Have you seen the headlines?

• Twenty percent of senior executives in the United States qualify to retire today.
  
   
• Employment statistics and reports by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are showing job growth; baby boomers are beginning to retire in large numbers with insufficient numbers to replace them.
   

Guess what....It's back; employees today are increasingly managing careers more like investments - constantly looking for new opportunities and the best returns.  There has been a shift from lifelong employment to lifelong job search and career growth. The huge impending exodus of baby boomers from the job market complicates the task of identifying and acquiring talented employees. The dynamics of power are shifting significantly between the employer and the job-seeking professional. Some fields are already feeling the pinch as the available talent pool shrinks.  While architects, accountants and certain skilled trades are all facing crisis; sales is the field  that worldwide is facing the largest shortage.

Loyalty

I spoke recently to an employer who was shocked that a number of key employees had suddenly left. He spoke of them as if they had betrayed a sacred oath to never leave. The relationship between employer and employee has changed. Our parents firmly believed that you could do your time, earn your stripes and in return for your good work the  company would provide a place you could retire from. No longer do many employees believe that they can spend a career at a single location. Who changed this attitude? We did, the employers. Increasing demands, drive for efficiency, increase profits and be able to compete in the global economy have driven many organizations into constant reorganization, restructuring, layoffs and outsourcing. At the same time headlines abound with corporate fraud, plundering of retirement funds, reduction of benefits, huge executive paychecks, absence of sensitivity and the hanging threat of closing the doors and moving operations overseas.  So who lost loyalty first? While most employers were forced to get lean and agile to survive the overall effect to the workforce was to lose all signs of that relationship and loyalty.

Passive Vs Active

n the past we (recruiters) referred to candidates as active ~ meaning they were out looking for a new job, sending applications - resumes posted on job boards. Or they were passive ~ we had to go find them, usually they were employed, well compensated and not really looking to make a change.  These passive candidates had to be enticed into looking at new opportunities at the same time they became the most sought after. Employers and recruiters adopted the perception that they would be more successful because they weren't job hoppers. See article on Passive Vs Active

Today this new emerging class is redefining that. The birth of the Actively Passive candidate is creating an all new paradigm,  They might not actively change jobs in the short term, but they monitor what jobs are available, know if their current salary is competitive to the market and will post their resume online (often confidentially), letting employers come to them. The candidate decides whether to respond to potential employers interest and may withdraw at any point during the process.

We have entered an era of diminishing returns from just running want ads or placing job postings on huge job boards. Today we are recognizing that in an increasing number of areas the available talent pool is not that large, and the best ones have lots of opportunities to choose from. Most employers never really worried about a situation like this "We can always find somebody just run an ad". There was comfort in seeing all the applications pour in. Increasingly today we hear “Where is the talent? My ads are only pulling in leftovers and rejects. I can’t get any decent resumes." Most recently we hear "I found a great resume online, but I can’t get the person to respond to my e-mails.”

Change Your Hiring Strategies

The result of this new candidate profile demands new methods for candidate sourcing, recruiting and retention. Smart employers are now sourcing continually looking to establish and build sustained relationships with top performers in the industry. They are using the internet and websites such as LinkedIn to identify and connect to individuals worldwide. They are increasing diversity initiatives to in essence cast a wider net and recruit globally. When opportunities arise, these organizations are better positioned to reach out to the right people. 

Hiring processes are typically inconsistent and subjective. Recruiters tasked with sourcing quality candidates tear their hair out due to slow apathetic hiring managers who seem to have no idea how hard it was to produce the candidate for interview.  Updating this hiring process is critical. You cannot reshape the recruiting only to plug the candidate into a hiring sequence that was developed last century. Streamline everything to make sure no time is lost in making a decision. Good talent will disappear in the blink of an eye.

Stop relying on resumes we know how unreliable they are. Omissions, exaggerations and complete falsehoods are standard. They are marketing tools for job seekers. Passively Active candidates may not even have an updated resume and may not feel like creating one have a system that can work around it by developing profiles or even better standardized job applications that capture the critical data on a candidate. 

Next look at the importance of the interview in your hiring process. What tone do you use when you sit down with a candidate? If it is the old school use of exclusion like “Why should we hire you?" or "What can you do for us?” it was designed to short list a large group of candidates. Unfortunately many hiring managers only seem to know this approach. Understand that you are already looking at your "short list" the interview may be your only real chance to sell the prospective employee on the company.

While you may now be looking at those few candidates as a protected commodity you must be willing to vet them even more rigorously than in the past.  Looking for the factors that will make a real difference on the job. Resumes and Interviews do very little to let you know someone. They also fail to also cannot address chemistry and fit, which a recent Korn Ferry survey said accounts for 42 percent of the successful selection process. Use Assessment tools, references and past performance to  thoroughly screen your final choices not only for qualifications but for the more intangible aspects such as personality and character. It is going to be a challenge but outdated hiring processes result in “losing the best” and “hiring what's left.”

Form Alliances
Smart companies have established strategic partnerships with experts in the areas of sourcing, assessment, retention. They recognize that although they will identify some top-performing individuals on their own, self-reliance will get them only so far. Talent is scarce and must be hunted. Hunting talent is labor intensive and is not the core competency for most companies. The use of niche job boards like CareerTrip.com over generic sites lets you make sure you are on target with your general recruiting. While using industry specific recruiters for an even wider spectrum of positions will also become essential. These recruiters not only have existing relationships but are becoming more like talent agents for the industry's best and brightest.

It will be a challenge for many companies to adopt these new concepts. Many will failto realize why they are no longer attracting and hiring the caliber of talent they once did.  Some will withhold the necessary increase in funding it will take to recruit, hire and retain this talent. Understand though that this talent, this human capital is the top investment a company must make. Employers who don’t get this message are doomed to mediocrity at best, failure at worst.