Hiring Trends: A 2024 Snapshot (Part 1)

In recent years, the hiring landscape has undergone a whirlwind of changes—from the hiring boom of 2021 to a wave of layoffs, culminating in a shift towards more sustainable growth strategies. This dramatic journey from rapid expansion to a focus on responsible growth has left many wondering, what the heck is going to happen next.

In this episode, we sit down with Jaycie Bruder, CEO and Founder of Monarch Search, who brings unparalleled insights into the hiring industry. We've teamed up with Jaycie for a compelling two-part series to dissect the past, present, and what lies ahead. Armed with the latest stats, trends, and expert analyses, we'll equip you with everything you need to navigate the upcoming year—all in less than 30 minutes.

Tune into Part 1 now to get great insights into the evolving dynamics of the job market and everything you need to know in 2024.

Discover hiring insights with other leaders on The Talent GTM podcast. If today’s conversation piques your interest subscribe to our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or our website, and never miss an episode. Together, let's master the art of GTM leadership and hiring practices. #TalentGTM

Transcript

Krissy: Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Talent GTM podcast. I'm your host, Krissy Manzano, co-founder and CEO of Blueprint Expansion. And today I have a guest that has been just amazing, does in partnership, developing friendships, and we just really learned so much from and excited. In regards to the topics we're going to be going over, and that's Jaycie Bruder from Monarch Search. So Jaycie, welcome!

Jaycie: Hi Krissy, so good to see you and thank you so so much for having me. It was a goal of mine for this year to do more podcasts, so three weeks in I'm knocking them out thanks to you.

Krissy: Well, I'm always glad that I can help with some podcast goals. I need help as well, so, even doing this. But, before we get into our topics and, and series, why don't you, just give us a little bit of background about what you do and where you come from.

Jaycie: Yeah, of course. Hey everyone, I'm Jaycie. Like Krissy said, I am the founder here at Monarch Search. My focus is helping founders of Seed through Series B companies hire sales, marketing, and CS leadership roles, as well as founding individual contributor roles. I started my business back in May of 2023 after nearly three years at Candidate Labs, there I was one of the very first recruiters hired, helped the business scale to over 60 employees, hundreds of clients, and really got a taste of what it was like to work at a high growth, VC backed startup like I help place talent at.

Jaycie: So, really excited to share thoughts with everyone here today.

Krissy: Yeah, no, I, feel like every time I talk to you, I learned something even having been in this business for four years. And so, but I'm really excited about 2024 and I think, you know, in, in conversations, it makes sense to, to make this podcast. A two part series. The first one being starting off of just hiring trends and giving that 2024 snapshot of what people can expect, not just from our expertise combined, but also just with data and things that are really showing where hiring is going right that I feel isn't a really, you know, we're in a transitional moment, right of change that is permanent, doesn't mean it won't change from there on out, but it's, it's a big shift. So excited to discuss that with you today.

Jaycie: Yeah, just night and day, honestly, from I think back to last summer and even the start of Q4 last year and where we are today is like I said, just night and day. 

Krissy: 100 percent. 

Jaycie: We would not be on this podcast. We'd probably on a yacht in Positano or something if we had a crystal ball and could predict everything that was going to happen this year.

Jaycie: But I think it is good to pause and just kind of share what we're hearing. I think recruiters are so unique in that we have such a close pulse on the market from both candidates and clients that I even get asked by folks who've been in the space for 20 years or on the venture side, and they come to us asking for insight. So it's really exciting to dive in here.

Krissy: Yeah, for sure. Well, let's hop right into it. What are the trends that you're seeing right now?

Jaycie: You know, we can break this into two buckets one what's happening with candidates and the other what's happening with companies that are looking to hire, I would say on the candidate side. Interestingly enough, the biggest thing that I'm noticing is just the. The willingness to stay in their roles. Last year, we saw even candidates who weren't laid off just opening themselves up to conversations because of the ups and downs in the market and maybe just their lack of confidence and where their businesses were heading.

Jaycie: I think we're on the other side of that. I think we have seen the candidates that were with companies that had layoffs realize, Hey, okay, things have stabilized a little bit. I know what I'm here to do, and I'm gonna execute. I think that will change, you know, as they get their new comp plans and, quotas and things like that, specifically for salespeople.

Jaycie: But more and more I'm hearing from candidates, like, I'm gonna write it out.

Krissy: Yeah, for sure. in regards to just the great state theme and you talked about some of this, but what are your, your thoughts on what's different this time for them wanting to stay versus maybe in the past where we've gone through a bad market and and layoffs because it feels very different this time..

