For the past several months I have spoken to 11 groups of CEOs, and every group has asked the same question: “Where are all the people?” “What secret island has all of the employees on it?” AND the unemployment rate isn’t zero, so where are all of the candidates?
In February, The New York Times published an article https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/briefing/labor-shortage-part-time-workers-us.html that talks about part-time workers in this market, and many of those want full-time.
Bottom line: there seems to be a disconnect between workers wanting full-time employment and the employers who want full-time workers. What is that disconnect???
What if it is artificial intelligence? As a certified recruiter for Indeed.com, we have noticed that several of the job boards are sending resumes that are titled “Most Compatible” (even though most applications AREN’T), which means that you aren’t receiving the “less compatible” applications. In other words, some computer program somewhere is deciding for you whose application you get to see, and whose application you don’t get to see.
To be fair to Indeed.com and ZipRecruiter, most job boards have some sort of artificial intelligence to help employers sort resumes. They are trying to solve the problem that employers have been complaining about for years; they are overwhelmed with applicants. In order to pare down the candidate pools, artificial intelligence has been incorporated by most job boards to pre-sort.
From a recruiting standpoint, I am giving my clients these 5 tips:
1) Don’t just rely on job boards for recruiting
2) Utilize your website for applications
3) Utilize job fairs (there are a number of them going on!)
4) Use Craig’s List, because it doesn’t utilize artificial intelligence
5) Use physical job boards outside the office of your child’s school or grocery stores
And finally, keep the faith. This will sort itself out. It always does.
POWER THOUGHT: Maybe the labor shortage is a computer glitch.