Is this the beginning of the end?!

Resources of the Week

1. Nearly 500 jobs on the job board here!

2. LinkedIn shared this list of their Top 50 Startups. I haven’t heard of a lot of these and that’s usually a good sign that others haven’t either, and therefore, these could be great places to apply! Start-ups can be risky and pay can be a bit lower but they often make up for it with equity, and if things go well, your early contributions can pay off big in the future!

3. Great point from Erin Riska around clarifying your intentions around seeking a full time job if you’re also doing consulting work!

4. And support one of our sponsors by checking out 1440 Media - a source that does it’s best to provide truly neutral, unbiased news. Giving them a click costs you nothing, but helps me have good click-thru rates so I can keep getting sponsors. 🙂 

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The End of an Era?

Last week, Amazon made headlines when they announced they expect employees to return to the office 5-days a week and people are NOT happy about it.

Shortly after the announcement, several other companies followed suit.

A couple of things this got me thinking about:

1. I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon employees ARE more productive in an office environment. As a company, they were not built to operate remotely and had to scramble to make this work for many roles. And as one of the largest companies in the world, I’m sure this was no small feat.

2. Of course there are other reasons a company may want to make this shift - they could have commitments to bring people (and money!) into a community where they made a commitment in exchange for tax breaks when building their offices.

3. And I know many of you have seen the narrative around this being a form of “quiet layoffs” - designed to get people to leave. I don’t have enough knowledge to speak to that, but I do know that if this is true, then it’s further evidence that layoffs have nothing to do with performance and should not be held against candidates/something to be ashamed of!

What makes operating as a remote company so complicated?

1. Infrastructure: everything from communication and collaboration to data security and offsite access can be more challenging. Of course this can be overcome but not every company may want to invest in building this - and for some kinds of really sensitive work, it may not make sense.

2. Talent: a giant company who did not hire people to operate and manage in a remote environment may not have the right talent to successfully operate remote which could lead to performance challenges for employees who were previously scheduled. People can absolutely be upskilled, but if a company doesn’t otherwise see much benefit to being remote, then they may not have an incentive to do this.

3. Tax/labor law implications: policies vary by state/country, and the more distributed a company is, the more the more complex managing that workforce becomes. Typing people to offices can make this a lot easier.

Again, all of these CAN be overcome, but if a company doesn’t see much upside to it, they may not want to. Most companies change when it hurts - so unless they are struggling to hire great talent or seeing greater productivity from remote workers, they may not have a reason to tackle these challenges.

I DO also think companies will take a hit in areas like diversity which is shown to improve outcomes (I linked some articles in the comments of my post yesterday on this topic!)

So what do you do to avoid an RTO in a new role?

I’ll be hones that for folks hired to work onsite/hybrid who then got to work remote due to the pandemic, I don’t think an RTO should be a surprise. I think it' was risky to assume they could remain remote.

But for those hired with the understanding that they’d be remote, this is an understandable frustration and feels really unfair.

Things I’d do to try to minimize the chances:

1. Prioritize companies who pride themselves as being “remote first” or “remote native”. When it’s built into the culture, it’s less likely to change.

2. Ask! You can always note that you know a lot of companies are returning to the office, and you’re curious what the company’s intentions are as you were really interested due to the position being remote.

3. You can also consider having this written into your offer letter to increase your chances of making a strong case for exemption should the company decide to RTO.

🙋Answering Your Questions🙋

Each week, I’ll answer one (or more!) of your questions in this section. You can submit your questions here.

I will offer the caveat that with how many layoffs recruiting has experienced in the last few years, this is a HIGHLY competitive field. I know many really fantastic folks who have been on the market for over a year, so for folks with no experience, this can be a really tough time to enter the field.

I would also note that the primary job of a recruiter isn’t to find jobs for people, it’s to find people for jobs, and often the role is really heavily about developing and managing processes. In some companies, recruiters really just manage the process in a very tactical way. In others, they may focus more on employer branding and talent attraction and can be more relationship-oriented. I would talk with the team to understand how they operate!

In terms of getting into the field, a few options:

1. If you’re currently employed, explore opportunities to transition internally. You may be able to lend some support to the team or they might be willing to take on someone who really knows the profiles of what it takes to be successful even if they don’t have recruiting experience. Back when I worked in education, almost all of our recruiters were former teachers with no recruiting experience!

2. Many people start off in a recruiting as a recruiting coordinator or a sourcer working alongside full-cycle recruiters so they focus more on either the logistics of the hiring process, or on researching the talent market and connecting with strong prospects for roles. Over time, they can take on work that involves other parts of recruiting like building processes, working with hiring managers, negotiating offers, etc.

3. Many people get started in contract roles through companies like Randstad or Adecco. An advantage here is that interview processes are typically shorter, and you could potentially learn a few industries through shorter contracts.

4. You may also start off looking at agencies. Often your compensation is heavily commission-based, or where you may start off on the sales/biz dev side of an agency before moving to the recruiting side, but with many companies scaling back on hiring their own in-house recruiting teams, agencies can pick up more work and be more willing to bring on people who need some training.

5. Finally focus on industries you have experience in already since your industry experience will be a value-add, or industries that are currently hiring a lot since they are most likely to need recruiting support soon (the JOLTS report can be helpful!)
   
   

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