Redundant since Jan, struggling to find anything...

[deserialisethis]

Bit of background:

• Middle aged male
• Last role was Product Manager (digital consultancy / app development)
• Former experience as a BA and Project Manager

Situation is that I was made redundant in January as the company I was working for lost one of their larger clients. Been on the hunt since but the market feels absolutely broken at the moment. There seem to be very few roles out there, and those there are seem to be looking for unicorns.

Are other people seeing the same or is there something wrong with me / my experience?

[Silenoz]

Mate was in a similar situation and had been looking since last summer. He started new role only last week. So I think at a certain level the roles are hard to come by and there is a degree of competition. Patience is key I think. Good luck.

[Aunty Pasty]

The tech space has been pretty poor for the last 18 months or so. Speculative emails from recruiters have dropped about 90% I'd say. Money from VCs is drying up killing off a lot of start-ups.

[deserialisethis]

Ok not just me then.

Saw a thread on Reddit that suggested PMs / BAs / Product Management was an anachronism and those roles no longer exist, which I didn't think was the case. I think some people have a very narrow definition of what "tech" is and that all tech roles are for neck beards in NOC caves or something.

[Chimaera98]

Lost my job of over 20 years in December. Being middle aged too I can fully sympathise.

Was Financial Services, Ops/Project based.

I have been trying to get either Ops or Project stuff in the City and just keep getting automated rejections.

Agencies don’t reply.

I have even taken further studies, but that doesn’t seem to be cutting through either.

A few people I used to know are changing jobs, I can only assume it is through “Networking.”

It’s tough if you aren’t relying on people to get you past the HR gatekeepers and onto the hiring managers radar.

[JerseyRoyal]

I’ve started applying for entry level stuff after not getting anywhere at management level. Getting more interviews now.

I think the recruitment algorithms being used penalise me for not having a degree tbh.

[Chimaera98]

I applied for a role in Ops, got told it was a junior role 1-2 yrs experience, so “may not be a good fit,” but would let me know if it changes.

Turns out the person that eventually got the job had over 10 years experience.

[geeks]

deserialisethis said:

Ok not just me then.

Saw a thread on Reddit that suggested PMs / BAs / Product Management was an anachronism and those roles no longer exist, which I didn't think was the case. I think some people have a very narrow definition of what "tech" is and that all tech roles are for neck beards in NOC caves or something.

I was about to ask if you started that thread on Reddit, your OP is almost identical.

Also dont spend any time in /UKJobs, it's depressing and null and void any many people with real world experience, most questions are answered "Join a union"

[mikef]

OP - I was going to recommend the company that I recently retired from, but your profile doesn’t accept messages. They have 5 UK Prod Mgmt roles currently on their site, 4 London and 1 Southampton

ps: the state of the market thread on Contractor UK forums is pretty depressing as well

[JaredVannett]

Yep same with me, been looking since Jan (App/Database field) - I have never had it this bad.

My CV has always landed me 3/5 interviews... not this time. Almost had an ideal manager role lined up in December and then it fell through "budget cuts".


The most brutal thing is when you read the job description and feel you are the perfect match only to get rejected / ghosted - haven't had a single phone call about my applications which I find weird as recruiters are always trying to load up their database.

Just right now I received 2 rejections from my latest applications on Linked In, thought I'd stop by here and see if anyone else is struggling.... and what do ya know!

Aunty Pasty said:

The tech space has been pretty poor for the last 18 months or so. Speculative emails from recruiters have dropped about 90% I'd say. Money from VCs is drying up killing off a lot of start-ups.

This is what is keeping me from feeling it's personal ... I don't even get spammed by recruiters anymore, which to me signifies the market is a cluster f**k.


Things keeping me positive:

• Gaining certification(s) I've always wanted - maybe it will help my application prospects, maybe not - but I'd rather be using my "available" time to invest in myself. I never had the energy to do it whilst having a full time job.

• Keeping an open mind that I may need to get creative as another poster alluded to ... eg. aiming for a lower entry role and taking the pain in reduced remuneration.

• Be open that this may be one of those career-changing moments where I'm forced to pivot careers but end up being very happy in a newfound role. Feels $hitty now but when I look back in 5-10 years it'll be one of those life-changing decisions.

[softtop]

maybe think about self eployment?

I get you need the cash so do a bit of both, look for a job, see what you can do with networking to develop your own sales. See what happens first.

[SeanyD]

Jan-March can be a tricky time, its financial year end for a lot of the big boys, particularly public sector, so many projects can be coming to an end and possibly losing people. Now we're into May, the new financial year is in from 1st April, and once the paper-shufflers do their stuff, things will start to come back to life, and projects get stood up with new recruits.

For public sector/contract work keep an eye on Public Sector Resourcing. For private work connect with all of the Talent Acquisition guys at the usual digital agencies.

Best of luck.

[deserialisethis]

Thank you for all the replies. I'll try to rattle through and reply to a few here...

Chimaera98 said:

Lost my job of over 20 years in December. Being middle aged too I can fully sympathise.

/snip

Yes, agree with everything you've said. The market feels wild. Couple of recent experiences:

Interviewed for a role, feedback was excellent, progressed to 2nd round with the CTO, again excellent feedback, told by the CTO that they could definitely see me fitting into their organisation. Agent then came back to me and said they had decided to reassess the role as the JD they had put out was too broad and probably needed 2 or 3 people to fill it.

The above scenario played out at another organisation I interviewed with too. First and 2nd round interviews (including with the owner of the company), both with great feedback, would love to have someone like you onboard blah blah blah, only to then be told the role needed reassessing.

For another role, the agent replied to my application saying they were doing their best to rely and get back to people but had received 250+ applications in 24hrs.

