The Tech Hiring Freeze Isn't Temporary—It's the New Normal for Sales Jobs
If you're waiting for tech hiring to "bounce back," you're planning a career around a market that no longer exists.
The tech hiring freeze isn't ending. It's not a downturn. It's not a correction. It's a permanent reset of what tech sales employment looks like, and most sales professionals are still planning their careers like it's 2021.
Tech job postings are down 36% from pre-pandemic levels. Not "recovering slowly." Down. The layoffs aren't stopping because companies discovered they can hit revenue targets with fewer people. AI didn't replace your job—it proved your company didn't need to backfill it.
Here's what this means for ANZ sales careers:
Enterprise AE roles that paid $180k OTE are now $150k—when they exist at all. Companies are consolidating territories, extending ramp periods, and calling it "efficiency." That SDR team of 12? Now it's 4, with higher quotas and "productivity tools" that mostly just track activity.
The math is simple: Fewer roles, same number of candidates, compressed comp. If you're job hunting right now, you're competing against people who were hitting 120% quota at companies that just cut their entire ANZ sales floor.
What you should do:
Stop waiting for the market to recover. It won't. Not to 2021 levels. Start treating ANZ enterprise experience like gold—companies still need people who can work complex deals in small markets. Get comfortable with ambiguity around job security, because the "stable tech sales job" is joining "pension" and "company loyalty" in the employment history bin.
And for the love of quota, if you're in a role right now that's paying market rate with decent attainment, stop browsing LinkedIn. The grass isn't greener. There's just less of it.
The hiring freeze is the market telling you something. The question is whether you're listening.
Reality check: If your career plan involves "waiting it out," you don't have a plan. You have hope. And hope isn't a sales strategy.