Inside the 2026 Tech Hiring Market with Recruiter Ted Hellmuth

Speaker A: Welcome back to the Tech Connect podcast. I'm, um, here today with Ted. I'm going to ask Ted to introduce himself in just a second, and we're really talking about what you need to know about the 2026 tech hiring market. I, uh, think we'll talk a little bit both on the recruiter side and the candidate side. And in particular, we want to get into some of the research that we've just completed here at dice, uh, and talk about where the trends are and what, and what's going to happen. So, Ted, please just introduce yourself and IQ Clarity.

Speaker B: Yep. I'm Ted Helmuth. I'm the founder of IQ Clarity. We are a boutique recruiting firm, uh, Almost going on 10 years, based here in Denver, Colorado, with operations in Texas and across the U.S. now, do you

Speaker A: just, um, and you specialize mainly in engineering and technology roles or you do anything?

Speaker B: We, uh, we specialize in engineering and tech, uh, and also marketing, creative.

Speaker A: Okay. All right, perfect. Um, so, so it's a, it's a, it's. Thank you for coming here because I think you have good insights into what's happening with the market, uh, more broadly. Let's just start and start with 2025 was a more challenging year, I think.

Speaker B: Correct.

Speaker A: Um, it's early in 2026. Uh, what are you seeing just sort of as the year starts?

Speaker B: Absolutely. It's started to be a very good year in terms of demand. Um, it actually started late last year, probably around November time frame. So. Saw uptick in job orders, uh, particularly an uptick in leadership, uh, job orders. So it was an interesting trend to see companies maybe wanting to set themselves up for solid leadership into the new year. But, yeah, it's been a very strong start to the year, which I could not say at, uh, the beginning of last year.

Speaker A: Okay. Okay. I think one of the trends we saw over the last couple years, and I'm going to broaden this more widely, is two, Two things. We've seen companies contract, so there's been a lot of, um, technologists leaving, uh, organizations. And then we've seen, um, what I would consider to be a lack of movement. So without people moving. And I think you need both people moving and you need hiring to kind of really stimulate the, the, the market. Um, are you seeing signs that we're starting to kind of move away from that, or is there still some, some, uh, you know, some stuff blocked?

Speaker B: Yeah, I would say the blockage is starting to unravel in a good way. Um, we're seeing an uptick in demand, obviously. That's demand for our services is a, ah, I guess a leading indicator that the market's starting to strengthen. People are willing to pay fees to find the right people. They're unable to find the right people on their own with their own TA departments. Um, so it's starting to unblock I think uh, getting candidates to who, who are currently working to make the leap of faith to join a new firm that uh, has some challenge because there's like stability in your role. So there's some interesting dynamics happening there but uh, in general that blockage so to speak is starting to loosen up a little bit.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think there's some mixed messaging in the data we received from our, the survey we did of the tech professional. So for uh, example, you're absolutely right. Uh, job stability went um, from uh, seven to two, uh, for a reason for leaving, but not because people are concerned about do is the new company I'm stable on actually is about stability in their own role, um, as well. But then you also have Ah, 74% of tech professionals who say they plan to change their employer next year. Um, um, so I think there's a desire to move. It's just whether or not that there's opportunity to, to shift.

Speaker B: To shift. Yep, absolutely.

Speaker A: Um, now one of the things that we've heard um, about you know, in my career is of course when engineering um, becomes tighter in an organization, you end up with burnout. There's a lot of responsibility, um, on engineering teams. Are you hearing candidates or are you, are you seeing that uh, there's some relief in uh, sort of people overworking or is it still, is it just part of being in the industry?

Speaker B: Right. I, unfortunately the way the market has trended over the last couple years, uh, it, the trend has been we're going to do more with less. We're going to have our software engineer also be the qa, also be the business analyst, also be the product owner. So there's this element of sort of combining rules and that absolutely leads to burnout. Uh, candidates don't come to us and say like hey, I'm burnt out, I need a new job. But they'll, they'll signal, they'll say my company just laid off half my team. Yep, I got a lot more responsibility on my plate. I may be hoping to find something with a little more work life balance. So uh, they're not going to directly tell us, hey, that's not a good look I guess.

Speaker A: But yeah, it's tricky. And look, I mean uh, uh, the balance to that if you're a tech professional and you are in one of those situations is I think you embrace it in the short term as an awesome growth opportunity. Um, you know, some of, some of the most interesting periods in my career have been where there's been contraction and you've given more responsibility and you're having to handle things that you may not be comfortable with. Um, I think there's a. There's the. The answer to all questions seems to be, well, doesn't I just take care of all that now? Um, I'm not sure we're quite there yet, Ted.

