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Recession Vs. The Great Resignation: White Gloves, Not Boxing Gloves, Recommended

Two male hands in boxing gloves clashing against each other as flames explode from them.

Inflation versus The Great Resignation looked like a boxing match with no sure winner. After all, unemployment was — and still officially is at time of writing — at 3.6 percent, a point short of the half-century low we saw in 2020. The turmoil the pandemic caused to people’s lives turned the phenomenon of “job hopping” into “The Great Resignation”/”Great Reshuffle” in a way nobody had expected, with a powerful effect on hiring teams the world over.

The result was a demand for flexibility from employees only too willing to move on to — what they perceived as — greener pastures if more flexibility wasn’t forthcoming, leading to exacerbated retention issues across industries. Reality switched from a world in which employers demanded flexibility of their employees and potential employees to one in which employees demanded it of their employers and potential employers.

Round 1 – Bullying and Backlash

Wishing it away didn’t work, although many tried. Why is anybody’s guess. Productivity and profits surged during lockdown; and, although there is more than one reason for this, remote work proved itself, kept costs low, kept quality up, and helped those profits surge. Attempts to instate “back-to-office” policies failed and were adapted or rescinded across some major companies. The reaction for Apple was seismic. Over 1,000 employees, current and former, signed an open letter, part of which said:

“Stop treating us like school kids who need to be told when to be where and what homework to do.”

The company also lost a highly valued director in its machine learning division, Ian Goodfellow, to Google, specifically due to its back-to-office mandate. (KO in favor of Google on that one.) Having a black eye and egg on one’s face at the same time isn’t a good look, which may have been on Elon Musk’s mind when his return-to-office demand contained the caveat:

“If there are particularly exceptional contributors for whom [remote work] is impossible, I will review and approve those exceptions directly.”

Welcome back, non-exceptional people! Don’t forget we’re a family with a thriving company culture! Yay! High-five, anyone?

While Musk continues to straddle the two worlds of tech industry genius and luddite, Apple backed off, citing (awkwardly clears throat) COVID. Many big players in the financial industry also tried the hard-line, boxing gloves on approach, and came away with a black eye. However, COVID itself may be more than an excuse for those demanding remote work rights. If variants keep coming and everything keeps changing, stability of some sort is required — not just for quality of life or health, but also for business as usual — at least in terms of productivity and results.

All of which makes employees appear far more business-savvy than many “leaders” running businesses – and seemingly in circles – today.

Points to the employees, then.

Round 2 – Clashing With Chaos


Inflation v. The Great Resignation didn’t get past the weigh in, image wise. Asking employees to start forking out hard cash just to sit in the office all day, when their money is worth much less than it was pre-COVID, appeared to be the perfect ingredient in a perfect storm, making The Great Resignation potentially worse for bosses attempting to punch below a tightened belt.

Counters with uppercut. Ouch.

And it didn’t help that the the tech industry lost $1 trillion over 3 days of trading. News of layoffs, lots of layoffs, soon followed. Then the rescinding of job offers, demonstrating objectively that the industry was turning on a dime in response to the downturn. Suddenly, the tech industry and other industries existed like night and day, only side-by-side, one stomping on hiring strategies and burning offers, the other bending over backwards to get new people in.

Has anybody not placed a bet yet?

As inflation became slowly worse, the new phenomenon of rescinded job offers started spreading to other industries, such as retail marketing, insurance and consulting. Storm clouds were closing in and the word “recession” was on everybody’s lips, with some predicting a close call by the end of 2022, others a “mild” recession early in 2023, and some, like Jeremy Grantham, warning that the BIG POP is coming and $45 trillion of assets in the US alone will be wiped out.

Still, Ali did beat Foreman in ‘74, so why worry?

However, geniuses who are never wrong — like Jeremy ‘Debbie Downer’ Grantham — aside, there are those who believe the lessons of history can help us understand what level of recession we’re heading into – if we’re not there already, of course. (Shhh.)

Bubble bursts like the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and the dot-com disaster of 2000-2001 were both credit-driven — debt-related excesses in their relative infrastructures built up until bursting point, giving us around a decade of economic woes. Recession based on inflation has historically inflicted less damage to corporate earnings, which should make a big difference to investors.

Many industries remain strong and should be able to go the distance.

