Blog & Resources

Employers

By Jeff Herzog, President of FPC National

There is something strange happening in the U.S. job market.

Millions of jobs are open. Employers say they cannot find qualified people. At the same time, candidates say they are applying for jobs and getting nowhere.

So where is the disconnect?

A recent Fast Company article looked at the growing mismatch in the labor market. Companies need workers. Workers need jobs. Yet increasingly, the two are having trouble finding each other. And as experienced workers retire and companies compete for specialized skills, that disconnect could become even more pronounced.

But before we call it a talent shortage, companies may need to ask a more uncomfortable question.

Is there really no one out there, or is something about the search making the right person almost impossible to hire?

Part of the problem may start with the job description itself.

Hiring managers naturally have an idea of the person they want. The right industry experience. The right title. A certain number of years in the role. Specific technical expertise. Maybe experience with a particular product, customer or competitor.

Put enough of those requirements together, though, and the candidate pool can get very small, very quickly.

Sometimes “there are no good candidates” really means there are no candidates who meet every requirement, at the salary being offered, in the desired location, on the company’s timeline.

That’s a very different problem.

We see this often in specialized areas like manufacturing, engineering, supply chain, life sciences and technology. A company can spend months searching for someone who checks every box while overlooking candidates who could actually be very successful in the role.

The better question isn’t always, “Does this person match every requirement?”

It’s, “What does this person really need to be able to do?”

Someone from an adjacent industry may have highly transferable experience. A candidate may not have held the exact title but may already be doing the work. Someone who meets eight of ten requirements may ultimately be a stronger hire than the person whose resume looks perfect on paper.

And then there are the candidates who will never see the job posting in the first place.

Many of the strongest professionals aren’t actively looking. They’re working. They may be doing well, valued by their current employer and not spending their time searching job boards.

That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t consider the right opportunity.

It just means the opportunity has to find them.

Posting a job and waiting for the right person to apply isn’t a recruiting strategy. At least, not anymore.

Even when companies do find the right person, another challenge begins: actually getting them hired.

In FPC National’s recent Executive Search Reality Report, recruiters across our network identified several factors that can make or break a search. Compensation alignment was a major one, but it wasn’t the only one. The speed and coordination of the interview process, access to decision-makers, internal equity constraints, location expectations and the number of interviews all played a role.

Companies lose great candidates every day for reasons that have nothing to do with a talent shortage.

Five rounds of interviews. Weeks between conversations. Compensation that hasn’t caught up with the market. A hiring team waiting for a “perfect” candidate while very good ones move on.

By the time everyone is ready to make a decision, the candidate may have already made theirs.

There is also a bigger question employers should be asking: Who aren’t we considering?

Experienced older workers are one example. Candidates from adjacent industries are another. So are professionals whose careers don’t follow the exact path a hiring manager originally pictured.

Broadening a search doesn’t mean lowering the bar. It means being thoughtful about where that bar actually needs to be.

That’s going to become increasingly important as companies deal with retirements, knowledge loss and increased competition for specialized talent.

The organizations that hire successfully won’t necessarily be the ones that receive the most applications. They’ll be the ones that understand the market they’re hiring in.

What are candidates expecting? Is the compensation competitive? Which requirements are truly necessary? What are competitors offering? Why are good candidates turning opportunities down? And when the right person appears, how quickly does the company need to move?

Those answers are difficult to get from a job posting alone.

They come from talking to people in the market every day.

For more than 65 years, FPC recruiters have worked within specialized industries and functional disciplines, building relationships with professionals and helping companies understand not just who might be available, but what it takes to attract and hire them.

There may very well be a worker shortage coming. Demographics are changing. Experienced workers are retiring. Certain skills are becoming harder to find.

But employers shouldn’t automatically assume the market is always the problem.

Before blaming the talent shortage, companies should make sure they aren’t creating a hiring shortage of their own.