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Unable to find and hire right people? Don't blame the market!
Toronto, ON
Monday, June 30, 2008
I am told today that we are facing a colossal problem of talent shortage among IT professionals, which is impacting the economy to the tune of billions of dollars annually. Retiring baby boomers and the continuing computerization of the leading industries are creating vacancies that organizations are struggling to fill.
The issue seems to be of a worldwide proportion, equally acute in Canada and the US as it is in the UK. I don't doubt for a second that as the economy expands and contracts, the pool of available (e.g. unemployed or ready to switch jobs) talent likewise shrinks and expands. We have the basic laws of the economics at play here, and I am not inane to challenge them.
What I would like to challenge is the way organizations go about hiring. In my consulting practice I find inadequacies in hiring so often that I wonder how some organizations manage to hire any staff at all. I am happy to take on any organization professing to have difficulties with hiring and show to them where problems with their hiring approach lie.
For the purposes of this brief article, there are many factors that prevent companies from finding and recruiting the right talent. Here are the three key ones.
Marketing
Successful companies realize that they also need to market themselves to the prospective employees just as they market themselves to prospective clients. Unlike many other organizations, they choose to concentrate their efforts on the employee group best equipped to support their strategic goals. The marketing message they project is attuned to the needs and interests of the people they would love to have on board. The result is twofold. First, they have no problem in attracting talent because they project a clear and intriguing image of themselves. Second, through self-selection on the part of applicants, the selection process eliminates few candidates and is much less labor intensive than other companies experience.
Sadly, even the organizations immensely successful in marketing their products and services, can be just as inefficient at marketing to the prospective employees. Not identifying the requisite candidate group, appealing to values that are of no importance to them, and, finally, not practicing what they preach, are common issues that severely impact the organization's ability to attract the best talent.
Solicitation
I encounter inefficient solicitation by employers so often that I often wonder how much money in listing fees alone could be saved if only organizations did a better job at it. There is a vast number of issues, and here are some examples.
The best postings provide a very brief description of the hiring company, a concise, to the point explanation of the position and the key skills required. The worst postings are those in which the position guide in its entirety is pasted in, full of acronyms unknown outside of the company. They are impossible to get any useful insights from and project the image of dominating bureaucracy, which inspires very few potential candidates, even fewer of which are probably the coveted talent the organization is after.
The advent of the Internet has made it possible to automate the application process. Unfortunately, most implementations aid to "commoditize" individual experiences and preclude otherwise perfectly qualified candidates from being considered for the position to be filled. One example of such is the inefficient skill listing feature, which compels the applicant to identify a finite set of key skills, ostensibly, to allow the employer to perform a search for applications with the needed skills. The idea seems to be valid, yet the implementation rarely is: if the employer searches for "People Management", they will miss those candidates who elected to choose "Leadership" or "Team Leader", and so on.
Inconceivable at the time when IT talent shortage receives so much attention, recruitment agencies report today that a large number of their clients still insist on a "local experience" in the resumes of the perspective candidates. Not only is it incredibly shortsighted, it is also easily overcome by those candidates who are not as scrupulous as others.
Selection
Once the employer receives an application, it is time to evaluate it against the requirements. There are substantial issues in how companies go about this task, and here is just a small subset.
Most IT job postings, especially those from larger organizations, ask for a formal degree, typically in the field of computer science or a related discipline. In some cases, this requirement can be justified but in many, I would submit to you, it is unnecessary. It is not the degree that we are interested in when looking for an IT professional, but for the specific skills that we require. A college degree does not guarantee good writing skills in a business analyst, nor does it give us
any assurances in respect to the design abilities of a software architect.
Most postings insist on a certain number of years spent practicing a particular skill set. The number requested is completely arbitrary. It disregards individual learning styles and if anything, reflects lower expectation of abilities. More adept individuals, as a result, may be discounted altogether, which works precisely against the concept of hiring the brightest individuals.
Another substantial issue exists because of the stubborn reliance on the "demonstrated behavior" concept in selection, adopted by many industries and organizations. Inability to look past this conformist concept makes the most capable people go where their talents, not their former employers, are truly appreciated.
***
If you cannot find the right people today, don't blame the market. The problem is likely internal, and it is within your control to fix.
