The Talent Scarcity Myth - Responses To The Broadside On The Status Quo

In February, an interview with Toby Marshall was published in Shortlist on the Talent Scarcity Myth. This is an industry magazine, and it drew a lot of Comments as for many in the industry, the belief in scarcity is like a mantra (not surprising given all the conferences and articles.)

For example, Julie Mills - CEO, RCSA (the Australian industry body representing agency recruiters):

“Claims by [Abacus] that the real issue is underemployment, not skills shortages, is not what the RCSA is finding in its activities with recruiters, job boards, candidates and clients.

In dealing with recruiters of all levels, every day, and around the country, the message I am getting is clear: finding employees with the right skills set is getting harder.nn[Our latest Research] found that 91 per cent of agencies are devoting more time and resources to finding candidates than they did a year ago.”

Which of course, is my point: they are fighting the wrong war (see below).

Julie then goes on to quote the usual demographic shifts that have been talked about for 10 years or more.

Another good response was from Stephen Hinch, the Chief Marketing Officer at Manpower. It draws on the excellent and detailed research that Manpower has done in this field of long term demographic shifts.

As with Julie, the problem is the conclusions he reaches. That somehow market forces are not automatically brought into play to mitigate temporary skills shortages. In fact there are about 6 linked forces that stop shortages being anything other than short term (though they can last a bit longer in remote, relatively isolated places like Western Australia as John Kirkby rightly points out.)

The many excellent articles by Ross Gittens in the Sydney Morning Herald explain better tha
I can how these forces work. Basic economics. Any scarcity is temporary.

My original article essentially argues that long term shortages are impossible. It was also an attack on McKinsey’s ‘War for Talent’. Catchy phrase, made them a lot of money, but wrong. It is not a war for talent, it’s a war for resources to get the job done. Subtle, but an important difference.

There are plenty of resources to get the job done amongst the under-employed and elsewhere. Employers just need to think different. Some are.

Now, I didn’t write the original article on Shortlist, and it only touches on issues explored in my books and articles.

Abacus is arguing for a fundamental shift in approach by employers who want to think differently about scarcity. And stop constantly proving Einstein’s definition of insanity.

To stop taking their lead from recruiters, 90% of whom have the same business models:

Transaction focused; upfront commission driven; and responding to, not leading their clients.

So I agree with Julie Mills:- transaction recruiters and their clients are experiencing scarcity. They soldier on in McKinsey’s phoney war for talent.

Mobilising the 5 groups of under-employed is not just a nice thing to do. With labour markets, even a small percentage increase in supply has a BIG impact.

However, our interest is not with all employers: Only those who want to lead the pack with different strategies.