It’s clear by now that the technology industry is not insulated from the Wall Street fallout. Layoffs have been popular from large corporations (EBay, Yahoo, HP) to startups (Mahalo, Seesmic, Adbrite). On the hand, TechCrunch has also noted that many of these layoffs may not be actual layoffs, but just an opportunity to get rid of the dead wood.

I reached out to Startuply, a YCombinator job site focused on jobs at startups, for their input on this matter. Luke Groesbeck, one of the co-founder, stated that he “hasn’t seen any major effects from the recession…yet.” Moreover, “It’s pretty normal for us to see a 1%-2% fluctuation in the total number of job listings on a given day.” While VC’s have been warning startups with scary presentations, investing will not freeze totally. Through a phonecall, a VC expressed that “startups are always hiring.” I believe it’s just a matter of which ones. Startups that are still growing are well-positioned to take hires from the startups that are oversized (as Allen Stern questions their startup status).

Personally, I believe that job sites such as Startuply are more important than ever in times of hardship. While hiring may not be as aggressive before, people maneuvering between jobs is an inefficiency that needs to be solved. As hiring slows down, some crucial factors will arise, giving the company a chance to grow:

1. Fewer startups will hire for fewer positions. By keeping their numbers decent, Startuply can reach a bigger share of the startup market.
2. More people will be looking for work…(including a whole lot of Yahoos!)
3. Fewer jobs + more applicants = more applicants/job (and a higher applicant quality, too)

Of course, Startuply is only one small player in this big ecosystem. Another job matching site I admire is SnapTalent. From Compete.com’s data, it seems their traffic has dropped in the month of September, when a lot of the layoffs started occuring:

Taking Compete’s data with a grain of salt, I think this is also a time for SnapTalent to grow and help solve the market inefficiencies. More people will roaming their publisher website widget, rather than working. I may even create one myself just to test it out.

Looking at all of this, one thing is clear to me: college seniors need to start buckling down; no more picking and choosing like it’s 2006. It might be a little more realistic to just take what comes now.

Update: Other Job Boards chime in. 

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