There is a book out called “Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs” that is going right on my reading list. There’s an interview here with the author, Peter Cappelli, that gives you the gist of what the book pinpoints as hiring issues. It definitely looks like it’s worth a read. Here’s a quote from the interview:
Employers, when they say they’ve got a skills gap, that there are no applicants out there who meet their needs, they are self-diagnosing the situation. What’s really happening is they’re just not able to hire, but you don’t know why that is, right? And the skills gap story is their diagnosis. It’s basically saying there’s nobody out there, when in fact, it turns out it’s typically the case that employers’ requirements are crazy, they’re not paying enough or their applicant screening is so rigid that nobody gets through.
In my experience this is so on point it’s ridiculous. I can’t recall the number of times after multiple interviews and seeing God knows how many resumes, managers would claim they hadn’t hired anyone because they, “Hadn’t seen people.” Then when you presented evidence that they had seen numerous people, they’d claim they hadn’t seen any qualified people. And then, you’d go over the individual resumes of everyone who was interviewed and they’d be hard pressed to come up with reasons why any of them couldn’t do the job.
Another great point Cappelli makes is there’s no ERP system to track vacancies and revenue generation by employees. Now, hiring is risky and people don’t want to make the decision until they have to, and when you couple that hesitance with a lack of true data as to how much a vacancy costs, you get at least part of the way to the current situation of tons of people looking for work and employers claiming there’s no one worth hiring. It’s bullshit and it’s high time more people called these employers on their bullshit.
