The war for talent is over. I don’t know if it ever began but it certainly hasn’t existed for years. And every time I hear the phrase, I bite my tongue just a little bit.
It’s not just that war as we know the word to mean is a ridiculous oversimplification of the complexities of the labor market. But I’ll be honest with you, that is definitely part of my frustration. We have a multi-faceted economy and we’re breaking it down to the idea of war? War assumes conflict. War assumes winners and losers. War often implies black and white problems and solutions. Thousands of companies have already conquered the war for talent. They have the talent they need and if they need more, they know how to identify them and bring them on board.
That doesn’t sound like any war I’ve ever heard of. There are competitors in the same industry, going after the same talent, that both hire good talent, produce goods and make money. What kind of war is this?
There is no ground more sacred than the war for engineering talent in the Bay area. If you ask Jon Marcus, a tech recruiter in the Bay area, the problem goes beyond the supposed talent mismatch (via VentureBeat):
“It’s the fear of the unknown,” he says. ”Everyone is afraid of hiring the wrong person, and if they would just trust that they know how to ask the right questions, then everyone wouldn’t be complaining as much about recruiting.”
But instead of asking the right questions and hiring a candidate who’s qualified, Marcus says that startup founders will take a candidate in based on a personal recommendation or an impressive company name on a resume, usually branching outside the original specification they wrote and usually regretting the decision in the long run.
Marcus acknowledges that engineering talent is difficult to find and that more will continue to be needed. But he doesn’t sound like a soldier ready to go to battle. In fact, he seems more willing to turn it around on a hiring manager and tell them we’ve focused on the wrong thing. We’ve let perfect be the enemy of great when it comes to talent. We’ve let unrelated factors earn a place in our perfect hiring decisions.
While you were busy trying to find the perfect purple unicorn with rainbow colored wings, smarter companies just bought a horse, a bird and some purple paint. They also upgraded and added glitter.
Everyone loves glitter.
Recruiting’s war for talent has become a lot like HR’s seat at the table. It’s a mode of justifying your existence as a part of an organization. And if I never have to hear about either one of them ever again, it will be far too soon.
If you are in talent acquisition, your role is clear without the war that doesn’t exist: be smart, do things other people aren’t doing, network, and get in your prospect’s head to figure out what they want. Maybe most importantly, though? Push back on the purple squirrel searches. Push back on the A+ talent requests. Push back on the fear that organizations have when they can only check 8 of the 10 boxes on their ultimate candidate search form.
Are there difficult searches out there? Certainly. But let’s push back on the idea that finding truly one-of-a-kind talent is the only important differentiator in business success.
Your goal should be to deliver great talent within this decade. And if your client or company is sending you on wild goose chases rather than making and closing on offers to candidates that actually exist in this world, it might be time to push back or disengage.
September 26, 2012 at 6:48 am
Great post! I’m thinking of having “We’ve let perfect be the enemy of great when it comes to talent.” tattooed on my body somewhere!
I give visitors to my LinkedIn profile my own view on this nonsensical “war for talent”: Attract – Retain – Develop…Rinse and Repeat.
September 26, 2012 at 8:48 am
In the war for talent, the enemy is time and our own insecurities. So the war is within.
Love the post, Lance.
Shared, liked, and sent to my hiring managers.
September 27, 2012 at 11:52 am
If you aren’t sure who you are looking for…. you will have no trouble finding them.
There is an abundance of unqualified candidates available. “A” players are as hard to find as ever. That DOES sound like a war.
8,000 people turn 65 years old in the U. S. each day. Sounds like the ranks will be getting thinner and the battle more fierce.
October 3, 2012 at 9:48 am
Lance,
The talent war is real. Ever hear of population demographics? The US population as of the last census was 309M+. The size of the workforce is approximaely 140M. Of the 140M people, 80M of them are baby boomers. The birth rate in the US just declined another 4%. Regardless of the economy,this is a real and ongoing problem. We currently have 10,000 people/day leaving the workforce. Where are you going to get the people to replace them, let alone qualify them. We have people living in a fog and it’s time they wake up. There are no perfect candidates just like there are no perfect employers. There are lots of “C” companies who think they can hire “A’ players. It is time for a massive reality check. 8 out of 10 is starting to look pretty good.
October 3, 2012 at 10:11 am
Hi Edward,
Great point about the US population and workforce decreasing. I do think that’s an important consideration but I think there are a lot of moving parts here that take it beyond a war.
For one, productivity on a per-employee basis has been going up steadily for the past three decades. We do need replacements but not necessarily 1:1 replacements.
Another issue is that population globally is continuing to rise. The type of work we’re asking people to do is changing and the education centers, especially in developing countries, are continuing to improve.
Mostly though, this is a call for better selection. People who think they can hire all “A” players are insane. If we’re dividing up the workforce by quintile, that leaves 80% of the population unemployable by these companies?
If we are unable to admit that many (not all) of the selection issues are due to our own shortsightedness, even if there was a war for talent, we’d be on the losing side of it every time.
October 5, 2012 at 10:08 am
Productivity/employee has been going up steadily in the last 3 decades because of the tools that have been created to help us be more productive. In the past four years, the let’s make due with less mantra has contributed to increased productivity because of the fear of job loss, but it comes at a price. For the first time in America, for a period of about 3 months, more people quit their jobs than were laid off. Recent studies have shown that 65% of people that are employed in America today are burned out. Are companies striving for 100%?
