, no, great question.
19:29 I mean, things that picked up a lot for us in general, I mean, the beginning of the year was really slow to say the least.
19:36 It was one of those markets where we were really only working on extremely niche challenging roles. But over the last, I don’t know, like two or three months, we’ve been really busy specifically with like manager through like VPC TO rules.
19:52 That’s something that’s been picking up a lot because I think what you saw happen with the layoffs is there were a lot of edits to the middle management layer and now that companies are doing a gut check and saying like oh this is where we need support, it’s at those levels so it’s something where we’ve
20:07 seen a lot of growth in those areas. So I think as they’re obviously this is like Q4 planning session right now so as companies are getting those hiring plans down for 2025.
20:17 It’s going to be something where we see it tick up a lot more across the next couple of months. Thanks.
20:22 That’s good to hear. All right. We’ll typically have one more. Well, it’s not necessarily a question. Just a comment. Someone’s been looking for 13 months and is now starting to be questioned about her gap.
20:39 So assuming that, you know, earlier in her search, she wasn’t being asked about that, but once she hit a certain point, people have been starting to ask.
20:51 I guess that actually ties in nicely to our last topic is like, you know, it is a really tough job market.
20:58 It’s really challenging. I talk to people all the time who have been on the search for 12 to 18 months, sometimes longer.
21:06 are any tips for staying motivated in a market like this? Yeah, I mean, nobody takes rejection well at all. We’re not built for that, right?
21:18 That takes a very unique personality, but yeah, it’s something where in a market like this, it’s unfortunate like is a numbers game, right?
21:26 But you just have to keep at it, right? So, you don’t wanna make it your entire day, like carve out an hour or two a day to do those job applications of them do things that are not focused as much on that, because if you focus on it 24-7, it’s going to get exhausting.
21:44 And then when it comes to ways to just make it different, reach out to recruiters, there’s recruiting spaces for everything.
21:55 This is a market where you, if you have a focus area in something, find either an external company, it’s like mine, right that we have like a cyber security arm, a data arm, an engineering arm, right, that we essentially find really good people and will help them get new positions.
22:13 We don’t have to be actively working on a role, right? That’s kind of how the external recruiting market works sometimes.
22:18 But it’s also something where like go to networking events, reach out to recruiters. You can set notifications on Google for like companies that array series funding, companies that are hiring a specific focus area, right?
22:35 So there’s different ways to look at the job market rather than just like day and every day, you know, typing in front-end job script engineer, whatever it may be, right?
22:46 But the networking events have been really successful for clients I’ve seen because you’re getting in front of people, you’re not just a resume, right?
22:52 It’s been helpful. And there’s a ton if you just go and Google and type in like tech, we’re networking events and whatever city you are.
23:00 I love that, really good and lots of good tactical advice. And yeah, I agree. Like it’s hard not to lose motivation.
23:10 And again, I talk to job seekers every day. And you know, you just have to, you can’t give up, don’t give up hope.
23:16 And I totally agree on the other point you made Bruce about doing stuff outside of your job search. If you try to just job search 10 to 12 hours every day, you’re going to you’re going to go crazy.
23:30 So you got to make sure that you’re making room for things outside the job search whether just walking your dog or getting a coffee with a friend or catching up with somebody hanging out with your kids whatever it is that you that you want to do in your free time but make sure that you’re making time
23:49 for yourself outside of the job search. And then yeah lean on your network and I’m sure a lot of people are already doing that that are in the job search, but if you haven’t yet, you’d be surprised by how much people want to help, especially in today’s market.
24:06 And it could be that person that you’re asking for help, they might need help in six months. And so it’s kind of like a pay-it-forward mentality.
24:15 The only thing I suggest when you’re trying to network is just remember that it’s a two-way street so however you’re approaching it and I’m sure for people who are doing this they’re already keeping this in mind but you know letting the person know that you know you’d love to pay it forward or do them
24:34 a favor in the future whenever you can that’s the only thing I feel the other advice I’d add on the networking piece yeah no it’s great advice and going back to like the number of applicants per job right like recruiting teams more than ever I feel like have also been really like heavily affected by 
24:52 layoffs. So if there are a lot of applications and you are a good fit, you know, there’s nothing wrong with adding a recruiter on like then paying them, saying like, hey, there’s some of applications, you know, just wanted to, the X YZ reason I’m a fit, you know, and that goes a long way as well.