Jaycie: Yeah. It's such an interesting question. I think the big thing that comes to mind for me is that companies got very real with their employees last year while, you know, finances were in question, runway was in question, their ability to raise financing again. You know, if I think back to 2021, 2022, there was almost this lack of transparency in a lot of businesses with where they were from a financial standpoint.

Jaycie: And truthfully, candidates weren't that curious about it either. They were using headcount and continued growth as a proxy for, cool, if we're hiring, we must be fine. We must not be running out of money or having trouble fundraising. And I think with the conversations that happened around layoffs, candidates, you know, for the first time in a long time, got a true peek under the hood of where their businesses stood. And I think in a good way, that's created a lot of confidence within candidates. 

Krissy: Yeah, no.. I agree. I, I also think that, you know, it's been a really interesting 4 years, right? Where since I've been in the professional world, which really started in 2009, we haven't seen this mass layoff, mass hiring, mass layoff again, some hiring, mass layoff again, all within a span of a few years.

Krissy: And I think there's a lot of whiplash and it's making people care about things that they didn't care about before. You could lay off, you could lay off folks all the time. And there wasn't really any repercussions for it, even if you did it poorly. Right. And now you've got folks that are going, did you all do layoffs?

Krissy: And then did you hire again right away? So it's just built this really like intense culture of not trusting what companies say. So you can say you're a rocket ship. You can say you're well funded, but there's a lot of hesitation because people have said that before. And the minute things get bad, they're the first line of defenses, I'm letting go of people.

Krissy: Right. So, it's interesting where, you know, I think folks have thought or companies, we have all these people in the market. And so there should be all these people to hire, right?

Jaycie: Yeah. Totally. I really agree with you there. The other thing that I'm really noticing, and I think this is true of both candidates and clients, is people are really focused on the hiring process. Candidates, because they want predictability, they want to know what's coming next, they want to know who they're going to be talking to, but on the client side, I, I mean in the last couple of months have gotten more requests than ever in my entire career for, write me out a full interview guide.

Jaycie: What questions should I be asking so that I leave my interview with complete confidence that this candidate can or cannot do the job that we're hiring for? Also a lot more, and this has always maybe been a trend, but I'm seeing even more involvement from the boards, the venture partners, just folks who are kind of on the sidelines of the business being heavily involved in interview processes and overall kind of pipeline of where the search stands.

Krissy: Yeah, no, absolutely. There were in this period of responsible growth, which is really good, by the way.

Jaycie: Hello, we needed it. What took so long?

Krissy: a hundred percent, I know. Right. So I, I echo everything you say we're seeing that. And we've always, I'm excited about that because it's something that we've been preaching, even when we were on the operator side.

Krissy: Right. It's like, look at skills and behaviors, have a great process because hiring shouldn't be a guest. It should be predictable. Yeah. Right. It really is. It's not just a feeling thing. and I think People are caring about that now because it's no longer, I'm going to hire three people, but as long as one works out, it's fine.

Krissy: And then I'll just refill them. It's no, if you hire three people, all three have to work out. And if you're letting go of people, even if you're blaming their performance, whatever people are going to now be looking, you know, at you and the, and the hood of the business you're running and going, what are you doing here?

Krissy: Right? Because we're spending this money. And so. I feel like that's led us into this world of people, not just caring about the process, but also just looking at recruiters. What we're also seeing is like the specialization piece, right? We've always been specialized. I know you have for as long as I've known you always been specialized, right?

Krissy: What you do and not doing, you know, everything but now people are like, when we tell them that I, the response is like, I'm just, Oh, that, that's so great to hear. Yes. Like, that's exactly what I want. And we were not seeing, no one cared about that the way that they should have in 2021 or even the beginning of 2022.

Krissy: It was like, Oh, that's cool. But there's also all these other people, right, that do that as well. And, you know, every other position.

Jaycie: Yeah. I think that's a major shift that I even started to see happening, in the middle to end of last year of like, it used to be great if you could hire one recruiting firm to do all of your placements. Sales, marketing, engineering, ops, whatever it may be. it was easy. You onboarded one recruiting firm, they took over everything. You knew the person. and it was almost a no sway. Kind of set it and forget it. I saw that change so quickly when companies realize we can only hire one person and if we're going to hire one this year, it better be the best possible person on the face of the earth that we can hire for this role.

Jaycie: And that's where I think the specialization of recruiters having not only a deep network, but just a deep understanding of the functional areas and how a candidate of what you're looking for specifically can impact your business beyond just being able to say, Oh, they check a bunch of boxes on LinkedIn.

Jaycie: They have the same titles. They have the years of experience. They must be a good fit. It's so much deeper than that right now, which again, like finally, what took us so long to get here? 