Ilya Bogorad is the Principal of Bizvortex Consulting Group Inc, a management consulting company located in Toronto, Canada and specializing in IT - business alignment. Ilya can be reached at ibogorad@bizvortex.com or (905) 278 4753
The issue seems to be of a worldwide proportion, equally acute in Canada and the US as it is in the UK. I don't doubt for a second that as the economy expands and contracts, the pool of available (e.g. unemployed or ready to switch jobs) talent likewise shrinks and expands. We have the basic laws of the economics at play here, and I am not inane to challenge them.
What I would like to challenge is the way organizations go about hiring. In my consulting practice I find inadequacies in hiring so often that I wonder how some organizations manage to hire any staff at all. I am happy to take on any organization professing to have difficulties with hiring and show to them where problems with their hiring approach lie.
For the purposes of this brief article, there are many factors that prevent companies from finding and recruiting the right talent. Here are the three key ones.
Marketing
Successful companies realize that they also need to market themselves to the prospective employees just as they market themselves to prospective clients. Unlike many other organizations, they choose to concentrate their efforts on the employee group best equipped to support their strategic goals. The marketing message they project is attuned to the needs and interests of the people they would love to have on board. The result is twofold. First, they have no problem in attracting talent because they project a clear and intriguing image of themselves. Second, through self-selection on the part of applicants, the selection process eliminates few candidates and is much less labor intensive than other companies experience.
Sadly, even the organizations immensely successful in marketing their products and services, can be just as inefficient at marketing to the prospective employees. Not identifying the requisite candidate group, appealing to values that are of no importance to them, and, finally, not practicing what they preach, are common issues that severely impact the organization's ability to attract the best talent.
Solicitation
I encounter inefficient solicitation by employers so often that I often wonder how much money in listing fees alone could be saved if only organizations did a better job at it. There is a vast number of issues, and here are some examples.
The best postings provide a very brief description of the hiring company, a concise, to the point explanation of the position and the key skills required. The worst postings are those in which the position guide in its entirety is pasted in, full of acronyms unknown outside of the company. They are impossible to get any useful insights from and project the image of dominating bureaucracy, which inspires very few potential candidates, even fewer of which are probably the coveted talent the organization is after.
The advent of the Internet has made it possible to automate the application process. Unfortunately, most implementations aid to "commoditize" individual experiences and preclude otherwise perfectly qualified candidates from being considered for the position to be filled. One example of such is the inefficient skill listing feature, which compels the applicant to identify a finite set of key skills, ostensibly, to allow the employer to perform a search for applications with the needed skills. The idea seems to be valid, yet the implementation rarely is: if the employer searches for "People Management", they will miss those candidates who elected to choose "Leadership" or "Team Leader", and so on.
Inconceivable at the time when IT talent shortage receives so much attention, recruitment agencies report today that a large number of their clients still insist on a "local experience" in the resumes of the perspective candidates. Not only is it incredibly shortsighted, it is also easily overcome by those candidates who are not as scrupulous as others.
Selection
Once the employer receives an application, it is time to evaluate it against the requirements. There are substantial issues in how companies go about this task, and here is just a small subset.
Most IT job postings, especially those from larger organizations, ask for a formal degree, typically in the field of computer science or a related discipline. In some cases, this requirement can be justified but in many, I would submit to you, it is unnecessary. It is not the degree that we are interested in when looking for an IT professional, but for the specific skills that we require. A college degree does not guarantee good writing skills in a business analyst, nor does it give us
any assurances in respect to the design abilities of a software architect.
Most postings insist on a certain number of years spent practicing a particular skill set. The number requested is completely arbitrary. It disregards individual learning styles and if anything, reflects lower expectation of abilities. More adept individuals, as a result, may be discounted altogether, which works precisely against the concept of hiring the brightest individuals.
Another substantial issue exists because of the stubborn reliance on the "demonstrated behavior" concept in selection, adopted by many industries and organizations. Inability to look past this conformist concept makes the most capable people go where their talents, not their former employers, are truly appreciated.
***
If you cannot find the right people today, don't blame the market. The problem is likely internal, and it is within your control to fix.
Ilya Bogorad is the Principal of Bizvortex Consulting Group Inc, a management consulting company located in Toronto, Canada and specializing in IT - business alignment. Ilya can be reached at ibogorad@bizvortex.com or (905) 278 4753
Ilya Bogorad
Principal
Bizvortex Consulting Group Inc
Toronto, ON
(905) 278 4753
(905) 278 5521
