A Narrowing Window

Trends in the job market are hard to follow. They happen gradually, vary dramatically across industries, and often don’t affect us directly. Though they may seem intangible and unpredictable, some trends in the job market follow a pattern. Today, we’re witnessing the early stages of one of these recurring trends: the tightening of a labor market around a technological revolution.

In the most general terms, companies (and industries) get harder to break into as they gain more traction. 

The tech giants of today are a perfect example. In the early days of Facebook, Amazon, and Google, recruiting was famously unstructured. The founding teams were effectively groups of mutual friends who had some shared interest in technology, a base level of general competency, and who were willing to work hard. Today, these companies are literally harder to break into than the top Ivy League Schools. They accept <1% of applicants and have a highly regimented process for vetting candidates - turning away thousands of smart, hardworking people. 

Obviously, these companies are outliers in their levels of success, but the peers of these organizations followed similar progressions. In the early days, they looked for people who believed in the mission, were competent enough to contribute immediately, and were willing to take risks. As those same companies matured, the hiring bar rose - enthusiasm and risk tolerance alone didn’t get you in the door. The pool of talent they could pull from got bigger and the emphasis shifted towards credentials, experience, and pedigree.

The same curve is unfolding now in AI. Right now, many AI companies are in the scrappy, open-door stage - willing to take risks on smart, hardworking people. But as they mature into more established organizations, being competent and hardworking won’t be enough. You’ll need to be competent and hardworking… and will need to have relevant experience, an elite degree, and to outperform dozens of other highly qualified candidates in an interview process. 

We see this first-hand because we work with companies at different stages of this progression. The Seed/Series A companies that we work with recruit on slope. They are very thoughtful about who they are hiring, but are far more flexible about what their past experience may look like. The Series C companies that have raised $100M+ and are household names, view recruiting completely differently. They won’t have a conversation with a candidate who doesn’t have the hyper-specific requirements that they’re looking for - and they’re likely filtering through hundreds of applications for a single seat. 

The reality is, more and more of the industry will begin to fall into the latter bucket. These “revolutions” do not last forever, and the winners of tomorrow are quickly progressing into the more developed and regimented recruiting processes. In five years, if you have no AI experience, why would a successful AI company take a chance on you when they can choose someone with four years of industry experience?

This industry that’s welcoming talent today will be highly selective in just a few years. Much like Facebook, Amazon, and Google, hiring will become more competitive than Ivy League admissions, with literally thousands of applicants vying for every role. Of course, there will always be early stage companies that are willing to take risks, but as AI as an industry becomes more mature, so will the hiring practices across the industry.

If you have any intention of ever pursuing an opportunity in the field of Artificial Intelligence, I think it’s important to recognize that this trend is occurring. Though the option to move may always be there, the path into these organizations can become significantly more competitive very quickly.