In a mild recession, there is no sure bet that employers will suddenly gain the upper hand, at least not to the point of putting on boxing gloves and snarling orders at employees to return to the office or else. The best strategy is a white gloves approach. Flexibility should be considered here to stay, at least among those who wish to remain competitive and heal any hiring and retention issues.

Once people have been given something, it’s hard to take it back.

That’s human nature and it shouldn’t be underestimated. And that’s without even broaching the subject of company culture or morale among teams. Loyalty gives great ROI if you know how to inspire it. March was the 10th consecutive month that resignations passed the 4 million mark, so there are lots of companies out there who have absolutely no idea how to do that.

And they’ll pull on the boxing gloves once the recession becomes official.

Round 3 – Keeping Your Balance


The Great Reshuffle was named when it became apparent that people quitting their jobs were not moving out of the labor force, but into other occupations. It’s a good phrase to describe a sense of balance — although not much relief for companies who were left and found it difficult to attract new talent.

But who’s to blame for that? The Great Reshuffle was really all about talent leaving to go to companies who offered more flexibility, a better work-life balance, greater respect, a chance for an enhanced sense of team morale and personal work satisfaction.

To companies losing out it was more like the Ali shuffle. Still, thinking hard about using agility and coordination to beat your competition isn’t a bad thing. Especially for those who’ve made mistakes in the past. Investing in long-term retention, rather than hoping people will feel trapped into staying, will pay back on the investment many times over for any business — just as those who crack the whip will eventually pay for it.

Besides, whips don’t fit in a boxing metaphor.

Any recession will bring a rebalancing of power, of course.

Those who think this gives them the upper hand — revenge against selfish employees who wanted a life of their own — and turn it into a fist, will be at a serious disadvantage to those who don’t. Demanding that people return to the office at their own increasingly high expense, while saying “Not you, buddy” to those being laid off, will bring only more negative surprises the “experts” didn’t see coming. Still, your own business fitness, your own expertise, and your finely-tuned strategies are yours to apply as you wish.

In the end, it all depends on who you have in your corner.

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How to Write a Job Title That Works

Image showing newspaper cuttings of several job titles in a pile.

Writing job titles that work is easy, right?

So imagine the following scene at a social gathering:

“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m an upwardly mobile vision technician.”
“Oh, wow! That sounds amazing! What does it mean?”
“I clean windows.”

Many years ago, the above job title was created as a joke by a witty guy on a UK dating show.

Today, equally silly (and functionally useless), job titles can be found on resumes, job posting sites, and pretty much anywhere else in the careers space and elsewhere.

Here’s a short list of real examples. Let’s see if you can guess the jobs they describe (answers at the bottom):

  1. Chief Chatter
  2. Wizard of Light Bulb Moments
  3. Dream Alchemist
  4. Part-Time Czar
  5. Grand Master of Underlings

As described in Write a Job Description in 6 Easy Steps, there are various key reasons why writing job titles like this isn’t a good idea.

While it could be argued that inflicting one of the above titles onto an expert’s professional resume is an act of cruelty, the downside for recruiters is more ominous. 

Here’s the key question: How many job seekers would be likely to type in one of the above examples while conducting a job search? 

The answer is nada. None. Zip. Zero. So in an effort to be colorful, you’ve made yourself invisible. Therefore, a generic job title will result in more targeted job applicants.

The irony is palpable. 

Some would argue that writing job titles like support a company’s brand image. That’s fine, but it would be difficult to lose an argument based on the following:

  1. Job titles should be helpful to those seeing and hearing them
  2. There’s a time and a place for everything
  3. Enforced jollity starts to grate on people after a while

Aside from stopping job posts being invisible to many job seekers, the down-to-earth approach to job titles achieves two additional objectives:

  1. Describe the area of expertise required
  2. Indicate the hierarchical level within the department/company

And since a professional is expected to put their job title onto their resume, the previous point about “cruelty” should be properly considered.

Because that “cruelty” affects recruiters, too.

Recruiters need to be able to see relevant information at-a-glance when initially working through a slew of resumes, looking for key information that says:

“This is well put together, answers our post, and merits a closer look.” 

In the current downturn, it’s also likely that many recruiters are besieged by enthusiastic hopefuls as well as qualified experts to fill many available positions.

