🧑‍🎓 Got interns?

👋 Welcome back! In a chat this week with Business Insider, Tripadvisor co-founder Steve Kaufer shared some secrets about how he’s hired top talent over the years. His go-to question? "What's the hardest project you've ever worked on?" Kaufer explained that he listens for any tendencies to blame others (a major 🚨) or an ability to empathize with coworkers (a big ✅).

Bottom line: If they blamed others for failures before, they’ll do it again. Beware of candidates playing the blame game!

Questions? Comments? Feedback? Please reach out, we’d love to hear from you.

— Team RecruitmentMarketing.com ✨

Today’s edition is a 3-minute read. Here’s what to expect👇

🗞️ Competition is fierce for summer internships
🌎️ Amazon fined for warehouse violation
💰️ Bullhorn makes acquisition
💻 TA roles at Handshake, Lyft
💼 Layoffs at Chegg, Loop

Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here 📥️

This week, Bloomberg analyzed new data on summer employment opportunities from career site Handshake, painting an unusually competitive landscape for interns this year.

The big takeaway.
According to Handshake, the competition for internships is heating up this year, with more prospective interns vying for fewer positions. Bloomberg revealed that internships listed on Handshake dropped by over 7% from last June through May, compared to the same period last year. This decrease in listings has led to a significant spike in competition, with the average number of applications per internship soaring to 93, up from 53 the previous year.

Why it matters.
The tougher road for internship seekers could reflect the wider market move to temper entry-level hiring. That’s especially true in fields like finance, consulting and tech, which have cooled dramatically amid industry-wide layoffs. And for the interns, the stakes are high: Recent research by the Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Education Foundation shows that students who don't complete an internship during their studies face a significantly higher risk of long-term underemployment.

Not surprised by the competition?
We’re not either. We’ve been seeing this play out for some time now. Last month, Tesla made the unusual move of rescinding summer internship offers as CEO Elon Musk pushed to cut headcount at the company, leaving students in the lurch weeks before the program was set to start. And a few weeks ago, the junior coding bootcamp internship program Launch Academy said it would completely pause enrollment after a “lack of concrete opportunities” for program graduates.

Remember …
… entry-level hiring right now is slow. While overall U.S. unemployment is low, landing an entry-level job in finance, tech, and consulting is tough for college graduates right now. Why? After several months of layoffs at big-name companies, fewer people are quitting, making these sectors uber-competitive, according to Bloomberg. This has trickled down to hurt young professionals: Glassdoor recently said that confidence among entry-level workers is at its lowest point since 2016.

Why axe the interns?
Well, we know execs are focused on efficiency and cost-cutting—and internship programs are not necessarily ever the most efficient programs out there. "Internship programs are expensive,” Julia Pollak, chief economist at job site ZipRecruiter, said to Bloomberg. “You have to use part of your HR team to oversee these interns and make their lives great." Pollak said ZipRecruiter saw a 14% drop in internship listings in the first quarter compared to the same period last year. "You have to pay them and not necessarily get great quality work out of them."

Read more in Bloomberg 📥️ 

NUMBERS

Numbers That’ll Make You Think

• 33% — The percentage reduction in attrition due to a hybrid work policy, according to a new study at Stanford (Fortune)

• $48 billion — The compensation amount awarded to Tesla CEO Elon Musk following a shareholder vote to uphold a once-nullified pay package from 2018 (NYT)

• 12.6% — The job-finding rate for entry-level job-seekers who were unemployed in the prior month, versus a 29.1% job-finding rate for experienced workers (The Washington Post)

• 2.9% — The percentage increase in U.S. staffing hours in the week following Memorial Day weekend, significantly stronger than the post-holiday increase during the same period in 2023 (SIA)

• $6 million — The monetary fine Amazon will pay after a California labor regulator said on Tuesday the company violated a warehouse safety law that took effect in 2022 (NYT)

• ½ — The fraction of Dell employees said to have rejected the firm’s return to office mandate after being told they would no longer be eligible for promotion if they did not comply with the hybrid-work policy (Business Insider)

INDUSTRY INTEL

M&A Deals, Industry Moves, & Other Things To Know

• Talent consulting firm Heidrick & Struggles announced its CFO Mark Harris will leave the company in August to join public relations firm FGS Global as CFO (SIA)

• San Francisco said it will sue staffing firm WorkWhile, alleging violations related to worker classification and labor laws (SIA)

• Recruitment software firm Bullhorn acquired Textkernel, a company specializing in artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions for the HR and staffing industry (HR Tech Feed) 

• Workers at e-commerce giant Amazon in Staten Island voted to unionize with the Teamsters, marking a significant development in labor relations for the company (NYT)

• Recruitment tech company Talroo (learn more) has introduced a tool designed to give potential candidates insight into commuting by providing real-time traffic data (RecruitmentMarketing.com)

• Candidate experience platform candidate.fyi announced that iCIMS founder Colin Day has joined the company as an advisor (HR Tech Feed)

A MESSAGE FROM THE MUSE

Layoffs, downsizing, restructuring, RIFs, redundancy—no matter what you call it, it's the toughest part of your job. Introducing Coach Connect by The Muse, offering outplacement services to support your departing employees through their career transitions. Become your employees’ forever champion, and they'll become your greatest advocates.

👉️ Learn how it works 

OPEN ROLES

Jobs You Might Want (For Yourself!)

• Insurance company Jerry is hiring a Senior Recruiter based remote, with headquarters in New York, NY

• HR tech platform Handshake is hiring a Director, HR Business Partner based in San Francisco, CA

• Ticket company Gametime is hiring a Chief People Officer based remote, with headquarters in San Francisco, CA

• Aviation company NetJets is hiring a Senior Aviation Recruiter based in Columbus, OH

• Audio company Bose is hiring a University Recruiter based in Atlanta, GA

• Ride-sharing company Lyft is hiring a Recruiter based in Nashville, TN

• Writing assistant tool Grammarly is hiring a Senior People Business Partner based in San Francisco, CA

• Running app Strava is hiring a Senior People Business Partner based in San Francisco, CA

For more of these roles delivered to your inbox every Monday, subscribe to the RecruitmentMarketing.com Weekly Jobs newsletter by clicking here. For a full list of open roles, head over to our TAlent Job Board by clicking here. If you’re publicly seeking a job, get highlighted during our #TalentTuesday by filling out your profile here.

LAYOFFS

Places For You To Source Fresh Talent

• Crypto company Paxos announced it will lay off about 20% of its workforce, amounting to 65 employees (Bloomberg)

• Aerospace imaging company Satellogic said it will lay off about 70% of its staff, roughly 70 people, after experiencing delays in the development of new products (SpaceNews)

• Carbon capture startup Running Tide will cease operations due to a lack of market demand (Data Center Dynamics)

• Subscription vitamin company Care/of will be shutting down following a lack of funding and subscribers (TechCrunch)

• Online learning platform Chegg said it will reduce approximately 23% of its workforce to increase company efficiency (BusinessWire)

• Car insurance startup Loop will lay off about 23 employees, after recently letting go of 30 workers, after failing to raise sufficient capital (Coverager)

• Fintech company C2FO announced it will lay off about 20 employees to focus on more automation services (The Business Journal)

WEEKLY TRIVIA

Test Your TA Knowledge

 👋 Thanks for reading!