Intro

I noted that even in a time of dangerously high unemployment, companies complain that they can't find skilled workers and sometimes need months of hunting to fill a single mid-level job.

I explained the conventional wisdom about what has become known as the "skills gap." I also challenged that notion - because when we look at the facts, there is no evidence to support it. "The real culprits," I wrote, "are the employers themselves."

[recruiters] reported that their organizations had shortages of employees because the companies has unrealistic standards and would not train or invest in candidates who could otherwise do the jobs.

My favorite email came from somebody in a company that had 25,000 applicants for a standard engineering position of whom the staffing people said not one was qualified. Could that really be possible?

You can buy all [the diamonds] you want at the market price. Not being able or willing to pay the market price for talent does not constitute a shortage.

One reader who wrote to me described how he had been told he was perfect for a given position - except for the fact that his previous job title didn't match that of the vacancy, which was a title unique to that particular company.

How do we move forward from here? How do we get America's job engine revved up again? ... Blaming schools and applicants isn't the solution, and the way we're doing things now just isn't working.

Ch 1

By some calculations, these millions of unfilled jobs are costing the economy billions of dollars in lost business.

All that talk in the late 1990s and early 2000s about a growing shortfall in the labor force was a myth.

The Home Depot Syndrome:
Filling a job vacancy is seen as akin to replacing a part in a washing machine. (the issue with this is that the company can keep running without the position being filled, and there is no understanding of what economic benefits the company sees when the position is filled or what costs are incurred by leaving it unfilled)

An organizational focus on cost control creates a bias against hiring because we cannot easily track the benefits of filling jobs.

Perhaps the most important difference between the Home Depot model and reality is that unlike a machine part, no perfect fit exists between applicants and job requirements.

Make or Buy: Employers choose between training versus growing talent based on which is cheaper to do and whether what they want is so unique that it cannot be found in the outside market.

The Home Depot view of filling a vacancy might suggest that once you find the right candidate, you hire that person and pay the necessary wage... In the real world though, employers do not act this way... We spend more effort searching when we think it will pay off, and when it is easier to do so... We feel it is more likely we will find a deal.

Employers may take longer to fill vacancies not because no one fits their requirements, but precisely because there are so many qualified applicants and they differ so much. Employers can be so dazzled by the choices that they wait too long to fill positions, especially because they cannot easily see the costs of not filling them.

Pundits contend that the existence of vacancies proves that something must be wrong with the possible candidates, or else the jobs would have been filled. They have said this after every recession in recent memory, and they are always wrong. It pays to search, especially when the pickings are good.

The percentage of employees who are overqualified for their jobs ... is about three times greater than the proportion of people who are underqualified using the same criterion. And the proportion of overqualified has more than doubled over the past generation.

Perfectly capable can't get jobs because employers have so many qualified applicants that they can afford to overlook an entire category of applicant.

Is it any wonder that a disconnect exists between workers and jobs today? Hardly, but blaming the victim only makes matters worse.

Ch 2

Myth: Employers can't find workers with adequate skills to fill available jobs.

Skills aren't the issue, a market-determined wage is. If you pay it, they will come.