The Client Side - Aging Baby Boomers and the War For Talent

Last week I wrote about our industry and the post bubble world and the responses were fantastic and all really helpful from my perspective. Some of the discussion touched on the aging Baby Boomers and the upcoming War For Talent. The thought on the War For Talent of course is that as the Boomers retire there will be fewer workers to fill their slots creating excellent conditions for recruiters and our industry. I buy that argument. The Baby Boom generation has been a powerful force and has had a huge impact on everything it touched. The other side of that is the unwinding of the biggest economic bubble in history and the difficult conditions that creates. Another twist to this, and one that I think is very real, is the fact that many Boomers have taken a big hit to their retirement assets and retirement now looks dicey or at least different for many of them. Will many Boomers need to or desire to stay in the work force longer? I'm certain they will. How is this going to change the picture?

One problem with this is something that a colleague brought up this week (Thanks to Lee and Sally Raade, MPC & Company in Hawaii). "We have been hearing from various applicants that newspapers, AARP, and some "recruiters in Florida" have been telling them to be less than honest on their resumes. i.e. leave off any dates for college education, only list jobs for the last 15 years, list "capabilities" rather than actual work experience, and apply for absolutely anything whether you are qualified or not. In other words, concoct a totally fraudulent resume to try to confuse (BS) companies and recruiters, to obtain a job. And the "entities" that give out this "wisdom" honestly believe dishonesty will work."

The following link highlights this problem.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/09/MNMA1696MC.DTL

Incredible.

My opinion is that the War For Talent is going to have an enormous impact on our business. This is starting to happen now and is going to continue and accelerate as the Boomers hit traditional retirement age. Many clients want early to mid career candidates for a variety of reasons. The cost, cultural fit, ability to train and meld into the clients business in the way the client wants etc...... Many Boomers will still be able to retire. Others will want to stay in the work force longer but they won't be the key hires that many clients are looking to make. I believe this will make the War For Talent even more significant and that outside recruiting will be even more important.

Todd Kmiec
Todd Kmiec & Associates
todd@toddkmiec.com
919-883-7560

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Comment by Dan Nuroo on March 14, 2009 at 6:43am: It is interesting Todd, I wonder what the landscape will look like when the dust settles.

All that work, we were up to our armpits doing when we were on the front lines of that "war for talent", remember the candidate short market? anyone? wasn't that long ago was it.

Now tell me, that was all BS? we didn't actually need those people to fill functions, complete projects etc to help their company progress. OK, I get there has been a little financial mismanagement, too much borrowing etc, but the bottom line is, in 5-10 years our global workforce will have shrunk anyways, without adequate refilling from younger people coming into it.

Experience (some may call it wisdom) will be revered more than ever, our leaders of tomorrow (well the smart ones) will still need mentors, and they will come from the leaders of today or the leaders of yesterday, I can see a niche coming for the older generation. I just hired a 62 year old to run an interstate office of mine... we actually made a job for him, as his experience was so impressive (as he was) we as a company could not afford to go past him!

I see this current environment as a speed hump in the evolution of the Recruitment world, it will clean out those cowboys who entered and grew during the recent up times as it was almost a license to make money, and those who survive will be able to continue enhance their reputation as business makers. Companies cannot grow without people, where do these people come from. I know companies now where Recruitment is seen higher than HR in organisational psyche. (apart from in the HR people's eyes :) )