Do you have to put up that you simply’re #OpenToWork?

Be aware: This put up initially appeared in TechCrunch on April 3, 2023
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Job seekers face a dilemma when selecting whether or not to mark themselves as #OpenToWork on LinkedIn. On one hand, it sends a transparent and helpful sign to recruiters. Then again, the badge can lump you with a crowd of people who find themselves extra prone to be unemployed or sad with their jobs, which might be seen as a damaging signal – you recognize, the entire Groucho Marx factor:* I don’t wish to belong to any membership that might settle for me as one in every of its members.*

When you’re a software program engineer who’s available on the market, must you listing your self as OpenToWork? Does doing so carry a damaging sign? And with the current deluge of layoffs at tech firms, has the which means of OpenToWork modified? We determined to search out out!

The setup

interviewing.io is an interview observe platform and a tech recruiting market. Engineers use us for mock interviews, firms use us to rent high performers. In our lifetime, we’ve hosted over 100k technical interviews, break up between mocks and actual ones. To check whether or not itemizing your self as OpenToWork is an efficient factor to do , we aggregated move/fail charges within the interviews our customers did and cross-referenced them with whether or not customers marked themselves as OpenToWork on their LinkedIns. We additionally made certain to verify their LinkedIns twice: as soon as in early 2021, when there have been virtually no tech layoffs, and once more in early 2023, within the wake of the worst spherical of tech layoffs since 2001.

Why did we verify twice? Financial idea means that the folks laid off or trying to find a job in growth instances are completely different from these laid off in a recession. In case you are let go or can’t discover a job when firms are flush, it is perhaps that you simply had been laid off for efficiency causes or can by no means get previous a screening name. Then again, somebody who suffered from an across-the-board layoff in a time of financial disaster might be perfectly-capable: only a casualty of macroeconomic forces.

We discovered that being OpenToWork is much extra widespread now. Among the many over ten thousand folks that we had LinkedIn knowledge for, just one.4% had the badge in 2021 in comparison with 4.2% within the first quarter of 2023.

The outcomes

How do these two cohorts of OpenToWork engineers carry out?

We discovered that being OpenToWork was a damaging sign for individuals who had it up in 2021, a growth time for tech hiring. The chart under exhibits the % of people that handed their interviews—our abstract measure of candidate efficiency. On common, about 51 % of candidates move their interviews. In distinction, these with OpenToWork badges in 2021 had been absolutely 7 proportion factors under that, at 44%.

The discovering confirms that there could be damaging choice amongst job seekers. Being upfront about in search of a job—not less than in 2021—was certainly a nasty signal.

However strikingly, this end result flips in current instances. Engineers who’re at the moment OpenToWork are literally positively chosen relative to everybody else. Itemizing your self as OpenToWork is an efficient register these tough instances: 56% of engineers tagged as OpenToWork handed their interviews, 5 proportion factors greater than common. The distinction in these results is very statistically vital. And we get the identical outcomes once we omit anybody who has labored at a FAANG firm—in case the current layoffs merely flooded the market with engineers from these top-tier firms.

Conclusion

Anecdotally, we’ve heard that layoffs in 2022 and 2023, particularly at massive firms, weren’t performance-based. In lots of circumstances, the individuals who had been employed final had been the primary on the chopping block. In some circumstances, total groups had been reduce – if a workforce’s product wasn’t shut sufficient to income, they ended up on the chopping block, independently of how sturdy the engineers on that workforce truly had been.

We had been excited to see that this anecdotal notion held up within the knowledge.

That stated, people who find themselves OpenToWork haven’t essentially been laid off. In unsure instances, it’s extra widespread for employees to be overtly trying to find jobs. The macroeconomic forces might normalize a extra aggressive on-the job search, which could additionally pull extra gifted—however nonetheless employed—folks into checking OpenToWork.

No matter layoff composition, in growth instances, overtly trying to find a job is usually a damaging sign. However throughout downturns, the principles change, and overtly in search of work turns into way more “regular”.

The sign to managers is obvious: due to the rocky financial instances, good employees are on the market in search of jobs—the OpenToWork tag is not a damaging sign. Whereas hiring has slowed throughout many tech firms, these with the finances will discover a higher pool to select from, and people who had been laid off in late 2022/early 2023 is perhaps among the many most spectacular candidates.

When you’re a candidate, although we wouldn’t go so far as recommending that you simply listing your self as OpenToWork, due to potential residual bias related to that tag, we’d encourage you to really feel no disgrace about having been impacted by layoffs.

The info is obvious, in any case – the pool of engineering job seekers has by no means been extra gifted.

Thanks to Maxim Massenkoff for his contributions to this put up.