Math nerds for hire

+70% don't have resumes & Robert Half Q2 earnings 😢

Author

Keith Weightman
July 28, 2025

Signal Summary: Math nerds are somehow beating therapists for hottest job growth, most workers said "screw resumes" and never made one, and Robert Half’s Q2 earnings summed up in 1 word - “ouch”. Plus, how one recruiter became the most feared in the office.

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All images are hand-drawn using an iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Procreate app.

HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEK ↓

SIGNAL 1
Revenge of the math nerds

The headline: Mathematics specialists are having their main character moment with 3.3x growth in roles with the greatest QoQ increase in share of paid posts.

Other roles:

  • Mental health specialists tripled as society collectively has a breakdown

  • Software engineers, salespeople, and nurses are STILL hogging all the job posts

  • Meatcutters doubled in demand because…someone’s gotta slice the salami?

The crisis: 90% of workers have experienced some kind of mental health challenge, and now companies are panic-hiring therapists after realizing their employees are one Slack notification away from a complete meltdown.

Signal → Strategy: Milk the mental health gold rush while it's hot, but don't abandon your boring-but-profitable software engineer pipeline. Desperation pays premium rates.

SIGNAL 2
70% of workers never made a resume (and they're fine)

The shocking truth: Around 70% of frontline job seekers do not have a traditional resume or a profile on major job sites, according to Talroo research. They're invisible to recruiters using standard sourcing strategies.

How they're actually job hunting:

  • Mobile devices, text-to-apply campaigns, and in-person applications

  • Direct applications to companies with inclusive job ads

  • Job boards that don't require resumes

Signal → Strategy: Audit your job ads for mobile readability. Short paragraphs, bullet points, no corporate jargon. Most frontline workers are job hunting on phones, not laptops. Grab examples and more tactical strategies at the link below.

SIGNAL 3
Robert Half's earnings just broke every recruiter's heart

The headline: Robert Half's Q2 revenue dropped 7% to $1.370 billion, with net income plummeting from $68 million to $41 million year-over-year.

The staffing giant is getting absolutely bodied by "elevated global economic uncertainty" and clients who treat hiring decisions like they're buying a house.

The damage breakdown:

  • Contract talent solutions down 11.1% globally (ouch)

  • Permanent placement revenue fell 12.5% (double ouch)

  • Finance and accounting staffing dropped 10.8% (the bread and butter is moldy)

The real story: Even the world's largest specialized staffing firm can't escape clients who are "elongating decision cycles" and treating every hire like it requires board approval.

Signal → Strategy: Consider firing the bottom 10% of indecisive clients. Focus on those high-velocity clients who make decisions fast. Better to place 10 candidates quickly than chase 50 slow-moving opps.

RECRUITING CONFESSIONAL
How I Became Known as "The Reaper" at My Executive Search Firm

Recruiting Confessional A weekly series featuring anonymous stories from recruiting and staffing professionals. Submit yours here.

The Setup: Working at a big-name executive search firm with a strict policy: never delete candidates from the ATS. Ever.

The Record: Every recruiter occasionally discovers a candidate has passed away when trying to reconnect. Standard protocol was to update their status to "deceased" in our database. What wasn't standard? Me setting the all-time company record by "deceasing" 7 candidates in 11 months.

The Aftermath: My colleagues started calling me "The Reaper." Not exactly the nickname you want in a relationship-driven business.

Have a story? Submit it here

SHARE THE SIGNALS
3 people you should share these signals with:

  1. Your HR friend who thinks hiring a therapist means buying a stress ball for the break room

  2. That recruiter begging for a LI recruiter seat to source warehouse workers

  3. Anyone who thinks the industry is picking up steam