Wishful Hiring

I talk to a lot of different folks around Silicon Valley - startup founders, hiring managers from companies large and small, and of course candidates from all walks of life from code jockeys to sales wizards.  Lately when the topic of hiring comes up, I've been hearing two basic assumptions repeated over and over: 1) with the economic maelstrom raging around us there must be some very nice talent sitting idly by, which in turn means... 2)  any opening can be filled very quickly and painlessly.  

Two recent experiences of mine suggest that neither of these is really the case and that even when assumption 1 holds somewhat true, it may in fact cause assumption 2 to be dead wrong...

I recently advertised for an agency style Account Director for a client.  8 or 9 months ago (you know - the good old days) I got 25 responses for a similar role.  Today's version produced over 90.  Of those, I engaged in meaningful conversations (multiple phone calls, emails, etc) with about 18, compared to maybe 7 a year ago.  

So yes, there do seem to be considerably more ADs on the market, and yes we had more "persons of interest" to look at.  But the ratio of quality to noise stayed about the same, or possibly even decreased.  And that means that the process is actually longer and more complex. Think about it - to do the proper diligence on this role today meant looking at over 3x as many resumes and spending at least twice as much time on the phone as I did last year.  And that longer process is also more complicated because I'm comparing more moving parts in order to reach the right decisions.

I've also been looking for Web Developers for a couple of other clients and I can tell you that market doesn't look to have changed at all.  It was tough to find good web devs a year ago, and it's tough now.  I've had the same paltry response, and  the same static in the response (graphic designers, sys admins, out of work mortgage brokers), meaning it could take some real time (and much digging) to find the right person.  Which is how it's always been.

So if you come across this magical place I keep hearing about where "A players" beg to join your team and a startup can fill all their needs in 20 minutes just by opening email, let me know.  And save me a bite of the candy-coated rainbow...