Krissy: Yeah, it's so important. and again, it's, it's great behaviors that have mattered, but I just, I I've always looked at recruiting since entering the industry in late 2020 of it's very, there's a lot of synergies with consulting to it, right? Having actually done some consulting and like when you go and hire consultant to help write your sales playbook or, you know, as an example, right.

Krissy: Or help with your sales team. You're not hiring someone that does it consulting, right? Cause that wouldn't make any sense, even if they're the best in the country. Right. And so it's always been, to me, it's like, why would you be hiring someone that says they do all like, that's not how any company works.

Krissy: To some extent, they can have an end to end solution, but they're still specialized because no one can do it all. And then you wonder why recruiting has such a bad reputation because those types of behaviors and agencies were rewarded for being able to do all those things. Right. But then people, you know, didn't really care or it wasn't enough to go.

Krissy: None of these folks worked out. Right. And I still spent all of these fees. So,

Jaycie: Yeah. Totally.

Krissy: For sure.

Jaycie: It, it's so true but the, the number one thing I tell clients when they're talking to me, interviewing me, I'm interviewing them, seeing if this is a good fit is I tell them, don't work with a recruiter that you wouldn't hire for your own business.

Jaycie: Like, yes, they are acting as this consultant for you, but they are your first line of defense and they have to be a representation of you in the market that you feel good about. It's going to allow you to get candidates that are a good fit amongst really all of the categories, personally, professionally, culture fit.

Jaycie: We could have a whole nother conversation on this, but I think just the, the synergies between the team and the recruiter that you work with is. It's like insanely important in addition to their kind of specialty focus on what you need.

Krissy: Totally, I completely agree. And I think kind of going into one other trend that I see, and I'm interested your take on this is with TA teams. TA teams will always be important for certain state stages of growth, but also just at a certain stage at a company, right? If you have, you know, a hundred employees plus, it makes sense to have someone internal there.

Krissy: But I think just again, with, it's not even just responsible hiring, but needing to make sure that you really get ROI and having very few mistakes and getting the right people. And you're not always hiring, actually having smaller TA teams and bringing in recruiters, you know, seasonally as you need them to help.

Krissy: If, you know, I, someone had made mentioned this word that it flex work, right. Which obviously there's a Difference from it with how you pay for flex work, but it's like, Hey, you don't need to hire full time employees when you were hiring 10 for that. Now you might just need to hire two, right to keep that overhead low, which justifies that cost for when you actually need them. And obviously someone could argue, well, you're a recruiter. Of course you're going to say that. But I genuinely see that actually happening because we're not out of, in a world anymore. Even when I was an operator, it was like, we're, you know, we grew from a zero to a hundred people in a year.

Krissy: That's nuts. Right when I and that's not going to be the same. That was but that was also there was an element of normalcy in that. That's not where we're at anymore. And how things are operating. So curious your your take on that.

Jaycie: I love this conversation. I think it's this idea of recruiting as a service. It's you bring people in for a very specific job when you need them. And in a way it's more cost efficient than having a recruiter on staff who maybe spikes in one area, but isn't able to hire across all functional areas.

Jaycie: You don't have to pay us recruiters benefits or PTO or 401k or anything like that so in a way I think unless you are a later stage company that is hiring talent across multiple different functional areas and have the bandwidth to have specific recruiters for each of those domains.

Jaycie: I don't think it makes sense anymore. you know, I, I do love partnering with clients that have one or two kind of small internal resources because those people can be such an advocate for the process again and just the candidate experience. But I think this is something we're going to continue to see develop in 2024 where, you know, you maybe have a, a coordinator or you know, an early person who is managing both recruiting and people and talent internally, and then the reliance on specialized firms becoming more and more of a focus for folks.

Krissy: 100 percent and you can't see the benefit of hiring specialized firms and then not have specialization, even within your own team. Right? Like that

Jaycie: Yeah.

Krissy: Those things don't compute. Right? so we've talked about kind of the great state with, you know, candidates, the openness to working with recruiting firms and specialized ones from, from clients.

Krissy: And also just what clients are also wanting now, right? They're caring about the interview process and want help with that competency and skill and behavior to make hiring predictable, right? And even what we're seeing with how companies are kind of collaborating with TA teams and recruiters, but the one thing we haven't talked about and probably one of our last talking points is I would be curious on your end is what do you see from your view of what hiring looks like this year as far as teams being built or just, you know, companies growing essentially.

