Is the War for Talent really more of a skirmish?

With the current down trend in the global economy creating an influx of displaced workers and aging workers that can no longer retire, continued off-shoring capabilities, technology advancements that allow for talent on-demand initiatives and a distributed, remote workforce model, as well as increased growth in skilled workers outside of G8 countries, do you still believe that "The War for Talent" as coined by McKinsey & Co. will ever reach the level of importance first predicted OR has talent acquisition taken a step backwards towards the status of commodities as opposed to strategic, game-changing initiatives outside the list of a few select positions?

I'm not trying to be doomsayer with this question, obviously recruiting (3rd party and Corporate) will always be around in some form. This is more a question to: is recruiting still a growth industry (keeping in mind normal ebbs and flows) or has the industry peaked? As an industry is it time to reinvent the structure or are the current models in place going to continue to be relevant to our client's needs?

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Taylor on February 9, 2009 at 2:39pm

I'm not sure if I'm answering this directly Kyle - but one thought that came to mind was, reinvention is key and always will be. I run a staffing division in the greater Boston area, and THE number one reason we remain viable in this marketplace, is because we adopted, early on, a partnership approach with our clients. Those clients are still with us, even the ones on hold have our attention if not limited from the temporary pause in hiring. If we had kept with an older model of focusing on being a sourcing vendor, we would not have the relationships to draw from as strongly. I believe that recruiting is about an authentic approach to relationship building, based on that foundation, the rules have certainly changed and this economy, like every downturn before now, is forcing the recruiting industry to reevaluate their value add. Its an important time and a filtering process...and the foundation of growth for any recruiting firm looking to continue to provide the best ROI.

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Permalink Reply by Maureen Sharib on February 10, 2009 at 8:44am

A 2006 ERE discussion from almost (exactly) three years ago with some pretty prescient remarks in it about the War for Talent. And I would be remiss not to call upon Howard Adamsky's seminal 2005 piece on the subject.

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Permalink Reply by Joshua Letourneau on February 10, 2009 at 9:52am

Kyle, good question. The following excerpt from an interview between Fast Company and Ed Michaels (the purveyor of the above referenced concept) in September of last year:

FC: Why do you call the current environment a "war for talent"?
EM: A lot of it has to do with demographics. In 15 years, there will be 15% fewer Americans in the 35- to 45-year-old range than there are now. At the same time, the U.S. economy is likely to grow at a rate of 3% to 4% per year. So over that period, the demand for bright, talented 35- to 45-year-olds will increase by, say, 25%, and the supply will be going down by 15%. That sets the stage for a talent war .

In reading this, it's apparent that Ed is speaking to the macroeconomics of the talent market; the aggregate, if you will.

What I've observed (and while I haven't lived hundreds of years, I read quite a bit, however I am not any kind of 'guru') is that there is no War for Talent today, but there is a higher likelihood as we move into the future and deal with the demographic issues that Ed outlines. That being said, I think it's more of a slow-cooking Cold War that happens to have pockets of increased resistance and firefights within certain niches or 'hot-spots'.

These firefights sometimes last minutes, sometimes weeks, sometimes months. In that sense, I think the better we (as TPRs) are at identifying what firefights we want to step into and 'provide support' is becoming very much a science. As is true in today's War on Terrorism, agility, speed, and traveling light are of paramount importance. Yesteryear's notion of slow-moving massive fronts and amassing of troops & armor are a thing of the past.