I spoke to a friend in recruitment last week and as normal the economic down turn that we have all witnessed over the last four years or so came up. He made an interesting point that whilst everyone is keen to talk about ‘when’ things improve and talent starts migrating in bigger numbers, the reality is that it won’t because it isn’t there. What if what we see and feel now in terms of economic performance is the new normal? What if this is as good as it gets?
It is an interesting thought and it got me thinking about how businesses could and should be looking at their recruiting plans with this being the case.
I have always been someone who aspires to the ‘hire on attitude, train on skills’ mentality when it comes to hiring staff, where possible. Sometimes you do need an expert to build something around, but time and time again I have gone for a great attitude and a solid foundation over a poor attitude and great skill base.
So given the current climate, now more than ever is potentially a great time to be hiring future talent given the lack of top end talent from a skills perspective. To give an example of this, I met with a client before Christmas to talk about a new hire and last week they decided to switch focus from finished article to great potential. I did talk about doing this at the original meeting but accept that sometimes you just have to see for yourself in order to fully appreciate the recruiting landscape.
Finding the best people will always be the most important deliverable from my perspective. So I think that if businesses were to spend more time looking at, understanding, and even where necessary translating their future business strategies it should be possible to identify and generate a pipeline of talent that can be developed and ultimately enrich the businesses they join.
If the UK doesn’t address the need to hire talent for the future we do run the risk of falling even further behind our global competitors. The resistance to hiring future talent has to change, and soon. These people are committed, full of energy and fresh ideas. In order to stay ahead of the tech curve, you need to feed your business fresh ideas and therefore the opportunity to explore untapped markets whilst also addressing your long-term concern regarding skills shortages.