Ocean Red
RECRUITING IN HIGH PERFORMANCE MARKETS
Talk to us
The Red Signal

Writing from the desk

Practitioner notes on the market. Real numbers, named patterns.

Poster titled "The Market Data Scarcity Curve: Why 200 applicants doesn't mean you have a talent pool". A curve falls from unqualified applicants through niche skills to qualified talent, above two anglers, one at a wide pool and one at a small focused river.
The Red Signal / Issue 107 min read

The Market Data Scarcity Curve

200 applicants, maybe one or two real hires. A full pipeline is not a talent pool. Why standard hiring fails in market infrastructure, and what works instead.

Read
A man carrying a laptop looks up at a large golden smiling mask labelled "Senior" mounted on an office wall. Its shadow works a small puppet on strings.
The Red Signal / Issue 095 min read

The Senior Illusion

'We need someone senior' kills more good hires than any bad candidate ever could. Most of the time it doesn't mean experienced. It doesn't mean exceptional. It means safe. What that costs you.

Read
A split illustration. On the left, a sad ghost holds an envelope. On the right, a man at his desk stares at his phone with question marks above his head and a notepad reading "Follow up?".
The Red Signal / Issue 086 min read

You Weren't Ghosted. You Just Didn't Follow Up

Ghosting has taken over every recruitment conversation. The system is broken in places, that part isn't up for debate. But not every unanswered application is ghosting, and sometimes you didn't follow up.

Read
Poster titled "The Engineering Absorption Effect: Where Open Roles Quietly Disappear". An office chair hung with an "Open Position" sign spirals down a vortex of paperwork.
The Red Signal / Issue 077 min read

The Engineering Absorption Effect

Engineering headcount gets frozen. A role stays open for five months. Then it quietly disappears, the work absorbed by the people already there. The cost isn't free. It's deferred, and it arrives all at once.

Read
A man studies a laptop while financial charts and figures hang in the air around him: runway 12 months, turnover $4.5m per quarter, team attrition 15% last year.
The Red Signal / Issue 068 min read

Good Engineers Are Walking Away From Your Roles. Here's the Conversation You're Not Hearing

30 off-the-record calls with engineers this quarter. They're acting more like investors than job seekers, and the companies still running 2019 hiring playbooks are losing people and blaming the market.

Read
A trading desk at night, lit by two monitors showing a candlestick chart and a data terminal, with a city skyline behind.
The Red Signal / Issue 056 min read

The Terminal Is Still on the Desk. The Job It Justified Is Gone

Fifteen years in financial data. Knew Bloomberg like his own kitchen. Just made redundant. When the interface becomes natural language, knowing the interface is worth near zero. What's durable instead.

Read
Cartoon captioned "I'm Happy... But Could I Be Happier? What Love Island Can Teach You About Career Drift". A suited man stands on a beach, thought bubble reading "Could I be... happier?", while a second suited man lounges on a sunbed with a cocktail.
The Red Signal / Issue 046 min read

I'm Happy… But Could I Be Happier? What Love Island Can Teach You About Career Drift

Someone my friend used to manage just beat him to the MD role. His mistake? Loyalty. He stayed comfortable while the market moved without him. This is career drift, and how to avoid it.

Read
Cover of LinkedIn's Labor Market Report, January 2026, subtitled "Building a Future of Work That Works", published by the Economic Graph Research Institute.
The Red Signal / Issue 037 min read

The Only Recruitment Stat That Actually Matters in 2026

929 applications. I sent 5 CVs. The 5 weren't pulled from the pile, they were people I already knew. Applicants are 3.6x more likely to get hired through a connection. The only stat that matters.

Read
A man in a suit writes "Recruitment" on a whiteboard while a cartoon robot smashes through the wall beside him with a hammer.
The Red Signal / Issue 027 min read

AI Didn't Break Recruitment. It Just Exposed That Most of You Have No Strategy

'The bots rejected my CV.' Bollocks. AI isn't rejecting you, other candidates are using AI to bury you. There are fewer jobs and more people. That's it. The real reason you're not getting interviews.

Read
Two interviewers sit behind a desk, facing an empty chair.
The Red Signal / Issue 015 min read

Unemployed? You're Already Losing the Interview Before It Starts

It's easier to get a job when you already have one. Employed candidates get 2x the interviews and 3x the offers. The market doesn't play fair. Here's the bias, and how to cut through it.

Read