I’ve been thinking about hiring and Product Teams as we go into Q4 of 2023.
2023 has been full of challenges: mass layoffs, less funding availability, general market uncertainty due to interest rates. Many companies are taking the position of not hiring, or lay offs over multiple rounds of RIFs. Some may need to hire, but finance is pushing back on additional spend through year end 2023. Companies are focusing on generating near future income, while retaining runway to move forward.
How has this impacted Product Teams?
-Reduced Team Size
-Increased Workloads
-Lower morale and productivity
-Resource allocation challenges
-Retention concerns
So what can Product Leaders do in response to the current situation, as plans are being built towards 2024 company roadmaps, AND finishing up product initiatives through Q4? Typically the factors mentioned above mean Finance is not going to approve general hiring now, and instead push hiring into early 2024 budgets.
I’ve been in Talent for many years, and have seen a common situation come up every single year. Companies don’t like to plan to hire FTEs in Q4. But as the next year's initiatives are being built out, suddenly the realization that they need team members in place by Dec or Jan become apparent, they want to hire so they can be prepared. Even post Covid, after so many companies laid off due to extreme economic conditions, suddenly, in late October, a massive hiring rush began. It was “We need these roles filled NOW!” be prepared to launch quickly in 2024. And guess what, it’s going to happen again in Q4. It does, every year.
There’s an additional huge factor coming into play this year: Some of the biggest layoffs in the past 12 months were Talent professionals. That’s right folks, the people you need to recruit, screen, and manage the entire hiring process are now gone, or reduced to a single Talent role in your company. Although there are lots of unemployed talent professionals ready to go back to work, my experience at the end of 2021 in re-hiring my own Talent team, was a full six month process to not only fill technical roles within my employer at that time, but 5 Talent Team members for my team.
Here’s a potential solution: Fractional Product Managers. It’s a way to engage, and onboard Product talent quickly, and have them focus on specific Product team initiatives that will make a direct impact on your team's success. They can work on projects anywhere from 10-20+ hours per week. You don’t hire them as FTEs, and you can extend their time with your team as needed. This provides both ramp up time, as well as a Senior level contributor to get sh*t done.
At Sembrar, we specialize in providing Sr. Fractional Managers to companies of all sizes across the US. Want to learn more and discover whether this might be a good solution for your teams needs? Let’s connect at christine@sembrar.io
My background is in Talent Acquisition of Technology professionals for over 20 years. Most recently I had the honor of working with a scaling startup in the health data integration arena, where I led a team of amazing recruiters, but also did hands-on hiring for the Product team over much of 2022.
