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 |
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| Extended list to 38 countries | Sorted |
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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, 4 countries published more job ads on LinkedIn than in Week 13: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Ukraine.
Index36: 50% of the countries published more job ads in Week 48 than in Week 15, which is a 3% decrease from last week. 39% of the countries published more job ads this week than last week – a decrease of 13% compared to Week 47.
The European Union: In Week 48, the European Union noted a +0.55% increase: 21,302 more job ads were published than in the initial Week 17. Since last week, it’s a -14.71% decrease.
Winners of the week: When it comes to regions, the winning result of Week 48 belongs to DACH: we observed an increase of +12.47% since last Week 47 (186,395 job ads more). Country-wise, Iceland is the winner with an increase of +40.23%.
Losers of the week: In Week 48, the worst result out of all the regions was noted in Southeastern Europe: a -17.81% decrease and 5,202 job ads less than in the initial Week 15. Worst country result: Slovenia with a 46.35% decrease and -260 job ads.
Collected Quotes from CEOs and HR Directors:
The vast majority of executives are with market leaders in their respective industries. By default, the board members are members of local boards; if not, we’ll indicate the exception.
Production: I am working only from home. We are digitizing our processes. A lot of projects have been suspended.
FMCG: Sales are not great, we have experienced big losses. There have been mass layoffs, many positions were eliminated.
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 Bichl.Sandra@CareerAngels.eu 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 47
Week 46
Week 45
Week 44
Week 43
Week 42
Week 41
Week 40
Week 39
Week 38
Week 37
Week 36
Week 35
Week 34
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