Making this point even more important for anybody tasked with creating a shortlist of good resumes.

A colorful title often gives little to no indication of what the area of expertise is, or what relation it bears to the previous and/or following positions.

This can cause a warning light to go off in a recruiter’s mind as the resume is initially scanned.

The only solution for the recruiter is to either pass on it and look for safer material, or dedicate time to studying why the bizarre and seemingly illogical entry was entered in the first place.

As for lesser offensive titles, it should also be pointed out that an expert in their field is not a “Rockstar” unless they have achieved one of the following:

  1. Fame as a successful singer or performer of rock music
  2. Celebrity status; particularly in inspiring fanatical admiration

When creating job titles, recruiters and others involved in the process should ideally heed the following three points:

  1. Think about what you need, what level you need it to be, and describe it clearly
  2. Help your colleagues process stacks of resumes without unnecessary blockers
  3. Don’t attempt to create job titles when feeling giddy

Additionally, the guy on the dating show lost.

Answers: a. Call Center Manager; b. Marketing Director; c. Head of Creative; d. Assistant Manager; e. Deputy Manager. See complete list.

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Recruiter Outreach: That Personal Quality

Image saying Targeting with icons and images showing various methods.

In some circles, the term spray-and-pray covers recruiter outreach to potential job candidates in a wide variety of situations.

Essentially it’s a potentially reputation-damaging spam campaign (to the majority of recipients), in the hope of netting a couple of good prospects.

In other circles, it covers sending a job post to as many job aggregation sites as possible. The ATS system is then depended on to help sort applications that are increasingly easy to send — and which multiply in a downturn.

We’ll deal with outreach here, but in both cases the problem can be solved with just a couple of easy upfront investments.

Outreach Personalization

If there’s one thing most recruiters have going for them its personality. Gregarious, fast on their feet, discerning, and always easy to talk to.

Pride in these strengths is the first step to investing a little time into the resources that are almost always at your disposal.

Personalization of approach is about personal style.

Imagine the difference between receiving a generic email and one that greets you with an upbeat reference to some achievement you’ve earned. Something you and the sender have in common.

Or any personal reference — probably pulled in a matter of seconds from a social media profile.

It might be a professional connection, a shared school, hobby or virtually anything that stands out. That message says: “I’m reaching out because you made a genuine impression.”

This includes the subject line, to win that initial open.

Using the person’s name (obvious), along with current company, some achievement, or anything else that shows you know them, is potent:

John, your work at {{company}} has gained attention.

This small effort is the best investment a recruiter can make.

In fact it can be the antithesis of the foot-in-the-door technique. It triggers Dr. Robert B. Cialdini’s groundbreaking 6 Principles of Influence:

Reciprocity — the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit.

Your recipient feels complimented. You are clearly writing a personal message. You know something about her. And you are impressed enough to reach out.

The recipient knows you did your homework. You spelled the name right. Heck, you’ve probably been showing the profile around, with various important heads nodding and smiling as they stared at it.

Your recipient is now warm inside and feels you deserve time and effort.

And what was the cost?

In another instance, you could quickly discover that a qualified expert out there is actually connected to somebody who works at your company.

You would know what to do next, right?

Because a personal email from that person would go a long way to getting a result.

Ladders as a Quality Example

Hey, if you don’t blow your own trumpet, right?

Imagine you’re tasked with a high-end position. It’s important and lands between a $400K-$500K salary range.

You bring Ladders into the picture for targeted $100K-$500K+ professionals, with resumes that spell out “expertise” “experience” and “highly qualified” at every step.

And you use Ladders Experts and pull some interesting profiles. 

Great, but results are key. So how do you optimize personalization?

Easy — make yourself invisible.

You pick any personalized talking points you’ve discovered. You draft an email. Then you talk to a key hiring manager about putting her name and picture with it.

Back to another principle of persuasion — authority.

Now the personalized correspondence, with personal touches, comes from the authority figure. 

Instant compliment. Instant personalized experience.

Your win is your smart thinking — your strategy.

Every small investment of time and effort pays back in a potentially major way.

And every smart thing you do that isn’t spray-and-pray protects your reputation and your company’s reputation.

Also, any extra effort you put into areas such as networking and relationship building will reward you with great ROI. 

