Marc Sumner: 'Vendor land isn't safe' as channel hiring rises again

Sumner believes employees are now turning to channel partners for employment following mass vendor cuts

Hiring in the IT channel will start to pick up in Q2 2023 and reach pre-Covid levels again in Q3 after a period of major culls to the vendor workforce.

That's according to Marc Sumner, MD of IT channel sales and marketing recruitment firm Robertson Sumner, who believes that "overpaid" and "over-hired" staff who were laid off from vendors are now seeing channel partners as a new safe haven.

"Most of the big vendors such as Microsoft and Salesforce, all those sorts of companies, have laid off staff. It's well documented in the IT channel that they over-hired during Covid and, quite frankly, overpaid people. That bubble was going burst at some point," Sumner told CRN.

He explained that for a period in Q1 the market was stagnant, with people re-evaluating salaries that plateaued during the quarter.

However, the first two weeks of Q2 saw volumes of more than any week in Q1, Sumner claims.

Moreover, in the second quarter there were more submitted vacancies of replacements and additional growth roles than in any week of Q1.

"So lots of freezes are being lifted and lots of new teams are now being aligned, lots of new leadership roles are being made available and certainly could be a good sign for the IT channel.

"Quite frankly, there were lots of companies in the IT channel that might not have publicised it, but were really struggling.

"There was a lot of doom and gloom news in Q1 but there's real optimism now."

Sumner added there are winners and losers in this game of hiring, with service providers coming out on top ahead of legacy vendors.

"I'm now seeing some of the new, emerging tech vendors and the distributors that are in security especially doing really well, alongside AI vendors.

"The freeze lifts can only be a positive thing in the IT channel because the people in the coalface who are dealing with the end user are seeing the demand suddenly coming.

"My prediction is that by September hiring will be back to normal. These vendors will be hiring again the people they laid off in the last six months, which is nuts really."

'Trigger-happy' vendors creating opportunities for partners

Sumner told CRN he believes vendors will return to old habits and pursue another recruitment spree.

"There's a lot of companies that made redundancies three, four months, five months ago and already in April are thinking they didn't have to get rid of all those people," he said.

"Take Microsoft for example. I think Microsoft will be hiring back in volume again by September/October in the 1,000s literally hiring the people they shed months ago."

He added that following the mass vendor job cuts that have been hitting the channel since the start of 2023, more people are choosing to work for partners over vendors.

"Everyone sees the holy grail as working for a vendor thinking if they can get to the top of the channel they'll be safe.

"Well that isn't the case. Vendor land isn't safe. It's not a safe place anymore. That's been proven and what's been played for the partner community is they've been able to pick up talent that would never have considered them before."

Sumner used Sarah Shields' recent pivot from VP at Dell for a role as group alliance director at Computacenter as an example.

"A year ago that would have never happened. You don't see people go from a VP level at a vendor to a partner. They just don't do that, it's very rare if that happens.

"And so if you look at it, there's lots of candidates out there that have suddenly thought, ‘if there's the right opportunity at a service provider or a VAR then I'll go there'. And people have picked up talent that they might not have got before.

"That won't last forever because there is a serious talent shortage anyway, and the vendors will start sweeping up people by the end of the year and overpaying people again," Sumner continued.

"But it was a really good window of opportunity and I still think it'd be a good window of opportunity in Q2, and Q3, where the service providers and distribution will pick up talent they never thought they'd get before at a reasonable price because salaries have plateaued slightly in the market."

How can partners capitalise?

"Be open to vendors," were Sumner's words of wisdom to partners looking to take advantage of this larger pool of talent.

"There's a real stigma in the channel where, if someone's worked for a vendor they can't sell direct. So there's a lot of partners that don't like pulling out people from vendors because they think they're more channel focused," he said.

"But there's lots of people that have become available that have great sales skills, great qualifying skills and still have a great understanding of the channel that would now consider a partner.

"So my advice for the channel would be to be open to talent that wants the change because they don't see ‘vendor land' as safe anymore and will consider partners."