2024 Market Predictions
Happy New Year and welcome to 2024! We all have a lot of gratitude and “good riddance” sentiment towards 2023, along with big hopes for the next year. I’ve been evaluating the predictions on the internet and have compiled my predictions for 2024 regarding hiring, DEI, and the job market. First, I expect hiring to increase in 2024. Starting in Q3 of 2023 we saw the bloodbath of layoffs begin to take place, and while this continued into 2023, by the second half of the year we started to see layoffs slow down and hiring beginning again. While I believe layoffs will persist, they won’t be in the egregious numbers such as Elon laying off 80% of Twitter, and we will see companies start to bring back individuals who contribute significantly to revenue, teams, and who hold value in more than one position.For Candidates:
Ensure your value is reflected in your resume. Attainment to quota, deal sizes, and all tools you have worked on is important to highlight - for both human hiring managers and bot scrapers.Position your skills as “hybrid” and the ability to serve in more than one role. Are you able to be COO and CFO? Manager and individual contributor? Showcase your value in more than one arena to increase consideration from the hiring manager.
For Companies:
Don’t slash your teams to the point that the stress becomes insurmountable for the rest of your team. Keeping middle management, strategic thinkers, and top performers is worth the additional salary costs.
Next, I expect companies to leverage AI to maximize the performance of their teams rather than to replace employees. Deloitte paved the way with AI utilization to restructure teams and ensure the right butts are in the right seats. With the costs of hiring, layoffs, and re-hiring essential personnel, companies should trust the hires they have made and utilize AI to support rather than replace teams. To reiterate, there will still be layoffs with increased automation, but not at the levels we have seen previously. Running lean, not skeleton, teams will be the standard.For Candidates:
Make yourself as invaluable as possible: connect and work regularly with other teams, take a proactive rather than reactive approach to your duties, and volunteer for special projects outside of your job description.Develop the complexity of your role to pivot to critical thinking rather than rules-based, linear thinking.
For Companies:
Don’t be quick to replace entry-level employees with AI systems. Create an AI strategy: first as a co-pilot to employees, next for restructuring, and then only as a replacement as a last resort.
Third: startups aren’t dead. Yes, VC funding is down and the gluttony of spending in startups is over, but there is still opportunity for new ideas to be funded and teams hired. Due to the overhiring seen before COVID, capital backers are now going to be incredibly stringent with their requirements for funding, but will still be looking for big gains on their investments. Candidates now have more security joining startups that are getting either seed funding or new rounds of funding as the investment criteria will be even stronger.For Candidates:
Be flexible on your total compensation package. Startups won’t be able to offer the same salary market rates seen previously, but the potential reward for taking on a startup risk is still huge.Be prepared for fewer perks, and don’t go into negotiations with these demands. Asking for remote-only or 4-day workweeks will put you in a weaker position.
For Companies:
Talent is out there, but you still need to offer a reasonable salary. You get what you pay for, and a low-ball offer will only get you an employee for a short amount of time.Future funding rounds will be harder to achieve. Save where you can by making the correct, strategic hires upfront.
Source: CB Insights
In a broader sense, I also believe the economy will see a slow stabilization as consumer confidence increases with the Fed expected to lower interest rates. However, it is also an election year, and wild things can happen as the powers that be attempt to control the narrative to their benefit. We will see the continued proliferation of ChatGPT and more lawsuits attempting to define and narrow the scope of IP related to AI language models. All in all, I believe our long-term graph of quality of life is going up and to the right, but stay prepared. Continue to be vigilant as you look ahead.