Did Anyone Leave the Telco Door Open?

290+ B2B Senior Telco Professionals on the Move During Q1 2026

THE TELCO CANNIBAL'S COLUMNISSUE 16 / 19 MAY 2026

Something unusual is happening in the telco talent market. And nobody is talking about it loudly enough.

In the first three to four months of 2026, HR-Hub4Telcos, our professional doorway to successful candidates recruitment, received 290 candidate profiles! Not inquiries. Not casual connections on LinkedIn. Full profiles, submitted by professionals with backgrounds in A2P messaging, wholesale voice, routing, carrier relations, and commercial account management. Professionals who decided, in the first quarter of the year, that now was the moment to make a move. This cannot be a coincidence…290 professionals do not all decide to look for new jobs at the same time.

So the question nobody in the industry is asking out loud is the only question worth asking: what exactly is driving this?

Are Freshies Really Looking Into the Telco World? Or Are the Mature Ones Leaving?

The Flattering Interpretation

Let us start with the version everyone will want to believe.

Telecom is growing. The A2P messaging market is aiming to surpass $97 Billion (Yahoo). RCS is finally gaining traction. CPaaS is fusing with AI at a pace that is creating new roles that did not exist two years ago. More companies are entering the space. More companies entering the space need more talent. More talent moves. Simple?

And the data also does support some of this. Of the 290 candidates, 202 come from A2P and messaging backgrounds. That is 70% of the entire pipeline concentrated in the segment growing fastest. If this were purely a distress signal, you would expect a more evenly distributed candidate pool across functions. Instead, you see a concentration exactly where the market opportunity is largest. The most applied vacancy? SAM0426. Senior Account Manager. 58 applications for a single commercial role. The top candidate country? India, which is not coincidental given that India is Google's largest RCS market, home to 853 million WhatsApp users, and the geography where every major A2P and messaging platform is fighting hardest for market share right now.

So far, the flattering interpretation holds.

The Less Comfortable Interpretation

Here is where it gets interesting: Remote opportunities attracted the highest number of applicants. Not hybrid. Not office-based with flexibility. Remote. Fully remote. The professionals entering this talent pool in early 2026 are not looking for a new office to sit in. They are looking for an exit from wherever they currently are. And the most common positions being applied for are: commercial and account management roles, Senior Account Manager, Business Development, Carrier Relations. These are not entry-level positions. These are usually people with five, ten, fifteen years of experience in the telco ecosystem who have decided that their current situation is sufficiently unsatisfying that submitting a full candidate profile to a specialist recruiter is a better use of their time than staying put and seeing what happens.

The telecom industry loves to talk about talent shortages. It talks about this at every conference, in every panel session, in every industry report. And yet here is a talent pool of 290 specialised, experienced professionals who raised their hands in four months, representing geographies across Asia, Africa, and Europe, covering every major commercial and technical function in the ecosystem. The talent shortage is not a supply problem. It appears to be a retention problem.

The Question the Telco Executive Should Be Asking

Is this a red light? Is this something productive? Is it both?

The industry is not short of talent. On the contrary, it is short of companies whose work experience is compelling enough that valuable professionals stop being open, tempted, and finally available...

We leave you to your conclusions.

Best regards, Tom Churn

About Tom Churn Has been chasing the same opportunity for years and never quite catching it. Just like Tom never catches Jerry, Tom Churn never catches the ROI that was promised in the original pitch deck. Writes columns instead of filing complaints. Considers it therapy.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How many telecom professionals submitted candidate profiles in Q1 2026? HR-Hub4Telcos received 290 full candidate profiles between January and April 2026, from professionals with backgrounds in A2P messaging, wholesale voice, routing, carrier relations, and commercial account management.

What share of the 290 candidates came from A2P and messaging backgrounds? 202 of the 290 candidates, or about 70% of the total pipeline, came from A2P and messaging backgrounds — the segment of telecom currently growing fastest.

Which role and country saw the most candidate interest? The most applied-to vacancy was SAM0426, a Senior Account Manager position, which received 58 applications. India produced the highest number of candidates, consistent with its position as Google's largest RCS market and home to 853 million WhatsApp users.

Does this surge in candidates point to a talent shortage or a retention problem? The data suggests a retention problem rather than a supply problem. 290 specialized, experienced professionals across Asia, Africa, and Europe actively sought new roles within four months, despite the industry's frequent claims of a talent shortage — indicating companies are struggling to retain talent rather than failing to find it.

Why does it matter that remote roles attracted the most applicants? Candidates favored fully remote opportunities over hybrid or flexible office-based roles, suggesting many were not simply seeking better working conditions but actively looking for an exit from their current employer.