Last week's White House 'Jobs Summit' brought together an assortment of corporate executives, academics, organized labor, and politicians to discuss the current state of the job market in the United States, and brainstorm ways to spur job creation.
Most of the comments and opinion pieces that came out immediately after the summit highlighted a number of potential strategies to create jobs; tax credits for employers that increase payrolls, a 'cash for caulkers' program meant to increase construction demand, reduced regulatory burden, and some classic large infrastructure projects for highway, bridge, and port repairs.
But the next morning I heard a brief interview with one of the attendees of the summit, some kind of 
Flickr - nonsequiturlassexecutive in a not-for-profit agency that made what I thought was a really telling, and surprising observation. He was stunned at the number of corporate executives at the summit that claimed thay they did indeed have available positions, but were having difficulty finding enough qualified candidates to fill these positions.
Let me see if I get this - unemployment in the US at about 10% officially, and likely effectively somewhere between 15% - 20% and any company anywhere can't find the right candidates? From the context of the comments, this was not the occasional one or two incredibly specialized positions that many companies have that require some esoteric and truly unique set of skills.
Rather these statements were made more in a 'Hey we have jobs at 'XYZ Company', we just can't find the right people to fill them.'
What are the possible reasons why, in this climate, a major US corporation would have problems of any significance filling open positions:
Your Company Stinks
Even desperate job seekers are holding out for something, anything better than working for you. Most of the rats who had the chance already abandoned ship. This is not the problem of the education system, or a broken welfare system, or outsourcing anything overseas. No, this is entirely your fault.
You're Inflexible
Lets say you are looking for C++ developers, with 5-10 years experience, and exposure to your industry. And, you are looking for 'local candidates only'. So now you have limited your target market to not only a specific skill and background set, but also to candidates that happen to live within commuting distance of your location. And if you are in a smaller city, or a larger one that has been in decline, this simple geographic limitation is a large part of your problem. Is it time to consider telework for these kinds of positions? The talent you need may not live in your town, but chances are they are out there somewhere and a bit more flexibility on your part may be all that is needed to put that talent to work.
You Can't Recruit
You posted the jobs on the corporate website, and maybe on one of the big job boards. You got lots of applications, but no one really fit the bill. And then you tweaked the job description, re-posted it, and maybe even Tweeted out the link once or twice. But still the 'right' candidates have not materialized yet. Oh well, it must be a 'hard to fill' job that Americans just don't have the skills or inclination to perform any more.
You Have no Market
You are selling a product. A package of pay, benefits, experiences, challenges, networks, etc. in exchange for an individual with the needed skills most precious assets: time and attention. But what if you have overestimated the value of what you are selling, the demand in the market for your offering, or frankly the existence of a consumer for your offering in the first place? Are you pushing the employment version of 'Ishtar'? Long term, if you have a job opening like this, one with truly no market, then you really don't have a job opening at all. And you are wasting everyone's time, frankly.
You Don't Know What You Have
So you have some open positions that are hard to fill for whatever reason. Are you sure that you don't already have a 'good enough' source of candidates for those positions already in house, working other jobs? People currently doing jobs that would be easier to backfill if you redeployed, trained, and developed them to grow into some of the 'hard to fill' positions. Maybe some of these people already possess some or all of these skills, acquired from former employers or on their own initiative. And they have the added benefit of already knowing your company culture and possess their own interpersonal networks. Before you go to the White House and complain, are you sure you have done enough in your own development efforts to fill these jobs?
Am I being to hard on employers that cry 'We can't find skilled workers?'
Do you have a real example of a job that you truly can't fill right now?
Steve