Ladders makes it easy for its recruiters to create their own member profiles on Ladders, for example, and encourages them to do that. So here’s our recommended mantra:

Personalization is productivity. Results earn rewards.

Job Expertise & Engagement

So taking a few minutes to find a personal way to connect is an easy investment. Approaching through a relevant connection or a hiring manager is a smart tactic when applied properly.

As is knowing your target’s field.

A little research into the field you’re recruiting for is always a good idea. Maybe there are upheavals or new innovations there that people are talking about, or worried about.

However, acting like you too are an expert is going too far. Maybe you’re aware of something via friend in the field, for example.

Your target now feels you respect him as a professional.

Maybe certain approaches don’t work well with certain professionals: being overtly positive and upbeat with journalists or PR people could lead to guardedness and mistrust, for example.

We shouldn’t indulge in stereotypes, but we should respect the kind of work performed and the culture that goes with it. It can shape the way professionals respond.

Cold-calling is a thing of the past. Personalization is everything.

Small investments do gain great rewards

And when good people, who you very quickly built something of a relationship with, don’t work out for a position, make sure you keep their details and throw them a friendly line for others.

Because relationship building is as personal as it gets.

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Quality Job Candidates for Hiring Teams

Image shows a recruiter picking a digital job candidate from a screen.

Tough times for job candidates demand targeted solutions for recruiters.

Calm over chaos. Calculation over confusion. Strategy over stress.

Spray-and-Pray for yesterday. Aim-and-Hit for today and every day.

Easily said, right?

So let’s look at a sourcing resource for recruiters.

One that’s designed to cut out time-wasting job candidates. And attract talent that matters.

Talent with enthusiasm, experience, and expertise.

Full Access to Experts


An ATS system is essentially technology’s answer to a problem it created.

That’s because the internet made job applications super simple.

In a downturn, eagerness to get ahead can heavily outweigh expertise.

And your ATS can only do so much.

Consequently, surfing, sifting and sorting becomes the daily grind.

And it’s a sloppy solution to a growing problem.

However, talent attraction by fine-targeting combines technology with strategy.

This encourages high-end results — with a full access advantage.

Additionally, it’s easy.

Which doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with eagerness or enthusiasm.

Combine them with experience and expertise and you have the perfect job candidate package.

For example, a professional full access job candidate package like this:

7 million users — pre-assessed and targeted as active or passive $100K-$500K+ job seekers. Answering recruiter long term or short term needs.

15 years’ experience on average — no enthusiastic amateurs targeted, just professionals.

 92% with a bachelor’s degree; 45% with a master’s degree. Educated and proactive.

$154K median member income — expertise meets achievement meets results.

360 million Ladders News opens per year — high-end engagement from experts.

On the other hand, you could be targeting up-and-coming professionals in the $80K-$100K range.

This need is also answered in Ladders’ rarified space.

Big Date With Big Data


Knowledge is power.

So access to big data is collated to cover a specific candidate area. And targeted to answer detailed recruiter job needs. Providing a powerhouse solution.

Let’s unpack that.

A Full Access License from Ladders enables a deep data dive for recruiters:

Unlimited search — the complete Ladders database of professional experts.

Unlimited job posts — targeted to the high-end experts who fit your needs.

Unlimited resume downloads — search-and-save, contact info, and desired salary.

Third Page™ data — 20 million answers to key interview questions from members.

Advanced search – fine-targeting with Boolean search options (and support).

Resume Preview — fast assessments with a resume preview in search results.

ATS connectivity — optimized processing management and fast job delivery.

XML connectivity — easy, automated job post management across systems.

Email alerts — inbox backup, suggested candidates based on saved searches and more.

Success Management — easy access to live support across all recruiter needs.

Tap2Call on mobile — one-tap dialing for busy recruiters who are on the move.

Candidates, Careers & Craft


Spray-and-Pray is history.

The new normal means evolving with the times.

So rather than placing all bets on technology, technology is incorporated into a focused strategy.

Big data is broken down based on needs, then targeted.

Optimization enhances productivity.

Time saved equals gains.

Technology and strategy combine for fine-targeting. Fast results. And great outcomes.

And quality selection equals retention.

Expert candidates are matched to careers based on your craft, honed for efficiency.

Aim-and-Hit is the future — and, of course, that started already.

Ready to turn this downturn around?