Bill Gates once said that “The competition to hire the best will increase in the years ahead.” The truth is that finding the right people to fill job openings has never been easy, but he was right that it has gotten harder. With the unemployment rate holding at 4.1% nationwide — which is at the lowest level since 2000 and before that the lowest level since 1970 — it is getting harder (and may get even harder still thanks to stimulus from the tax overhaul) to find employees without throwing huge salaries and loads of benefits at the problem. And finding highly-skilled, educated and experienced talent is even harder.
Sometimes, the challenge is finding people with the education, experience and skills to fill a high-level job. Think of a CTO for a blockchain currency company. Other times, the challenge lies in finding people with a combination of skills and experience that is hard to find in one person. Think of a CMO for a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company that raises capital for real estate and is expanding into Latin America. Still other times, the job may require a very deep level of knowledge in a niche area that few possess. Think of a Chief Hardware Design Engineer for the Avionics department at SpaceX. Or the job may be in very high demand and it may be hard to find someone who wants to leave an existing job to take a job with a less well-known company or one that isn’t offering as high a salary or benefits. Think of programmers in Silicon Valley or Investment Bankers in Manhattan. It can even be hard to fill customary positions — such as customer service, accounting, tech support, and sales — if a company simply has a lot of vacancies to fill because it is growing. Given the today’s job market, what should hiring managers do today to find talent? Here are some ideas. Continue reading