IT 職位市場低迷背後的主要原因

Someone asked something that made me really take a look at the main causes of this absolute cesspool of a job market.

What do you think is the main reason behind the current downturn in the IT job market?

As with most things, it's a combination of things.

In short I see these as the main factors:

• High-level incompetence around AI
• AI tools
• bad-actors
• candidate-saturated market

Let me expand on that.

AI incompetence

Mostly at the top-level in orgs. It's fed by a raging case of FOMO (fear of missing out). The total ineptitude around what AI is at the C-suite level is baffling. It's not even complicated stuff, it's things like:

• What AI does
• What it can
• What it can not do

How, at a high-level, to leverage AI. Not even "leverage well" or even "ok. Just not "leverage badly".

The execs' decision to get a quick-win to the bottom-line by replacing labor with AI instead of looking long-term really kicked things into high gear.

There are companies out there successfully integrating AI without layoffs.

Just imagine how much better a company would perform if everyone could leverage AI in their existing role. AI is a "force multiplier" and just blows my mind that the first thing these idiots do is let go the very thing able to send their revenue into orbit. I could go on for a while on this, but I'll move on.

AI Tools

These being the tools that popped up recently that use AI to adjust your resume and "apply while you sleep." It makes sense that these exist now, with a market so heavily in favor of hirers.

The unintended result is that now the relatively few job "real" job postings (I'll expand on this in a moment) have thousands of applications in less than a week. I've seen a few with 6+k applications on openings created just 4 days ago.

Bad Actors

These things are damaging the job market as a whole. They may be beneficial to the one executing, but holistically, at a high-level, these are damaging.

• "Fake job postings" - Whether measuring interest, collecting applications for an internal candidate pool, or phishing resume/private data
• Scammer/phishing recruiters, job postings, and head-hunters after candidate data (PII)

Basically the people trying to steel your data.

Candidate-Saturated Market

I'd love to see the official numbers on this but reading between the lines, for every "real" job posting there are orders of magnitude more candidates. That is to say, there are many, many more candidates for every open role available.

Basically it's a hirers-market. Just a few years ago it was a candidates-market. Just an ebb and flow of the market. It's just completely one-sided right now.

Mass layoffs due to AI, etc. are making things worse.

The nature of covering these things at such a high-level, there are always exceptions. I left those out to not "get lost in the weeds".