Talent shortage!  Talent shortage!  Oh my!  There just aren't enough good people to hire!  Sound familiar?  I think we've all felt the pain of trying to find top quality people for open jobs.  It seems the market is flooded with talent ... but for some reason, that talent just doesn't seem good enough.  I have never believed in a true "talent shortage" ... and I still don't.  It's more of a perceived talent shortage due to the rapidly changing talent landscape and the lack of knowledge by the people who should be in the know (recruiters, hiring managers, interviewers ... me and you) about how to adjust to that changing landscape.

Over on ERE today, Lou Adler discusses some factors behind the (perceived) talent shortage, and I think these are all great points to keep in mind when you are searching for and evaluating your next star employee.  The talent is out there ... you may just be slicing the pool more thinly than you thought ... or blanketly treating everyone the same.  Not that those are wrong approaches per se (it's ok to narrow your pool as long as you know what you're getting yourself into), but before you decide who you want to target and how you plan to target them, keep these points in mind:

1. Everybody is competing for the same talent pool. As a result, only the most aggressive competitors will get a bigger share of a shrinking pool. (This is the Darwin part.)
2. The demographics are for real. The first of the baby boomers are turning 60 this year. I know a few, and some wouldn't mind working at Starbucks or McDonald's (since it now has better coffee).
3. There is a difference between the generations. While there is no difference in work ethic, there certainly is in the types of work each generation prefers and their attitudes and ambitions.
4. The hidden job market is no longer hidden. Pre-1995, top people had to find a recruiter to get good jobs quickly. Now most jobs below $250,000 are available for all to find. This is an example of Thomas Friedman's "flatlander" argument that information is now accessible to everyone. (Not advertising jobs might be an option worth exploring.)
5. The passive candidate pool is no longer hidden. Anybody can find the names of just about anyone within an hour or two. People are joining ZoomInfo, LinkedIn, FaceBook, MySpace, and Yahoo! 360° so they can be found.
6. Jobs are changing faster than people are being trained to fill them. This exacerbates the overall talent shortage since it takes longer to train people to meet current needs.
7. Workforce mobility is on the rise. In part this is because of economic cycles and in part because of changes in attitude (listen to Jimmy Buffett for more on this) about work. There is no longer a stigma to leaving a company every year or so. Work is now being designed with this concept in mind.
8. The shift to hire more corporate recruiters has worsened the problem. The more recruiters you have, the more turnover you'll get since everyone is stealing from everyone else more often.
9. The line between passive candidates and active candidates is blurring. Passive candidates now start checking out other opportunities once they find out another company has some interest in them.
10. Technology has not evolved as rapidly for recruiting as it has for other business functions. For example, think about the disruption the OFCCP ruling has had on company reporting. I suspect that if some top distribution person from WalMart led an OFCCP reporting project, it would have been handled with relative ease. It's certainly an easier IT project then JIT inventory and cross-docking.

gretchen