I’ve been hearing it a lot lately:
”The market is really tough right now”.
From candidates who aren’t getting responses.
From companies that can’t close the profiles they need.
And from hiring managers frustrated with long processes that go nowhere.
And I understand why it feels that way. But here’s how I’d put it:
what’s actually happening is a selective hiring market, not a tough one.
Companies are driving a selective hiring market
Companies are being selective, more than they admit.
The bar has moved. Not just technically, structurally.
A backend engineer is expected to own deployments. A product manager is expected to speak the language of engineering and data in equal measure. A data engineer is expected to orchestrate end to end, not just build pipelines.
What companies describe as struggling to find the right profiles often means that they’re looking for a very specific set of skills, experience and seniority.
And the thing is, they’re not willing to compromise on any of it.
That’s not a talent shortage. That’s a specific requirement in a market that has raised its own bar, a selective hiring market by design, not by accident.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s worth naming it accurately.
Candidates are being selective too. And honestly? They’ve earned the right.
Senior tech and product profiles in Portugal know their value.
They’re not applying speculatively and they’re not entertaining processes that don’t respect their time.
Before agreeing to a first conversation, they want to understand the role, the company, the conditions and the growth path.
This is what I see consistently in my work: the candidates companies want most are also the ones with the least tolerance for a poorly run hiring process. A slow response, a vague brief, an unexplained rejection are reasons to walk away.
The mismatch isn’t about talent. It’s about expectations.
When I co-presented the Tech Talent Trends Report and Salary Benchmark 2026 at the Tech Hiring Community Conference, one of the clearest signals in the data was the gap between what candidates expect from a hiring process and what companies are currently delivering is wider than most organisations realise.
Transparency on salary and conditions, clarity on role scope, speed and respect in the process. These aren’t demands from difficult candidates. They’re baseline expectations from a market that has matured.
The ones who’ve stopped calling it tough are the ones who’ve already adapted.
The question worth asking
If you’re struggling to hire senior tech or product talent right now, the question worth raising isn’t “where are all the good candidates?” but “what does our process look like from their side?”
So no, the market isn’t tough.
It’s selective. And you know what? So is the talent in it.
Once you understand the difference and build your hiring around it, the market stops feeling like an obstacle and it starts feeling like an advantage.