Speaker B: No, I don't think so. It's certainly, uh, commanding a lot of attention in headlines, a lot of attention on everyone's LinkedIn feed, on everyone's news feed. You know, it. It's getting a lot of attention. I think executives see that and they start commanding their leaders. What are you doing with AI? What are we doing? How are we being more efficient? How many heads are we going to cut or what? And it's. The practicality of it has not hit, uh, yet. So we're still kind of in that transition, transformation phase.

Speaker A: Yeah, we. We'. Um, you know, a huge increase in the number of job postings that require AI and it's starting to feel like there's lots of opportunities in AI and then there's all the other jobs, um, that are coming around. Um, you know, when you. I know that you work, um, you know, with organizations to screen candidates. What, what emphasis are you putting? And how do you even ask, like, what's your AI experience? Is that. What does that look like?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So we'll ask a question around. Tell me what you've done with AI to make yourself more efficient in your last role. What was your last employer's appetite to embrace AI and how was your team leveraging it? And then dig deeper. Like, how did you use it? What. What were some ideas that you came to the table with that helped make your team more efficient? And then, uh, you get sort of one or two. Well, there's probably three different reactions. The most common we see are, uh, my company was anti. You know, they didn't use it. They didn't want us using it. There were too many security risks. So we didn't. I didn't get much experience there. The other answer is, well, we were playing with it. We were using Cursor to write some code. We used Copilot to do this or that, and I just help, you know, execute on that. Well, but, uh, that's not what Employers want right now. Yeah, employers want a principal engineer who's harnessed the power of all these tools, who can stitch them all together and make magic happen. And when we find those candidates, I can get them a job in a week.

Speaker A: Right, right, right.

Speaker B: They're just fewer and further between at the moment.

Speaker A: Yes. Okay. Do you anticipate, um, you know, as, as, Because AI is still a, ah, There is enormous opportunity for companies to leverage AI and I think, you know, we talked about this on this podcast before. You're starting to see AI get narrower and more proficient in um, more specialized tasks. But the general application still, you know, it has some, some broad issues. Um, you know, when you, when you start to apply it more broadly. Um, have you, are you, have you been asked by any of these companies to find specific AI roles or are they, is it still more general?

Speaker B: We've seen a lot of leadership demand, so we're looking for a director of data and AI and it sort of gets in with the uh, data and analytics team right now. Um, but the companies that are doing it right, the, the best organizations we work with have a chief data and uh, AI officer who is setting the guardrails, empowering teams, giving them the tools they need, get, ensuring that it's used properly and really putting task forces together to attack different business process problems, different, you know, areas where AI can really be a huge lifeline to different organizations to be more efficient. Um, but that's not, that's a very small minority at organizations that are getting to that point.

Speaker A: Yeah, I just read an article, large, um, multinational who, you know, a few years ago followed the um, let's just go crazy and see what works with AI. Um, is, is really pulling that back in again and, and driving more targeted. A chief Innovation officer or an AI officer of some description that's actually managing where the effort's going because you know, it, it does create sprawl, um, a lot of sprawl. I'm fascinated by, um, this, I, this, this idea that eventually managers will be able to create their own, ah, um, software, um, in the middle. I just, I, I, it boggles my mind about how much sprawl and mess we're going to make. Which is excellent for tech professionals because we're the ones that are going to have to tidy it all up at some point. That's right. Yeah. It's like the old, um, the, the old experience of going into a company and everybody like, well, we run everything on Excel spreadsheets. Can you make the macros into computer programs that Was this is the new version of that? I suspect so, yeah. Yeah, it is. Um, so one of the other trends around AI, um, has been in organizations where there's this sort of a, uh, belief that you don't need junior programmers. Right. Senior programmers, you mentioned you can take a senior person with integration experience and get them a job in a second. Um, I think that that's come at the expense right now of more junior positions. So are we creating a problem here, um, by companies not embracing and hiring more junior engineers in organizations?

Speaker B: Absolutely, yeah. It's, that's the pipeline. That's sort of the talent, uh, pool of the next generation. And if those individuals are being turned off from the tech industry, they're. That pipeline starts to dry up and that really impacts us five years, 10 years down the road. So, um, I don't think that early graduates have no opportunity. What I think is that the opportunity landscape is changing and it's changing very rapidly and very dramatically. So those graduates who are proactive, who have embraced AI in their studies, have embraced AI in their projects, have a portfolio of work that they've done and automated through the use of AI tools, they are going to have a much better chance of going out and getting a job in this market. Uh, I'm actually, I'd probably be more concerned about the, you know, the senior engineer who's reluctant to, uh, to use AI tools. That individual is going to have a harder job getting or have a harder time getting a job in this market, you know, if things do tighten up or things get worse.

