Almost every major tech company is always hiring. But the process of ACTUALLY HIRING is a different story. Some company does it quick, even if there's a layoff. Some company takes forever to complete interview and paper work even if there is no layoff. And then there are companies doing layoff and new hiring goes through strict budget reviews. It depends. Furthermore, you can close a whole useless business project and you decide to invest in another project so you need to hire people. It's quite interesting that in the latter case some company prefers to fire everyone and hire back some of them. I have seen that before.
I chatted with a Yahoo engineer at a college career fair a few years back and passed him my resume. A few weeks later, I got an email saying they were interested in interviewing me. I sent them my availability. A full year later, they emailed me on that same email chain asking for my phone/skype information to conduct an interview. Needless to say, I told them thanks but no thanks.
not really Yahoo specific, but certainly very common in the large tech company like Yahoo. I had a mixed experience with Yahoo recruiting team than the Yahoo interview (I had a great experience there, thanks to the folks there giving a chance).
When I've seen this happen, it's been pure mismanagement. An order goes out to do layoffs, so people get laid off. Within days, people realize that they've laid off critical employees who can't be replaced and they get hired back as contractors. The employees who got laid off aren't happy about it, so the ones that do come back demand huge raises and some don't come back.
