I've been a hiring manager for nearly a decade, and I have noticed a distinct shift in the candidate pool. A majority of the candidates that I have seen coming through pipeline have been laid off by their previous employer. I'm having a hard time evaluating what to do with that piece of data - some companies are laying off entire divisions without regard for performance, others are picking off poor performers to lay off. So far, I've been reaching out to contacts at those companies to try to garner any insght about their company's layoff approach. In some cases, I've gotten pretty clear direction (e.g. November layoffs were mostly performance related, but April was definitely not performance related). In other cases, I got more grey responses (some orgs laid of poor performers, others cut newest to the team, others removed functions - but in any case there was a solid effort to rehome the best employees).
What advice do you have to navigate this new candidate pool? Is the answer still to say no if there's any doubt? Probably could answer this question myself, but curious if there are any other good considerations I haven't thought of yet.
It is what it is to some degree
Given a combination of Covid and the tech industry contraction I'm seeing a similar trend. Folks having been laid off OR more frequent job changes (generally becuase of layoffs). When reviewing resumes I generally look at work experience/tenture through one lens prior to ~2021 and another post 2021. One aspect of the post 2021 lens is if they were in a position for only 6 months, what do they put as their work experience and could they really have achieved XYZ in that timeframe. When doing a phonescreen I try to suss out what folks did during breaks. That can be hit or miss and I don't go for strongarm tatics when doing so. For example one candidate had gotten some industry certifications as a way to stay busy, grow, etc.
Separately but related, my first question in my phonescreen isn't TMAY - its 'what are you looking for in your next position'. Many times this has given me insight into the nature of the layoff.