Speaker A: So, yeah, I think, um, you know, obviously we, we've, we, there's been a, a pipeline of more junior engineers, you know, both through compi, um, courses, but also boot camps, you know, a lot of coding boot camps. I know they're shifting to AI. I, um, will also say if you're, if you are motivated, there's a ton of resource available out on the Internet to learn all these tools that are effectively available free. Um, you know, I also recognize that as you get more mature in your career, um, those more senior developers are specialists and experts in a particular field. And that is, uh, something that takes a little bit more effort to kind of stretch a past. Um, you know, for a few of you though, um, there's still people writing cobol, so, you know, maybe, maybe you can hang on right the way through, I think.

Speaker B: So there's always, you know, there's always opportunity out there.

Speaker A: There, there is always opportunity out there.

Speaker B: But maybe someone come up with an AI agent that writes Cobalt and JCL and all sorts of.

Speaker A: I'm pretty sure you can get, um, you can get AI to wrote Cobal. Funnily enough, the other day I have a couple of retro computers, um, and I had um, I was doing a, I was just saying before I was, I did a, a career talk at uh, um, my daughter's high school and I wanted to show you know, what the power of generative AI is. And you know, my first computer was an 8 bit computer that needed a cassette recorder to load the code onto. And um, the generative AI is actually pretty good at creating basic code that will just run straight on those machines. It's amazing. So yeah, no more typing out of a book anymore. You can just prompt the game that

Speaker B: you want, which that is just Prompt engineering and Context engineering. That is also an opportunity where if you're early in your career and you want to segue into a job with AI at the center of it, look at Prompt Engineer, look at context Engineering. There's all these things that take a human's brain to sort of get into the machine.

Speaker A: So yeah, now you touched on this before. Um, in our survey, almost a quarter of technologists said that they're using AI without their manager's uh, permission. Um, maybe they're stuck in an organization that isn't being as progressive. And as you're not going to get that growth, um, if you're looking to change, let's say you are wanting to embrace that, um, what suggestions do you have for a candidate to understand? If I move, am I moving to a more progressive environment or am I just going to end up with the same frustrations?

Speaker B: Absolutely. It's funny because there's a lot of organizations, um, all the engineers that are listening right now have probably dealt with interview processes that are absurd. Right? They will. Four interviews, a, uh, two hour paired programming exercise, a take home test, and then the firms that say don't use AI on this take home test, uh, immediate sort of red flag, right? That should go up. Uh, what we're seeing is, is the progressive organizations are saying, here's the challenge, we encourage you to use AI, but you're going to have to explain how you leverage AI to solve this problem. And you know, if you're just having AI do everything for you and you can't explain it back to the hiring manager, they're not going to hire you. But if you can say, here was the problem set, here's where I thought AI could be applicable. Here's the solution it came up with. Here's why I thought that solution was okay, and here's how I modified it to be the perfect solution.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's, that's great advice. I mean, I think the other thing I'd add, um, onto this, and this is something both during your job seeking and to be honest, once you're employed, to be wary of, um, you know, is A.I.

Speaker B: slop.

Speaker A: Um, you know, I, I'm a, I'm a manager of an organization. Um, and, you know, and I see occasionally, um, you know, evidence of AI slop. Um, and while I think it, it's, it's a useful tool, you've got to be very careful about how you, how you repurpose and present it. I think it's a great, it's a great tool. Um, just, you know, you got to be judicious with how you use it, I think. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Double check what comes out of there. My. I get emails where, you know, those random words are bold. And I know for sure. ChatGPT. Yep. Decided to bold some of those words and someone just cut and pasted.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, just. While we're on generative AI for a second, let's talk about resumes real quick. Um, you know, I think, um, we've seen an explosion of tools and the ability to build cut perfect resumes for the perfect job. Do you, Are you hearing recruiters? How are recruiters dealing with that?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's. Resumes are one part of the job search process. And I'd encourage everyone that's out there that's looking for a job or like, resume is one piece of the puzzle. Yes. Use it. You know, AI or generative AI to build a template for you. But you have to go in and you have to, um, put things in your own words and really make sure that you're leveraging impact statements. So it's one thing to say wrote C sharp delta program that did X, Y and Z. But like, what was your impact? What was your. How do you quantify what you did in that role that sets you apart from the 10, 30, 50, 100 other applicants out there? Because that's what we're dealing with right now is there's too many applicants. There's, you know, post a software engineer role that's 100% remote and just watch it will have a thousand applicants within a few days. And, you know, a good percentage of those are probably fake. A good percentage are probably, you know, hackers from North Korea. A good percentage of those are just. They're not real people. So companies now are trying to fold in layers of screening that just prove it's a human, right?

