If you wish to showcase your experience and expertise, participate in industry-leading discussions, and add visibility and impact to your personal brand and business, get in touch with the Techronicler team to feature in our fast-growing publication
The tech landscape is shifting, and amidst the headlines of layoffs, a silver lining emerges for startups.
Could this be the chance for smaller companies to snag top-tier talent previously out of reach?
We join leaders across industries as they explore the potential of this unique hiring opportunity and what it means for both tech professionals and the businesses eager to grow.
Read on!
Kristin LaSalle
No! I do not think tech professionals being laid off will help the Startup landscape and ego system and here is why.
Startups are bootstrapping and yes, these tech professionals will apply, but can the startups afford them when the investment firms are not funding us properly? They want a solid revenue stream and no risk, which is impossible with this volatile economy and market.
Tech professionals, even if they cut their pay and worth in half, are still too much for most startups to employ. The only startups that will employ these laid off techies will be well backed and VC funded startups and are they even considered Startups at this point so let’s be real .
I do, however, think this will change the landscape with bigger corporations and tech companies merging or acquiring smaller successful startups to run and outsource the work and manage their own smaller proven teams to implement product solutions and new technologies together.
Also many of the laid off techies might get together with their team members who got laid off and build their own startups, but remember, only 1 to 2 % will make it and they need at least 1M in seed or savings to even attempt this.
The recent wave of tech layoffs has opened up a valuable talent pool for startups that are looking for experienced professionals.
From a mid tier organization perspective, this opens up the opportunity to attract top-tier talent who were only open to working with tier 1 organizations.
As these professionals bring rich experience, technical skills, and innovative thinking ability, it can be easily transferred to other team members. This has the effect of immediately upskilling the entire workforce.
The tech bubble was always going to burst at some point, and yes, I do believe this is not a setback, but an opportunity that’s going to shake up a lot of the tech giants.
All these guys that got laid off from their corporate jobs now have the perfect excuse and the time to finally start the small business they always dreamed of.
They’re going to partner up, they’re going to attract funding for side projects, we’re going to see a lot of innovation and disruption in this space.
Honestly, I’m super excited to see some competition heat up.
I see the recent wave of mass layoffs in the tech industry as a significant opportunity for startups.
From my perspective, finding and securing experienced professionals is a notable challenge, particularly for many startups in their nascent stages. This difficulty often arises from limited resources, the intense level of commitment needed to succeed, and the fierce competition with other companies for the same pool of talent.
I firmly believe that experienced professionals are the driving force behind innovation and growth. They are essentially the foundation upon which the success of a startup is built.
In my view, without such exceptional talent, achieving any meaningful progress becomes exponentially more difficult.
While there’s certainly an influx in talent across the market, I think the real opportunity caused by the layoffs is challenger brands.
As a brand strategist working with startups and small businesses across the US and AU, I’m having a lot more discussions than I ever have with individuals and partners in the tech space. Many of whom had been victims of the layoffs and, rather than jumping back into the market, are looking to build something of their own to challenge what’s already there.
So the changes in the startup ecosystem are twofold. There’s a lot of great talent active in the market, and there’s more ideas than ever turning into new startups.
I always prefer to argue with stats, but this one is a hard case, as there is no good analytics yet for the topic, so I will share at least experience and what I encountered for the last 1.5 years.
First of all, start-ups mostly froze hiring and that was due mostly to lack of investments. As soon as some positions were opened, most candidates were still from a middle range, as usually start-ups don’t pay as much as big players, who did all the lay-offs. In the last year, I saw people accepting “down-shifting” in salary, as they basically had no other choice and created more competition for a small amount of roles.
As I was also applying, what I noticed is that companies mostly were not ready for so many applicants and their weak hiring plan became quite chaotic. At first they try to go for “a perfect” candidate. Then they realize that they don’t know themselves who the perfect candidate is, but they already filtered-out 100-300 candidates, so they change requirements and start over. I see that companies start to take more time to give feedback, accumulating results from other interviews. That can last for 1-3 weeks.
So overall companies got more choice from candidates, and even if they are able to find them quickly, they mostly still spend time due to the non-reliable process they create themselves.
In terms of quality. I can’t confirm that the quality of candidates has changed. It seems that most laid off people are overall the same quality as those who already were on the market.
So basically it is still hard to find experienced professionals even in an increased pool of candidates.
The way I see it, even with the not so recent shift in talent acquisition, emphasizing more of talent and skill over experience in the workplace, I can say from my experience managing a startup, that the relevance and benefit of having experienced talents amongst your workforce, especially as a startup, can not be ignored. So yes, I believe it is true that the mass layoff in tech, paradoxically creates a talent pool of experienced professionals that could be beneficial for startups.
Job security has always been a priority for employees, especially when their financial sustainability largely depends on their job. So indeed, getting laid off can be quite challenging to navigate, especially given the fact that this may force them to question their career choices, their effectiveness and productivity as employees. However, this experience could also lead them to exploring and discovering other industries where their talent is best suited. Though adapting may initially be difficult.
The latest round of layoffs within the technology sector is also indeed filling a vacuum of highly qualified and skilled talent for startups. These people usually have some work experience as they have spent a number of years at large technology corporations where they have mastered sophisticated skills.
This is a unique chance for the start up companies since they are now able to get the best professionals that may have otherwise been impossible to get.
Nonetheless, for tech workers, this direction also has its pitfalls as well as rewards.
Adjusting to the new model of a startup might be too taxing for some and others might be more tempted by the rewarding projects due within a more geared organization.
My view, long term effects will be that the job market becomes more fluid with expanding employment options for tech skills from tech professionals as well as tech savvy individuals in startups.
The Techronicler team thanks these leaders for taking the time to share their valuable insights on polyworking.
If you wish to showcase your experience and expertise, participate in industry-leading discussions, and add visibility and impact to your personal brand and business, get in touch with the Techronicler team to feature in our fast-growing publication.
