The tech job market continues to evolve in 2023, and despite the shrinking of open roles for sales in 2022, it looks it will stay a candidate-driven market for the next five years at least. This may sound like a contradiction but research by Betts Recruiting shows that a mixture of factors will continue to contribute to another net surplus of unfilled positions after the shrinkage stabilizes in the next year.
Based on the data we’ve collected from a study of candidates in tech and additional market research, we expect growth to resume by Q4 2023 as the economy picks back up and for the job market in technology to become overwhelmed with open sales roles again. Find out how – and where – theses trends are forming, as well as how to prepare for the return of one of the toughest hiring markets in the history of tech:
Tech Job Market 2023 Forecast – Sales Roles
By the First Quarter of 2022, the volume of unfilled positions for revenue-generating jobs was nearly 90% of the available candidate market. The Third Quarter saw this dip to an 11% ratio, though, and opportunities further shrank as many companies began decreasing headcount. However, there still remained 75,000 sales-focused open roles in tech by the middle of the Fourth Quarter, and many subsets saw sustained or even increased rates of recruitment while other parts of the industry slowed down.
Hiring for enterprise sales and leadership positions continued at a steady pace, while the rate of recruiting for revenue operations roles actually rose 300% Quarter over Quarter (QoQ) – reflecting a need in many of these larger employers to keep driving efficiency.
Startups at the Seed, Series A and Series B rounds did decrease their recruiting efforts for sales roles slightly, but these types of companies still make up the majority of hiring in tech for Q4 2022.
While layoffs in the Fourth Quarter contributed to nearly flipping the availability ratio, we found that only about 30% of those jobs facing layoffs actually overlapped with roles left unfilled or newly created.
All of this translates to a market that will remain competitive into the immediate future, which means tech startups are still going to have trouble reducing time to hire and cost-per-hire rates on their unfilled roles even with job growth slowed down. The competition is also likely to get worse as new disruptors – in AI, cybersecurity, cryptocurrency and their subsectors – continue to make a splash in the industry and cut into the talent pool.
Key Takeaways:
- Opportunities for candidates with account executive (AE) backgrounds diminished but will pick back up again in 2023
- Executive-level leader roles – VPs, directors, C-suite – are still in steady demand for tech startups
- Candidates with revenue operations experience are in high demand
Tech Job Market Forecast Timeline:
- Q1 2022 – Almost more jobs then entire sales market available
- Q4 2022 – Same amount of open jobs as layoffs but only about 30% overlap
- Q1 2023 – Expect jobs to increase and layoffs in tech to decrease dramatically
- Q4 2023 – Tech jobs to grow 7X by end of 2023 after economy bounces back
| Jobs Forecast | Q1 2022 | Q3 2022 | Q4 2022 | Q1 2023 | Q2 2023 | Q4 2023 |
| Jobs Open | 800,000 | 100,000 | 75,000 | 100,000 | 150,000 | 500,000 |
| Total Market | 900,000 | 900,000 | 900,000 | 900,000 | 900,000 | 950,000 |
| Layoffs | 10,000 | 40,000 | 75,000 | 25,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 |
Technical Sales Job Market
The emergence of new players in those disruptor categories is also increasing demand for technical sales jobs, and these roles are seeing some of the best job security in the tech industry. By Q4 2023, sourcing for candidates with technical AE experience and actively looking to move will become like looking for a needle in a haystack.
| Jobs Forecast | Market Size | Layoffs | Actively/Passively Looking |
| Total AE Roles | 32,000 | 6000 | 4800 |
| Technical AE Roles | 4000 | 50 – 60 | 348 |
| Percentage | 12% | 1% | 7% |
Great Resignation – Part 2 in Tech?
Additional research into candidates in tech revealed that conditions for a round 2 of the Great Resignation may be building:
- 50% of candidates were not happy in their roles
- Of the above, 65% had been in place for 1 year or less
- 10% of those laid off from sales roles in tech planned not to return
While this discontent is relatively high, it doesn’t yet reflect the type of widespread momentum we saw in 2021 with the Great Hiring or in 2022 with Quiet Quitting. Rather, these are likely tied to the outside factors impacting the industry and the growing pains of tech rebounding from the pandemic highs.
Scale Your Hiring with the New Tech Job Market
The current tech job market is in flux, but our prediction is that hiring is going to pick up pace again by 2023 and that finding the right candidates will remain tough for startups. Make sure your company is staying ahead of challenges and keep your hiring scalable by referring to our definitive Scale Guide, with advice on how to approach talent acquisition from Seed to reaching Series D.