The talent market of 2025-2027

With 7 open roles for DevriX in our HQ in Sofia, I'm spending half my time now on recruitment.

And while our core roles are on-site, we also work with some fractional directors and CXOs in the US where most of our business is.

The job market is extremely fragmented with one common trait we see across the board:

Business is still running, but autonomy and true partnerships are the heart of every relationship

I see this on the agency side, in my consultancy, across our portfolio of clients and in my investing portfolio.

Hiring hasn't stopped; but it has dramatically transformed from the 2016-2020 era, or the 2020-2022 for eCommerce and some booming businesses during layoffs.

The 2023-2024 downtime has been lifted in various verticals as more and more businesses are recovering and heading into the new economic reality (after cuts and layoffs, recalibrating budgets, and shifting to new KPIs).

And the AI augmentation hasn't changed much on the sales and marketing side in B2B. But it helped automate and optimize internal playbooks and processes, leading to fewer steps and fewer people needed for mundane tasks.

"Less is more"

All the solopreneurs and indies are raving about their Lovable prototypes and vibe coded apps. That's not directly applicable in B2B and traditional industries - this fad won't be picking up in the next 5 years.

But the paradigms have affected larger corporations.

Consultancies and fractional markets are working

In a full down market, no hiring happens. That was most of 2023 or 2024 (depending on an industry).

In a booming market, hiring everyone was the norm (2016 onward for several years in various categories, especially VC-funded hockey stick startups).

BPO was also booming in certain categories where "hiring 10 people" is faster with a BPO, or opening up call centers in different locations was easier.

Now, solving specific problems in this market is fundable, but the volume of work or the diversity of specialties/expertise looks completely different.

Instead of hiring a team of 8 in the 2016-2020 economy, or halting projects in 2023, projects need to be delivered effectively. Which means:

While traditional marketing and tech agencies in the market struggle where their $30K - $50K projects of 2020 now get $8K quotes, professional consultancies target formerly $250K projects that can now be delivered for $50K - $70K.

Where $30M businesses used to hire teams with 20 people to source initiatives, now a strong consultancy can offload that for a $200K - $300K/year contract instead, with strong background and autonomy and a well-versed team.

While top talent is hard to source, find, and hire full-time, fractional executives with previous exists and 20+ years of enterprise work are now available for monthly retainers at the cost of half-time mid-level talent.

This new, distributed model, opens up different conversations and opportunities everywhere. And it's a completely different market - infused with AI, and not led by "always hiring", getting the job done in a true ROI and KPI-driven fashion.

What does that mean for people looking for work?

This definitely comes at the cost of talent - some incredible people were affected by these layoffs, as well as some great people who turned their lives around, based on the perception that "remote will stay forever" and "stay at home jobs are the future".

This was never going to work, but the promiseland was sold effectively during the pandemic, and pulling the rug now is, unfortunately, painful.

When a 5,000 team shifts to 4,000 people, that's a thousand people losing their jobs.

Funded startups with over $200M in VC capital laying off a third of their staff takes a toll on people - no question about that.

People are still getting hired, but the reality is... only a chunk of those on the market right now.

Most people getting bonus points for interviews are coming from companies that are still growing, in roles still in demand, often on-site, proficient in several core skills, able to autonomously get the job done, with a proven track record for that.

Companies are looking for A-players able to jump in quickly and learn the ropes in a few weeks, moving the company forward in no time.

And in this market, waiting for similar people is often justified.

Especially if it ends up building larger teams with more and more A-players working together, with fewer back and forths, and more creativity, keeping track of the latest advancements, applying the best practices, pivoting new tools and writing up frameworks and systems in no time.

The top 10% of the companies and top 10% of the talent are generally doing well.

But with a 4% reported average unemployment rate, most of the remaining market is struggling to adapt to the new market requirements.

Since economies go through ups and downs, we're likely to see loosened hiring again in 2027 or 2028, at least for a few years. But meanwhile, careful hiring and a higher bar for talent are the most likely outcomes.

Continuously pushing for substantial autonomy, impeccable culture, proactiveness, availability, and upping your skills is your best bet.

And to quote G. Michael Hopf:

Hard times create strong men.

Strong men create good times.

Good times create weak men.

And, weak men create hard times.

Mario

🗣️ Best practices for B2B marketers in 2025 - my write up for MarketingProfs.

