Abundance of Talent

The year 2006 seems like a decade ago. At the time executives sounded off about how difficult it was to find and retain the “right” people.

Now there’s definitely more talent in the marketplace. Instead employers are concerned with slogging through the pile of resumes in their inboxes and spending more time with the qualified candidates and less time with the undesirables, according to a survey by TalentDrive.

The recession turned the whole talent “war” into a myth.

With more people competing for scarce jobs, employers list improving their search techniques as the top priority for the coming year. Selecting the brightest just got a lot harder.

Online job boards are a giant void. Employers realize that to find the best workers among the younger generation, they must cast their nets online and through social networking sites. Their ease of use means a lot of unqualified people simply send their resume out hoping for the best, like buying a lottery ticket.

Employers now have to spend more time wading through resumes sent by people who should not have applied in the first place. Fifty-nine percent of organizations surveyed said the best means of finding top talent is through employee referrals.

Strangely enough, 54 percent of organizations said the quality of candidates was up to par once initial selections were made.

Maybe employer expectations are just too high. The best candidates are typically not in the market at the same time. They’re already working.

For all the false optimism about an economic recovery, there truly is no recovery until the job market is no longer flooded with resumes. Forty-eight percent of companies surveyed said their budgets for talent acquisition were cut or nonexistent. We’ll known when a true recovery occurs because at that point, employers will be looking for talent instead of people looking for jobs.