One may think that the unemployment rate is rising each subsequent month. The skills shortage is because there are only millions of unemployed workers in the US. However, from the view of an entrepreneur or businessman, the reality is the opposite. It is too hard to find the exact skills for a vacant job.
It’s turning into a pain in today’s corporate world. Finding the best employee to fill a vacant post takes months of hustling. Employers head to blame either the education system or the government policies, but when we dig in, we find that it’s not the same as they say. It’s more of the business’ fault that makes it tough to find the best match for them. So let’s see what makes it that hard to find the matching skills and how they can overcome this shortage:
Do You Need to Recruit?
Yes, the new trend of looking for readymade workers says — to find the right skill for each post separately. But unfortunately, we have seen numerous times when a business chooses to recruit an outsider to fill a vacancy that can quickly be filled by promoting an insider. The problem is that companies do not believe in their employees or want to invest in their skills to enhance their productivity.
An established business may ask that candidates leave the job after completing the training, then why should we train someone if we’ve to repeat the process?
But it’s a wrong way of thinking; talents leave the job because you were looking for outsiders to fill your vacancies instead of promoting them. Even if you don’t train him, he’ll gain experience and leave. To resist an employee, you have to offer promotions and increments.
It would help if you understood that no matter how skilled he is, an outsider always needs time to understand the job and work culture that an insider already inherits. Moreover, recruiting insiders lessens the set of required skills for a vacancy. Hence, more candidates with matching skills apply for the job.
Designing the Job:
Those days are gone when you bless someone with a job. Today, you sell the job to a candidate, which first demands you to have a job to deal with. Sorry, a well-designed job.
Just like you do not want to train a candidate, the talent doesn’t want a job they cannot understand. That is why we suggest investing enough time in writing the job ad. A job ad should be able to screen the most unmatched applicants, but at the same time, it should be encouraging and attractive to the talent. And it’s not rocket science. All you need is to put the critical information about the job in an easy-to-understand format and choose the right keywords and skills.
Are You Looking at the Right Places?
Unfortunately, the small businesses are the new ones too. You may have put your job ad in the wrong place if you are not getting the matching application for your vacant post. It would be best to find the domain where the talent resides. Unfortunately, one cannot find the best fruit in the apparel market.
That’s why you cannot find the best stuff on Facebook because that’s a social networking website, not a job board. So even if you’re using Facebook or Google plus, find the relative groups and pages to post your job and use appropriate hashtags to make it available for everyone.
Remember, it’s always better to use the sites intended only to recruit. Use the right platform because these sites have all the essential features you may need, like — searching the applicants depending on the keywords and sorting different applications.
Choosing the Right Set of Skills:
It’s completely vital to select the right set of skills that you need to fill a vacancy. If you put every little requirement, probably you’ll not have any application. And if you put only the usual skills, you’ll be overwhelmed with job applications that can take months to filter.
You have to understand if there are institutions that provide the courses to match your skills or not. You cannot find a worker to perform all the tasks. If you need different skills but cannot pay two salaries or don’t have enough work for two people, then it’s better to hire casual workers or freelancers.
A Training Shortage:
It’s possible (if not usual) that there are no candidates with the same skills you are looking for, but an applicant’s skill can easily get enhanced by small training.
Businesses do not want to invest in improving skills, but an intelligent businessman looks at such a candidate as a guaranteed investment where you can win and win only. Yes, you have to be a pro to resist the talent from leaving that isn’t too complacent. However, you only need to offer increments and promotions less inexpensive than recruitment.
Try quickly identifying applicants you can improve to match them with the job. Then, you can either tie up with an institution to train your worker or train him on the spot. It’s the best way to recruit if you are looking for a casual candidate to fill a job. Of course, the old idea of recruiting apprentices or hiring interns can also help.
The myth:
When most businesses say that it’s hard to find the perfect pool of talent to fill the job posts, it is also a fact that most of their job post remains vacant because the candidates refuse to work for the payment businesses offer. So it’s again about designing the job; if you want to hire a Ph.D. graduate for the position, you have to pay what he deserves. Otherwise, even if he accepts the job today, you don’t know when he’ll leave for a better job. Hence, do not try to cash the rising unemployment; you have to pay to prevent the talent from going.
Instead, you can (again) hire the interns and the apprentices. These workers will master in their field, which means you’ll get the same quality for a fraction of the amount. But, the risk factor is a bit high, or maybe more, depending upon the job.
You can see why finding the right talent for your small business is challenging. However, you can solve the problem and fill the gap between the required skills and unmatched candidates by taking appropriate steps, like recruiting interns, apprentices, and casual workers and training the insiders.
Do you find it tough to dig the matching talent?
How do you usually recruit?
Which platforms do you use for the recruitment process?
Is there any strategy that you use to hire passive candidates?
Do you find the blog post helpful?
Have I forgotten something?
Is there anything that you’d like to add?
What do you find more difficult — finding the talent or screening the unmatched candidates?
Kindly share your thoughts in the comments below and let the world benefit from your experience.