Over the past 15 years, mentoring and training programs in corporations have declined, if not been totally eliminated. If companies want to hire people to address skills concerns, they need to make an investment in people. The human capital side of the equation has been a disaster. Shareholder appeasement and the resulting short term focus, usually 90 days, results in companies creating a lot of their own problems. you can’t build value in a company with such shortsightedness.
If our focus in on America, we need to change the educational focus from a college based focus to an overall focus on education in general, including more vocational education. The college graduation rate hasn’t changed in the past 20 years. If everyone went to college and you wanted to go out for dinner, you would have to go to France because that is where all the chefs would be.
The “economic” meltdown is not, in my opinion, a financial or economic crisis, it is a demonstration of a leadership crisis where individuals have been promoted beyond their capability to handle the position. When people get promoted from being an individual contributor to a manager, there is no mandate to gain management training and, with no mentoring programs left, the individual is left to manage by his/her own devices. It has been stated that the majority of hiring is designed to hire “C” or lower calibre people and is managed by “C” or lower calibre managers. Without updating management skills, the best we can hope for is mediocrity.
October 3, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Finally a voice of reason. Thanks Lance for an excellent post. Job seekers are plentiful – and ready to work. Let’s do away with our current misguided requirements. Reality check – there is no perfect candidate. But there are many candidates who would make excellent employees even if they are an 8 out of 10.
October 3, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Fantastic viewpoint Lance.
I’m not in HR, and I’m not directly involved in the hiring process. But the fact your viewpoint bucks trends, and still manages to I think push the honest and truthful focus out there, that being that we do have qualified workers in the field. They are out there, sure, finding them is not easy, but it also isn’t so hard that as you put it a person 8/10 is probably going to be your next 10/10 if you just take a little bit of time and invest in them to grow them for your needs.
In return they will. When I started in the work force, there was still a heavy on the job training mantra around. It seems a lot of that faith in the quality of a person to grow has been pushed aside, and we’re waiting for the educational system to develop the perfect candidate in a world that changes sometimes overnight, when the system they are being taught from hasn’t changed in centuries at the core of it all.
Brilliant piece, glad I read my CompTIA mailing this morning, I found this one hidden in the mix, and I applaud you on your views and hope others in the HR / hiring field follow suit.
The hiring process eliminates the risk a lot of times, don’t be afraid to jump on someone who doesn’t meet all your needs. You’re going to probably find a more dedicated and gainful employee that way.
October 17, 2012 at 8:59 am
Great post! I think we are seeing more purple squirrels due to the economy and an increase in productivity. If a hiring manager can do more with less, what is the rush to hire? I am a recruiter, and most of my career has been spent filling purple squirrel reqs. It is becoming more of a challenge to convince hiring managers to consider a candidate that is not an 8/10 or 10/10. As Edward so wisely pointed out, there will be a war for talent in the future due to a decrease in the U.S. population and an aging workforce. Some jobs can be outsourced, but those that are left will require skilled workers that can only be found in the U.S. Microsoft has recognized this issue, and is pressing for more H1B visas. The challenge is getting hiring managers to realize that by not hiring a 6/10 candidate, they are losing revenue – and the competition is gaining revenue by hiring that same candidate. This is especially true in hard to fill roles that require highly skilled resources – the maximum amount of time these candidates are on the market is approximately 2 weeks. This is a real problem that I am so glad to see addressed in your post.
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February 11, 2013 at 2:54 pm
I continue to hear from recruiters that there aren’t any talented professionals looking for work. I continue to hear from engineers who have been very successful technical contributors and leaders for over 20 years that they cannot find jobs. Many of the people charged with recruiting today could not find a grey rock in a gravel pit. Some of the the engineers have failed to keep their skills in synch with current business requirements but, many more are being ignored by companies who only want new engineers from the best schools, with the best grades who are willing to work double shifts for half a salary. Someone needs to put the purple unicorn hunters out of their misery and get real about hiring people who can do the work on a reasonable schedule for a professional salary.
February 12, 2013 at 1:26 pm
Rich,
There are plenty of individuals who have the skills necessary to fill some of the openings that companies advertise. If they don’t, whatever is lacking, short term training would close or eliminate the skills gap.
The problem we have today is that there is a new breed of “recruiter” in the marketplace today who uses Boolean search, key word search and other digital means to find available people on the internet. Unfortunately, these individuals have not been trained in traditional recruiting techniques and lack the capability of asking companies for feedback when a candidate is not successful in receiving an offer, and, more importantly, treating people like they want to be treated. The success of any venture is predicated upon communication-verbal, email, text whatever, and for the most part, this is not happening.
The other issue is created by the companies themselves. There is discussion going on about 3rd party recruiters becoming better at what we do. In my opinion, I don’t care how good we are or get. If the people within organizations do not have the same level of competency as the better 3rd party recruiters, nothing is going to happen. Not everybody is on the internet or a participant on social media. Most job descriptions are duty and responsibility descriptions that are not designed to hire the best people in the industry. I recently saw the profile of a person who had 7 jobs in 12 months as an in-house recruiter, who actually was recently hired. As long as companies view employees as line item expenses instead of coveted possessions that need to nurtured by continual training and investment, the plight of the unemployed will not improve and the quality of corporations will continue to decline.
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April 8, 2013 at 7:56 am
This is so true…
“We’ve let perfect be the enemy of great when it comes to talent.”