Speaker A: Yep, yep, yep.

Speaker B: So if you're a human and you're looking for a job, you're already a leg up from, you know, at least good job, human beings, 600 of those other resumes that you're competing against. So how do you prove that right? Have a resume that feels human, that looks human, that reads human, and that talks about the impact that you had on your. Your last role.

Speaker A: Should I add a spelling mistake?

Speaker B: Yeah, do it. That, you know, that's m. Nothing more human than a grammatical.

Speaker A: I've been telling everyone, take spelling mistakes out of resumes for the last 20 years. Now we're adding them back in. Show that we're person.

Speaker B: So infallible humans.

Speaker A: Um, do you think, uh, you know when you go to websites occasionally and you have to click that box that says are you a human? Should we include that on res?

Speaker B: I mean, you should, but unfortunately I've seen uh, and, and built tools that actually like a, a robot can do that now. So there's. That is.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Outdated.

Speaker A: So we're in a. And I think we're, we're. So we're starting to see a little bit of mobility. Um, you know, it sounds like you're seeing m more demand. And I very encouraged to hear companies looking again for leadership because that ultimately does result in aligned strategy and then often mobility within organization. Some people leave, some people come. Um, that's good to hear. If I'm on the candidate side just for a second. Um, you know what, what are some of the biggest mistakes you're seeing candidates make in this current market? Because it's still competitive.

Speaker B: It is, it is. Yeah. And I don't want to discount that. It is not an easy job market to navigate as a candidate, as a job seeker. Um, the biggest mistake that I see are individuals who are actively looking for a role and only using the job application as their vehicle for finding a new opportunity. So they're submitting jobs, they're submitting resumes. They're hoping and praying that somebody sees it. And the reality is it's a horrible and sick reality. But not every resume gets reviewed by a human.

Speaker A: What?

Speaker B: Uh, so unfortunately, the percentage chance of you winning an opportunity, even if you're perfect for the role, if that's all you're doing, you're missing out on 60% of the actual job seeking process, which is networking, figuring out who the hiring manager is, get someone get introduced to that company. Uh, so there's a lot of Other methods job seekers just aren't doing, um, that will really help set you apart from the rest of the pool.

Speaker A: Yeah. And that completely resonates with advice we've given many times, um, around not just good enough to apply. Building those relationships and networking becomes really important. Now I'll also tell you, um, just sending the recruiting manager a LinkedIn message to uh, say you're applying for a job. That may not be enough either. So, you know, you've got to be, I think, um, uh, tactical about how you, how you approach that. Um, and then, you know, I've given this advice before with, uh, with more junior members, um, in the industry or junior people in the industry, which is, it's OK to find lateral roles inside a company. If the company's big enough and you can find an opportunity to get employed there, you have such a better chance of then showing your value and m. Moving, um, into an engineering or into where you want your career to be. Um, it's incredibly useful. And then, you know, from my um, personal experience, um, you know, my first IT role was a lateral move in from the sort of the nitty gritty part of the business. And it was incredibly valuable because I actually understood what the business did at the core. Um, and that served uh, me well. So don't, don't be scared of finding an opportunity and moving laterally.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I had a computer science grad who I was mentoring. He was looking for a role and ended up this market. It was last year and the market was just not good. He took a help desk role, uh, which was, you know, a tier one job at the company. But he's helping automate a lot of the job that he's doing. The hiring managers obviously reviewing that being like, wow, we don't, you know, you're making your job a lot more efficient so you can get in at a base role and really work your way up and do a lateral role and just show what you're capable of.

Speaker A: Also, if you're on the help desk, you get admin access to all the recruiting tools. You can put yourself right at the top.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Um, so what about mistakes on the employer side? What are you seeing? Um, that the candidates should be aware of, that employers aren't doing well, given the changes in how we're recruiting.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, employer's biggest mistake is drawing the process out way too long. They think the perfect candidate is out there. So five interviews, then, you know, the process gets to where candidates are getting burnt out just applying to jobs, much less getting the job and working there. So really have a mindful process where within three interviews you can assess if this person's a good fit for the role. Uh, the candidate's gonna feel better about you as an organization. They're gonna feel better about, you know, how you're engaging with them. So, so really that, that process and then in this employer's market, we just forget about the candidate experience. Like that's a human being back there that is going through the motions. And if you're treating them.