Saw another ad that had been live for about 5 mins. In the 10 mins it took me to drop the ad poster an email and send over a CV, there had been 20 applications.

However, I would say the hit rate on actually receiving any response is maybe 1:100 at the moment. It is definitely not a candidate's market.

geeks said:

I was about to ask if you started that thread on Reddit, your OP is almost identical.

Also dont spend any time in /UKJobs, it's depressing and null and void any many people with real world experience, most questions are answered "Join a union"

Couldn't possibly comment but I agree, there are some proper basement dweller replies on that thread.

mikef said:

OP - I was going to recommend the company that I recently retired from, but your profile doesn’t accept messages. They have 5 UK Prod Mgmt roles currently on their site, 4 London and 1 Southampton

ps: the state of the market thread on Contractor UK forums is pretty depressing as well

Thank you, I've changed my profile settings so should be able to receive private messages now. Would be immensely grateful for any leads / pointers.

JaredVannett said:

Yep same with me, been looking since Jan (App/Database field) - I have never had it this bad.

My CV has always landed me 3/5 interviews... not this time. Almost had an ideal manager role lined up in December and then it fell through "budget cuts".

Same here. What used to be a ~60% hit rate is now more like 5%, if that.

Good roles are few and far between and there's massive oversupply of candidates from what I can see. Add to that the layoffs seem to be continuing across a range of industries it's impossible to tell when things will start to bounce back, though from what I'm hearing things are starting to pick up (albeit at a snail's pace).

SeanyD said:

Jan-March can be a tricky time...

Agreed, but you usually see things starting to move by this time (i.e. after Easter). Problem is, things usually go dead again in the next couple of months as people take time off for kids' school holidays over the summer.

I suspect there's a bit of "holding off" going on by business too. There's an election coming both in the UK and in the US. There might be a reticence to commit to any large business expenditure until we see the results of those and the potential policy changes that could come with that.

---

Again, thank you all for the replies. There's some consolation in knowing "it's not just me".

I'm going do something of a "reset" over the next couple of days, reworking my LinkedIn profile and my CV and then keep plugging away.

[mikef]

PM sent

For Prod Mgmt roles they will be interested in exposure to Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) methods, to OKRs and to Agile (scrum/kanban)

[wyson]

The new pattern in tech is to flatten the structure, strip out BA’s, PM’s and other management types and push these tasks back on the techies.

One of my friends is going through this sort of reorg now. My firm did this last year. PM’s, BA’s, Head and Directors of, mostly stripped out. I find it a bit insane, they’ve done a complete 360. I thought it was stupid before, it was way too management heavy, having scrum masters, PM’s, BA’s, Product Owners on the same project. Now the senior techies are expected to do these roles, but most of them got there through technical, not management skills. I would have thought it would make sense to keep at least one ‘manager’.

Edited by wyson on Wednesday 1st May 10:33

[toon10]

I think it's common at the minute. My mate is a data center manager so a role that you'd think would be in demand but he's struggling to get interviews. Also, middle aged male with loads of experience at big companies. I always wonder how easy it is at our age to find a new role. There are 25-year-olds out there who are more up to date with current tech, would cost half my salary and half my bonus and have more drive and ambition than me. Hell, I'd not hire me.

Good luck with the hunt. There will be something out there for you, you just might have to go through the motions and wait a bit longer before it turns up.

[deserialisethis]

wyson said:

The new pattern in tech is to flatten the structure, strip out BA’s, PM’s and other management types and push these tasks back on the techies.

One of my friends is going through this sort of reorg now. My firm did this last year.

This is similar to some of the replies I've seen elsewhere. However, are you able to clarify the nature of the those organisations and the tech teams?

What sector is the wider business in? What kind of work are these "headless" tech teams doing? This is important context for people like me that are in the roles that are being "stripped out".

[deserialisethis]

mikef said:

PM sent

For Prod Mgmt roles they will be interested in exposure to Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) methods, to OKRs and to Agile (scrum/kanban)

And replied. I've got no formal SVPG training (something I will look into) but I'm all for the "build it light, build it fast, measure, improve" approach.

One of my biggest gripes is being asked to specify and build large monolithic systems,products, and feature without any real-world data (actual in-use data) to base the nature of those things on.

[wyson]

deserialisethis said:

This is similar to some of the replies I've seen elsewhere. However, are you able to clarify the nature of the those organisations and the tech teams?

What sector is the wider business in? What kind of work are these "headless" tech teams doing? This is important context for people like me that are in the roles that are being "stripped out".

I work in FTSE 100 corporate, which has all sorts of technology systems and platforms. They were advised on the new structure by one of the big management consultancies. There are videos on youtube about the big silicon valley firms doing exactly the same.

I say it’s a trend because a big name management consultancy was pushing it, and I bet it’s not the only one. As you probably know, these firms have their advisory tentacles everywhere.

Edited by wyson on Wednesday 1st May 10:56

[geeks]

deserialisethis said:

wyson said:

The new pattern in tech is to flatten the structure, strip out BA’s, PM’s and other management types and push these tasks back on the techies.

One of my friends is going through this sort of reorg now. My firm did this last year.

This is similar to some of the replies I've seen elsewhere. However, are you able to clarify the nature of the those organisations and the tech teams?

What sector is the wider business in? What kind of work are these "headless" tech teams doing? This is important context for people like me that are in the roles that are being "stripped out".

As a techie this was always my fear, too many of my brethren have spent so long saying things such as "PM's its just a Gant chart and hassle, why do we even need them?" "I could do a better job than X" etc etc. Well, now our (well their) chickens are coming home to roost and in some areas we are already fked. The first thing that happens is the shunt this onto aholes like me (Solutions Architect) who want the square root of fk all to do with it lol.