📚️ Books I read this month (mostly flat, binging some revenue/finops podcasts)

📰 On giving back - how professional development and personal branding go hand in hand.

💼 Executive market stats - the applications pool is pretty diverse today, with a good number of former CEOs/COOs (or even existing ones) applying for our jobs.

📃 Salesforce Ben survey - meeting Ben in person and sourcing true data for their latest Developer Survey!

📔 Acquisitions without capital - why current capital means nothing as far as buying power is concerned (Perplexity offering to buy Chrome).

🔖 Build smarter analytics tools. These key analytics features help platforms scale without slowing insight, even as data flows grow more complex.

🔖 Eliminate latency in campaign data. Learn how marketing teams use real-time integration techniques to avoid API delays and keep metrics timely.

🔖 Modernize systems without disruption. Teams are using low-code tools to simplify legacy integration and speed digital transformation.

🔖 Deepen insight from stakeholder feedback. These top tools help align product, marketing, and leadership goals through better data.

🔖 Use firmographics to improve SaaS outreach. See how firmographic data helps tailor offers by company size, sector, and stage.

🔖 Cut complexity in decision trees. This pruning strategy improves model accuracy and keeps business insights clear.

🔖 Boost retention with AI surveys. Use predictive insights to flag at-risk users and act faster.

🔖 Reduce supply chain emissions. See how AI tools cut energy waste and deliver operational ROI.

🔖 Know your CPC benchmarks. Track 2025 ad benchmarks to adjust budgets and find smarter investment opportunities.

🔖 Reframe your social impact model. Learn how Acumen's measurement of real-world outcomes led to a 2,400% ROI.

🔖 Decide faster with clear frameworks. Replace indecision with structured thinking using this solution-focused approach.

📰 OpenAI's $6 billion signal. Insiders sell shares in a secondary offering that draws late-stage investors.

📰 Duolingo AI shift. The CEO says its AI-first plan focuses on innovation, not headcount cuts.

📰 GenScript biotech growth. H1 revenue jumps 81.9% as global expansion and R&D boost profit margins.

📰 OpenAI political power play. Sam Altman hires top operatives to reshape governance and unlock potential funding.

📰 EU economic measures. The EU readies a new sanctions package to tighten pressure on Russia's war economy.

📰 Foreign demand for U.S. debt rises. Overseas buyers boost Treasury holdings to a record level in June.

📰 AI sheets tool. Hugging Face releases a no-code toolkit for transforming data with large language models.

📰 Markets on a tightrope. Fed signals and retail earnings test whether recent stock highs can endure.

📰 Tariffs, inflation and what comes next. Rising import costs may squeeze margins ahead of consumer price changes.

📰 Amazon robotics advantage. New models forecast mobile robot routes to ease warehouse congestion and improve flow.

📰 AI writing gets human touch. A new tool makes machine drafts read more like a personal writing style.

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Need My Help?

Keeping myself busy - here are the main projects I focus on:

🌐 Scaling enterprises on top of WordPress? DevriX provides martech retainers to SMEs, publishers, eCommerce, SaaS, and more. Our plans start from $1,200/mo to $40K/mo and we manage high-traffic platforms (hundreds of millions of monthly views), B2B SaaS apps, partnership management solutions, supporting $10M - $250M businesses with scalability, custom funnels, CRO, big data augmentation, AI-driven processes, HubSpot workflows, programmatic SEO - and everything a modern business requires in digital in 2025.

🚀 Work 1:1 with me? At Growth Shuttle, I run two popular plans: Async Advisory ($3,500/mo) for $3M - $30M founders and executive teams and the smaller Strategic Growth Circle ($997/mo) for $100K - $500K entrepreneurs, agency founders, scale ups.

🌠 Feature your business across the community? The B2B Ecosystem includes this newsletter and 40 other digital properties (directories, newsletters, blogs, SaaS, and social accounts) targeting B2B executives. See how your business can benefit.

📈 International founder looking into US LLCs? Check out doola and their "Business in a Box" model. Suitable for both foreigners and US citizens and both for residents and non-residents.

📊 Into digital M&A? I work closely with Flippa's marketplace. They offer a vast variety of online businesses for any buyer's interest. Or if you're ready for an exit, Flippa provides the tools to list your business and close the deal.

💼 Looking for investment opportunities? Check out SeedBlink.