Thomas Barwick
- About 333,000 tech workers were laid off in 2022 and 2023, according to data compiled by layoffs.fyi.
- We asked three tech recruiters to share their best tips for finding a job.
- Look at recruiting for industries outside of tech and don’t be sticky about salaries, they said.
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About 333,000 tech workers got laid off in 2022 and 2023, according to data compiled by layoffs.fyi.
While there is no concrete data on how many of these were recruitment and HR jobs, some big tech companies — including Meta and Amazon — mentioned that these roles, in particular, would be impacted.
Things started unraveling in late 2022 when tech company after tech company started announcing broad layoffs. Julia Pollock, the chief economist at American hiring platform ZipRecruiter, told the Wall Street Journal that in April 2022, there were over 10,000 job openings for tech recruiters. By October, that number was down to about 2,500.
Insider spoke to two laid-off recruiters and an employer in the recruitment space who shared the strategies they’ve used while job-hunting and hiring recruiters, respectively.
Here’s what they say about how to recruit yourself into a job, in their own words.
Tomas Kelly, ex-recruiting manager, cloud customer experience at Google
Tomas Kelly
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Years of experience: over 10 years at Google
Thomas Kelly was laid off from Google’s recruitment team in March.
“I felt sad. I’ve been there for 10 years,” he told Insider.
Kelly’s wife also works for Google in Zurich, and his immediate reaction was to check whether her role had been impacted too — it was not.
Kelly’s top tips for landing yourself a new job:
1. Look at recruiting for industries outside of tech
As the cuts are wider and deeper across the tech sector than previously, you need to look at industries outside of tech, Kelly said. While some companies are still hiring for certain roles, the big companies are not hiring.