Speaker A: Hold on, you just said most of them were robots.

Speaker B: Okay. One of them, One or two of them are humans.

Speaker A: One or two of the humans. Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah, those are the ones you want to take care of and just show them a good experience because that reflects when they have. And we're getting to a point now where candidates are getting multiple offers. So if your candidate experience was poor and you really fall in love with that person, they might not take your role. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you. I've been, I've read about this for a while. Um, you know, particularly for larger organizations, your employer, your employee experience is part of your brand experience as well. Um, you know, I think that shifts if you're a smaller organization, but particularly for large ones. There's, there is a lot of, um, uh, impact in, in that. So, um, now I asked you this at the beginning. Um, let's just, uh, double down on this. What do you think? What's your prediction for the rest of the year here?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I have a feeling this is going to be another year of transformation, uh, a more positive year for job seekers than it was in the past. We've already seen it sort of the, the macroeconomic climate. While it's not stable, it has reached a. Points that people know what to expect. And so it, with that clarity comes, okay, we're going to set our strategy, we're going to follow our strategy. We're going to hire these people, we're going to start these projects, we're going to invest. There was this hesitancy to invest last year. Now that money's getting unlocked, new startups. So there's a lot of AI startups

Speaker A: out there, is there?

Speaker B: They're, uh, hiring people.

Speaker A: What's this AI?

Speaker B: Ah, yeah, it's crazy wild stuff that, uh, works magic, but, but there is opportunity. So. And this market is proving that. Engineers are getting multiple offers. We're seeing more demand. People want to use recruiters again, agencies and pay fees. That's, you know, obviously good news for everybody.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So, uh, so things are starting to Unlock. But it's going to be that year of transformation. I would not go into this expecting a normal year. Roles, uh, are going to change, uh, expectations are going to change. So be ready for it. Be proactive and stay ahead of the curve when it comes to leveraging AI, leveraging automation tools. Set yourself apart from the rest of the applicants that are out there and I assure you you'll have a much better job finding and securing that offer.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think, um, at a macro level there seems to be a little bit more confidence in the sort of the stability of our economy this year. Um, which means that companies are more likely to make uh, capital investments and place some bets which require investment and teams. So that's encourag, uh, for sure. Last question. Um, let's give some advice to ah, job seekers who are ah, in the mix right now. What can I do this week if I'm actively looking for a role? Um, what's your advice?

Speaker B: My advice is there's, there's probably more jobs out there. So the, the tendency is to just hit, apply to as many that, that meet sort of close to what you're looking for. Pick the three that you are an absolute diamond in the rough for, that you're a good fit across the board. You hit all the expectations. You've been in that industry. You've done this role before. Pick those three and figure out who's the hiring manager. So there's tools out there you can find it? Uh, some. Find someone that works at that company that maybe you know or know someone at that company and try to get an introduction. It's one thing to like message the hiring manager. It's a much different thing if somebody else sends your resume to the hiring manager and says, hey, this person's perfect for this role. You should check them out. I, um, know when I was working for a Fortune 500 company, I'd have an SVP that would forward me a resume. Wasn't a good fit, but the SVP sent to me, I freaking had to call them. Yeah, uh, that's right. So you're going to get attention if you go that route.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And you know, there are many tools to figure out what your relationship is to that company and who you might know. Um, you know, we talked about this before. Uh, you know, how do you use some of these more emerging tools? One of the other things I think, um, in my experience sets a candidate apart in the interview process is it's not just one way that you're getting thoughtful questions that are relevant to the business back from the candidate. And that is an area where, uh, tools, um, the generative AI is, is incredibly useful for researching the context of you and the organization that you're going to interview with. And again, same thing. You have to pick the. The value from that. You can't just use it verbatim. And then you need to validate because, you know, there are occasions where I know this is going to surprise you, Ted. AI makes things up.

Speaker B: It's amazing.

Speaker A: It is amazing.

Speaker B: Hallucinates Grateful Dead shows, I don't know,

Speaker A: getting better, but it's definitely still there, so. Well, thank you. Any last words of wisdoms for our, for our tech professionals out there?

Speaker B: I think to get out into the market, right, uh, go to networking events, meet people. Uh, that's the human touch that, that sort of gets lost in all this. So go meet people.

Speaker A: Take.

Speaker B: Go out to coffee with your network. Really nurture your network and expand it. And the possibilities are endless.

Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thank you, Ted.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you, Paul.

Speaker A: Yeah.