Skills Gap a myth, employers are simply using the wrong hiring criteria

At this writing, the unemployment rate in the United States is 7.9%, yet, according to Manpower, one out of every two U.S. employers is struggling to fill mission-critical jobs. How can that be? In my view, based on my company’s work with more than 28,000 businesses around the world and our assessment of over 3.5 million people on their behalf, those frustrated employers are simply using the wrong hiring criteria.

I’ve personally heard from people at numerous companies that are looking to fill important jobs while millions remain unemployed. They think they can’t find “the right person.” As Samuel Coleridge put it, “Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink.” The main trouble: They value experience above any other asset. They require an experienced individual who will hit the ground running. But how often do they come across someone who has five years of experience that adds up to just one year’s bad experience repeated five times? And perhaps even hire them, only to have to fire them (at a high cost to the company) within six months?

In this economy, no one can afford to make a bad hiring decision, so many companies find themselves stymied by traditional hiring criteria. In basketball terms, what do they do? They freeze the ball. They go without hiring while they need to hire…

Choosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor from

via The Lack Of Qualified Job Candidates Is A Myth – Forbes.