Jaycie: hmm. Again, Krissy, if I had the answer here, I mean, the vacation I would be on, I'm just kidding. Um, you know, I think it's. It's really a tough question to answer because, you know, I think back to six months ago and everything I predicted went out the window, so I, I do think that we will continue to see more and more of a focus on these Like individual contributor that can flex into being a leader, or vice versa, you know, it's the first sales hire, first marketing hire that's being made, we're, we're still going to be asking a lot of those people, maybe not to the extent of we were last year where they were doing, you know, three or four jobs in one, but we are going to be really indexing for the folks that can be, almost,I’m hesitant to say utility players, but I think can maybe flex outside of this specific area that they spike in, a way dangerous enough to know when do we pull the levers on certain areas within my role, I think that's when is it the right time to hire and start building out my team?

Jaycie: So I think this kind of head of level role that we've seen a lot of in the last few years will continue through the end of 2024. But the candidate side. I think it will be really interesting to see how we see compensation trends change, you know, we're still emerging out of the 2021 2022 run up where SaaS companies were paying through the roof for talent, and a lot of that is right sizing finally this year.

Jaycie: There is definite conversations that I have with candidates on a weekly basis around you took your job in 2021. Of course, you have a sky high O. T. E. That's just no longer the reality anymore. and so it will be just kind of interesting to see where we land. And you know, if we do get back to a time where companies are saying, Hey, the investment that we're making in this sales hire or this CS leader, whatever it may be, you know, it is critically important to the business versus, you know, maybe So penny pinching that we, we, we've started to see more recently.

Jaycie: I mean, also I think this is on both sides and, you know, this is the, the hot topic these days across all platforms is. Are we in the office? Are we remote? Are we flying people in? Like, what are we doing and what does work really look like as we focus in on sustainable growth and emerge from the last few years?

Jaycie: If I had to predict what the end of 2024 looks like there, companies are really leaning into the hybrid approach. and that even means hiring folks outside of the geography that you're in and being willing to fly them in. Once a month, twice a quarter, whatever it may be, but I think companies that have a real emphasis on how do we get the best talent for the role at hand will be flexible on location and remote work.

Krissy: Yeah. No, I think, I think that's great insight. And I think it actually will be pretty accurate, 

Jaycie: We'll see. That wouldn't be the worst

Krissy: you'll get that vacation.

Jaycie: We'll see.

Krissy: Yeah. My biggest takeaway from here and kind of wrapping is as we, and we look at all these trends, hiring is still going to continue to be really hard.

Krissy: It doesn't matter how many people are looking for jobs because what the skills and behaviors that you need are very specific and specialized for the role it. You no longer can just have a quota and work at a SAS company. As an example in sales. it has to be more than that. and so it's making sure that you actually have a process that the companies that have the process.

Krissy: And it take the time to understand their ideal candidate profile are going to be the ones that come out on top in 2024. and the ones that, and that court their candidates, right? and they're going to reap the rewards from seeing people not just stay, but perform, right? and, and actually caring about hiring versus caring about after they're hired.

Krissy: Right. It's going to force people to, you know, last thing, like if you're hiring an enterprise rep, we hear all the time, we're not going to know if they're going to be successful until a year. And that's the wrong, what you should know within 90 days. Are they like, what are your KPIs that you're tracking?

Krissy: Even, even, you know, four or five months, what are you tracking to make sure this one's doing the right thing? Activity that's going to lead them to those results versus waiting to see if they get the results or not. Right. And so I think it's going to help actually make the workplace more sustainable.

Krissy: And then again, to your point with hybrid hybrids, the future, the big question mark is how different is hybrid amongst companies, right? Is it once a month? Is it twice a week? You know, what does that look like? And that's still to be determined. but all that to say, I think this is a great change and the ones that embrace it, are going to do well.

Krissy: And, and be ahead of the curve. So excited to see where we land. We'll have to, we'll have to do a, a follow up to this at the end of the year

Jaycie: A retro in December.

Krissy: Were right.

Jaycie: I, I love that idea. Yeah, I, I, I agree on, on so many points. It's, it's going to be a very fun year. I it's what I hear from, from sales leaders, from founders, from recruiters. Everyone is kind of buckled up for what's to come. And that's the hallmark of being startup people.

Jaycie: We roll with the punches and have fun no matter what's going on.

Krissy: Yes, a hundred percent. If we could just have one year of executing and not complete turmoil, at least on the business side of what's happened these past four years, that would be fantastic. But I think it's going to be an excellent year too. So all right, well that's all the time that we have today, but if you enjoyed this episode, definitely check out our next one called Optimizing your Recruiting Partnerships in 2024, where we go into depth of all the things you should be looking at, of how to best utilize your recruiting partners and collaborate them to make sure that you don't just get the right hires, but that hiring becomes predictable and is no longer a guess.

Krissy: So until next time, we'll see you later. Thanks, Jaycie. 

Jaycie: Thanks, Krissy.