Looking Forward

May 16, 2012

Today I read an article written by Dr. John Sullivan, who is a well-known thought leader in Human Resources and a frequent speaker and advisor to Fortune 500 and Silicon Valley firms. He was giving a heads-up alert that the “War for Talent” is returning!! It is already under way in the Silicon Valley. “If you are not familiar with the “war for talent” phenomena, it involves a prolonged period of intense competition where top applicants are both scarce and arrogant, employees leave by the droves, firms regularly raid each other for talent, and bidding for top talent is commonplace.”

Could this happen in Fresno? We are already feeling it in some of our recruiting efforts…There are still numerous applicants for each position, but qualified, skilled applicants are becoming much more difficult to identify. We are now utilizing recruiting tools that did not exist 10 years ago, and today in this article Dr. Sullivan is suggesting we have to be recruiting on sites such as Pinterest, Instagram and Dribble……….I don’t even know what Dribble is. 

According to Dr. Sullivan, a war for talent is a relatively recent phenomenon because, in the past, finding and applying for jobs was a slow paper- and mail-driven process. “Now that almost anyone can be found on the Internet and interested people can find and apply for dozens of jobs within an hour, fighting over talent has become common. A war for talent is a skills shortage not a people shortage.”

I think the most important message in all of this is to prepare for the future by staying current with the various social media sites and evaluating the effectiveness of your recruiting efforts and resources.  Develop good metrics so you are aware of changes as they begin. Silicon Valley is a long way from Fresno, but as the economy improves and the housing/mortgage crisis subsides we could be dealing with similar challenges. Also, I think it is important to work on retention efforts for our current staff. Invest in training your employees to keep them current with technology, and let them know how important they are to your organization.