>market was already fairly saturated ... did not appear to be seriously hiring ... an employers market
This was my experience in the job market last year, as well. A lot of open listings, but curiously picky requirements for who would be considered for a role. I definitely got the impression that companies were just idly trawling for fresh meat, without seriously pursuing any senior talent (read: highly experienced and commensurately compensated) for their "senior" roles.
I got my foot in the door as a contractor at a recently-acquired startup in the medical industry, considering it a safe bet against the inevitable recession. Like the economists and investors are now writing en masse on their blogs, I would never have guessed a virus would kick off that recession. =/
Advice for OP: Try finding which companies in the medical space are looking for front-end devs. There are a lot of not-exactly-tech companies that keep small groups of web developers employed.
> A lot of open listings, but curiously picky requirements for who would be considered for a role. I definitely got the impression that companies were just idly trawling for fresh meat, without seriously pursuing any senior talent
This has been my observation for the last decade or so. A lot of companies fishing but not many actual worms on the hooks. I expect it to get even worse now that we're back in a bear market.
Last year we were hiring, for both junior and senior positions, and had a hell of a time finding people to make offers to. We were absolutely serious and did end up hiring someone.
I will say though that we were definitely on the picky side. Our company tends to have a very hard time getting rid of employees that aren't working out, so we are extremely reluctant to hire a "maybe".
>I definitely got the impression that companies were just idly trawling for fresh meat, without seriously pursuing any senior talent
Well, there are also laws to consider. I can't prove this but I believe companies put out requests for super high level roles with bad conditions purposefully so they can go to the government and say they need HB1/Outsourcing/whatever because they can't fill all these open positions.
This was my experience in the job market last year, as well. A lot of open listings, but curiously picky requirements for who would be considered for a role. I definitely got the impression that companies were just idly trawling for fresh meat, without seriously pursuing any senior talent (read: highly experienced and commensurately compensated) for their "senior" roles.
I got my foot in the door as a contractor at a recently-acquired startup in the medical industry, considering it a safe bet against the inevitable recession. Like the economists and investors are now writing en masse on their blogs, I would never have guessed a virus would kick off that recession. =/
Advice for OP: Try finding which companies in the medical space are looking for front-end devs. There are a lot of not-exactly-tech companies that keep small groups of web developers employed.