Fearless job board industry forecasts for the coming year!

It’s the time of the year when everyone – even doctors – are making predictions. I have done it in the past (last year turned out reasonably accurate), but I do so with plenty of caveats (my favorite:  ‘No one cares’.). Yet – another year rolls around, and here I am. I think this is the definition of a compulsion! So, in no particular order, let me make some predictions about the job board industry in 2023.

• Google doesn’t get any deeper into recruiting: Google stuck their toe in the water a few years back with Hire – then yanked it out after what I suspect were legal concerns. Then they rolled out a job ad schema which not everyone uses (ahem- Indeed!). But anything further? I’m betting no. Both privacy and anti-trust concerns have not faded – and you can bet that if Google tries to muscle into the job ad business, that little complaint the Jobindex made a few months back will pale against the wave of outrage from Indeed, Seek, etc.
• Meta, Google, TikTok, and other social behemoths run afoul of privacy laws: I’m not sure you can call this a forecast, as these behemoths seem to spawn privacy lawsuits as quickly as they expose user data. But the U.S. seems to be pushing for some kind of action on TikTok, which will undoubtedly affect all of that ‘TikTok resume’ buzz. Meta (is anyone on Facebook still?) wants to collect and spill data in the virtual world, in addition to the real world. But you can be sure that any job board staking everything on a single social media platform will live to rue the day!
• Conferences come back – sort of: There were in-person job board conferences last year – two, to be exact. And you can’t forget the HR conferences! But it seems likely that in-person conferences will take some time before they really ‘come back’ – if in fact they ever do. Once an event has been displaced for not one, but two years, I suspect that a percentage of the former attendees may decide that it’s no longer ‘required’ to show up – and thus attendance will resume, but at a lower level. Expert hint: don’t hold your next conference in China – I hear they have a bit of a COVID problem right now.
• Another job board company goes public: I am calling this a forecast because it might or might not happen – even though the company involved has said it’s likely. Yes, folks: Stepstone will get its very own IPO this year, adding to the surprising number of publicly held job boards. Well, unless the market tanks – in which case it may not get an IPO. We shall see.
• Podcasts reach their tipping point: It seems like 2022 was the year that everyone and their dog started a podcast (yes, even ne’er do well job board doctors!). I predict that even more folks will start podcasts in 2023 – but given the absolute and immutable nature of time, podcast listeners will not listen to all of these. And bit by bit, podcasts will fall by the wayside. (In a related development, a job board doctor may be launching a series of TikToks featuring various job board luminaries singing their favorite one-hit-wonders. Or maybe not.)
• Tech talent redistributes (courtesy of tech layoffs by the big boys): Remember how voraciously the big tech giants such as Amazon, Google, etc. gobbled up tech folks in the preceding two years, hiring them in gigantic clumps? Seems that now they are laying off these folks in a similar, over-the-top manner. However – the majority of those folks are being absorbed by all of the companies that don’t have a big name, but do really interesting stuff. My prediction? This redistribution of tech talent will benefit: a) the tech folks; b) the rest of us; and c) all of those companies who just upgraded their tech departments. Win win win!

See? I could do this for hours – and probably be wrong for days! Instead, I think it would be wise to go back to job-board-doctoring. I hope you have a phenomenal 2023!!

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