25:07 Totally. I was just hiring for a contractor role and two things that stood out, you know, somebody followed up with me and, you know, So really in-depth outside of a cover letter, they followed up via email a couple of days later, explained why they’d be a good fit, and actually included a link to like
25:28 a short video they made, which I thought was like interesting and kind of outside of the box. And then a second person actually included a letter of recommendation from their former supervisor.
25:42 And so there’s a lot of, I’m not saying that you should, everybody should start going to do both of those things.
25:47 But I just, I bring those up as two things that like, I looked at those candidates profiles and they definitely like, it helps them stand out.
25:56 So if it’s a role that you’re really interested in kind of thinking outside of the box of how you can stand out to that recruiter hiring manager, yeah, get creative.
26:06 There’s nothing wrong with that. One looks like we have another question. So Steven’s asking, I’ve been experiencing companies ghosting me after interviews.
26:16 is this something others are experiencing? We hear that a lot. I think there’s like a couple of reasons for that.
26:25 I don’t think it’s anybody’s intention to ever do it. It comes back to like some, and this is not the case, right?
26:32 Kind of playing Devils Outkit, but it’s like these recruiting teams, like sometimes there’s like two recruiters working on like 15, 20 roles and it should never be a case where, you know, you don’t get feedback or anything like that, but some companies are, you know, going through a time where the recruiting
26:46 team has stressed a lot, so we’ve seen it, we’ve heard it a ton. It’s just something where like on your end, if you’re not getting feedback, you know, I always recommend just paying like the recruiter you were working with, obviously like a hiring manager, that goes back to like follow ups when you’re
27:05 thinking about the follow ups after the, like each interview you do, right? If you’re consistently emailing with the recruiter and hiring manager, usually that helps that feedback loop a little more than just waiting for the feedback in a market like this where applications are just going crazy.
27:22 Yeah, a couple of things I would add to Stephen, I don’t know if this makes you feel better or worse, but I was doing one of these, I see they’re last week or the week before, but we saw a few comments in the same vein, so you’re not alone and you’re not the only one that this is happening to, it’s very
27:40 unfortunate. I agree with Bruce following up with the recruiter or hiring manager and asking for an update. One reason you might not be getting explicit feedback is a lot of companies have policies where they don’t give feedback to candidates for legal reasons because they don’t want to open themselves
27:59 up to liability. So that might be why you’re not getting specific feedback as to why you aren’t being moved forward, but that does not explain why somebody wouldn’t be closing the loop.
28:11 you should at least have an update that you’re they’re not moving forward with you. So if you’re not even getting that level of information, that’s extremely unfortunate.
28:21 It could be that maybe they’re in a holding pattern or they’re waiting for a few more people to go through the interview cycle before they make a decision.
28:29 But again, that would only excuse you waiting for maybe a week or two if it’s longer than that. I feel like that’s not a good sign.
28:39 And honestly, could be an indication that it’s not somewhere where you ultimately want it end up. Yeah. I agree. All right.
28:48 Well, Bruce, I’m looking through the comments and I don’t see any other ones. We’re almost at time before we close it out, any other closing remarks or anything else you want to say to the group?
29:03 Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a lot of people obviously are. It sounds like even though there have been questions about gaps and resumes, all that.
29:11 It seems like people are getting interviews, but it’s one of those things where, you know, have a, be as targeted as possible, tailored to the resume as best as you can, like earn better, work with them in the past closely to do a great job, but they’re a platform to help get around some of these new
29:30 , like, AI toolings, they can help you really focus focus in on some of the keywords that they’re looking for. That’s a lot more than that, right?
29:36 But, you know, just a great experience with them. And yeah, just keep, you know, it’s a numbers game at the end of the day and you’re going to find a good company.
29:44 Things are picking up from what we’re seeing in the external market, which means usually really good things, right, coming up until next year.
29:54 Awesome. Well, we’ll end on a high note and thank you again so much Bruce for your time.