> So, as a Buyer, they had a line of candidates applying. Most of their problem was probably announcing to the world that they had an open position that people should know to apply to. That sounds like a Buyer's Market to me.
Choice isn't all there is to it.
Let's say you're at a grocery store to get onions, but all the onions you see are terrible but really cheap. Being a discerning buyer, you decide to hit the next store. Same there too; more crap onions. It's like this at the next three stores. Finally you get to a store with decent onions, but they're 4x the price of normal onions. You, starved for choice and not willing to shop any more, despite the glut of onions, grab one and go home to make dinner.
This is a classic seller's market. The sellers with the goods command premium prices because there aren't that many of them at the quality that the buyer wants. Lots of crap onions to pick from, good ones are ridiculously expensive.
A buyer's market would be the other way around, there'd be lots of good onions, so you could get them at bargain rates.
I also think you might be misreading the fact that the company you work for is letting open positions sit. What this effectively means is that the workload hasn't gotten to the point where they have to take the next person that comes along. They can still afford to be discerning. If it goes on like this the workload will either get worse, at which point they will have to take the first guy that comes along, or they'll just stop looking, deciding they didn't really need a new guy. Both outcomes are exactly what happens in seller's markets, the buyer eventually gets fed up and takes a sub-par deal or walks away.
Choice isn't all there is to it.
Let's say you're at a grocery store to get onions, but all the onions you see are terrible but really cheap. Being a discerning buyer, you decide to hit the next store. Same there too; more crap onions. It's like this at the next three stores. Finally you get to a store with decent onions, but they're 4x the price of normal onions. You, starved for choice and not willing to shop any more, despite the glut of onions, grab one and go home to make dinner.
This is a classic seller's market. The sellers with the goods command premium prices because there aren't that many of them at the quality that the buyer wants. Lots of crap onions to pick from, good ones are ridiculously expensive.
A buyer's market would be the other way around, there'd be lots of good onions, so you could get them at bargain rates.
I also think you might be misreading the fact that the company you work for is letting open positions sit. What this effectively means is that the workload hasn't gotten to the point where they have to take the next person that comes along. They can still afford to be discerning. If it goes on like this the workload will either get worse, at which point they will have to take the first guy that comes along, or they'll just stop looking, deciding they didn't really need a new guy. Both outcomes are exactly what happens in seller's markets, the buyer eventually gets fed up and takes a sub-par deal or walks away.