If you've ever been curious about what a candidate’s market looks like, there's never been a clearer example than what we’re seeing now. The most recent jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed an all-time high of 9.2 million open jobs in the U.S. That is a lot of jobs. In fact, it’s roughly 33% higher than any pre-pandemic number and represents significant increase in labor market demand. Simply put, there are far more jobs than candidates available.  To further put this into perspective, in May alone there were just 5.9 million hires made, leaving 3.4 million jobs unfilled. Plus, there were 5.3 million separations—part of the buzzy “Great Resignation” you may have heard about. So, what’s going on? Lots of things. There are many economic, personal, global and pandemic-induced reasons why these numbers are so high. Diagnosing those is not our area of expertise, however. The question that we at Horizontal Talent can…

We’re in the final stretch of Fiscal Year 2020. While the U.S. economy is still in recovery mode, the hiring outlook has improved and 20% of firms are planning to increase staff in the fourth quarter. During this season, businesses are often focused on year-end initiatives and exhausting project budgets before the calendar resets.  But with the COVID-19 pandemic still ongoing, firms must tread carefully as they figure out how to spend remaining budget and execute projects before 2021. But with challenge comes opportunity — and supplementing your workforce with contractors can be a great way for you to allocate budget and ramp…

As a wise man once said, the only constant in life is change. Today’s business climate is certainly fickle — more than 90% of executives expect the fallout from COVID-19 to fundamentally change the way they operate over the next five years. Beyond the pandemic, civil unrest and the upcoming presidential election threaten to shake up the economy and intensify an already challenging fiscal year.  Despite these lingering concerns, hope is on the horizon. In June, the economy added a record 4.8 million jobs, while the unemployment rate dropped to 11%.  As the economy begins to stabilize, many business leaders are trading doom and…

What a difference a month makes. It wasn’t long ago that the economy was booming, with more open positions than there was talent to fill them. Yes, things are different now. But all is not lost. Businesses are still hiring. The market’s not as strong as 2019—but there are still opportunities available. And, as someone who was in the industry during the recession of 2008, the best advice I can offer (besides doing your best to stand out from the crowd) is that you must be flexible.   Oddly enough, I was giving this same advice to hiring managers before the pandemic, back when more jobs than talent was the norm. You must be flexible. I know you want a unicorn full stack…