The premise of the article seems to be saying it is mostly a problem of employers not paying enough to attract qualified workers. That is true to some extent but IMO doesn’t paint the whole picture.
I will agree also that there is a lack of qualified candidates for many types of positions, a skills gap particularly in the “trades” or hires who can’t pass background or pre-employment drug tests.
But that is IMO combined with some employer’s unrealistic expectations and an unwillingness to take on someone with perhaps no college degree but with good experience or a recent grad with little or no experience for certain positions. However, someone within the “goldilocks” zone, that perfect combination of education, experience, near perfect resume and a steady and long term employment record, sure, they will demand top dollar.
While my background is mostly in payroll and HRIS administration, at my last job I was also given a new responsibility of maintaining and updating and creating new job descriptions and working with managers on those job descriptions and then on the salary grading, particularly for new and open positions.
I recall one position which we were trying to fill was for a manufacturing polymer plastics chemist. Over the next month the job description was written, re-written, tweaked several times and finally approved but the hiring manager and management team, the qualifications in education and experience identified and a salary range assigned by me based on the job description and using several market surveys within our industry. HR was told the position needed to be filled ASAP so we posted it on various job boards and with several of the professional recruiting firms with whom we worked.
But when it came time for HR to bring in pre-screen candidates for interviews, the management team didn’t want to interview anyone without a Ph.D. But the job description didn’t call for a Ph.D. level chemist, nor was the salary in line with hiring a Ph.D., nor had they budgeted for any relocation package (yea, like in northern Lancaster county PA - Amish country, this area is swimming in Ph.D. level chemists begging to come to work for a mid-sized manufacturing company with a high turnover rate.)
So I asked my HR director to go back and see if management wanted to upgrade the job description and salary to reflect a Ph.D. level and they said no.
We eventually brought in some highly qualified candidates without Ph.D’s and one with (who didn’t even pass the first phone interview) and brought in several of them for multiple interviews - three, in some cases more, including one gal who traveled from out of state more than once, and the final selection came down to two, and then management wouldn’t make a decision, just sat on it. Over three months passed from the time of the last interview and suddenly they decided to make an offer to one, but he of course had already found another position.
So we (HR) started the search all over and they finally hired someone not only without a Ph.D. but on the low end of the job requirements (IIRC the person had only a BA in Chemistry and not even a lot of work experience but interview well)
Of course HR got a black mark on our departmental grade for failing to fill open positions within the less than 20-day goal and it affected our bonus calculation. UGG!
One also has to take into consideration the administrative burden, mostly having to do with government regs, that makes the process for many employers longer and much more difficult.
For instance, because we were subject to EEOC and Affirmative Action reporting, we had to have “applicant tracking” for each and every position for which we hired. That meant that we didn’t accept walk in or unsolicited applications even for manufacturing floor positions, because that would mean we would have to track them and factor them into our annual reporting – basically having to justify why we hired the candidate we did over all the other applicants who applied. Which is also why for many hourly trade positions we went through temp agencies and after about a year of having a good work record, we would only then bring them on as permanent hires.
Add to that, the background checks and drug testing, all this adding to the timeline between identifying a new hire and finalizing the offer and giving them a start date.
So to that end of reducing both administrative burdens and costs, we tended to be very selective on how and when and who we would accept applications from (again using a temp agency in many cases) and very careful not to interview or make a job offer to anyone who we didn’t think would pass muster.
Surprisingly we didn’t have all that many applicants for hourly manufacturing positions who didn’t pass a pre-employment drug screen and criminal background check (we had a few with DUI’s and a couple with simple assaults, but if longer than 5 years prior and depending on circumstances, that wouldn’t necessarily preclude their employment) or who couldn’t provide the required I-9 documentation or pass E-Verify.
The only new hire who I had trouble with on the I-9 was an older 60-ish white guy, obviously a US citizen who had lived his whole life in Lancaster County, never even left the area except for a honeymoon to Niagara Falls, the US side, in something like 1950 as he told me, and who had worked at his last job for over 30 years until they shut down, gone out of business. He had been hired long before the I-9 and E-Verify requirements so this was all very “foreign” and difficult to explain to him.
On his first day of work when filling out his paperwork including the I-9, he had a valid PA driver’s license but had long ago lost his Social Security card and never had in his possession nor had ever needed before a copy of his birth certificate and didn’t have any of the other required list B documents like a US Passport. FWIW, the I-9 must be completed within the 1st 3 days of starting. So following the letter of the law the HR admin told him if he couldn’t provide the required documentation, we would have no choice but terminate him. So overhearing this, I intervened.
Poor guy was very upset and a bit angry about having to prove his eligibility to work in the US so I told him not to worry and brought him into my office where I looked up and I gave him the address of the closest Social Security office and also printed out the directions on Google Map for him and also the instructions for obtaining a replacement card with the key points highlighted and walked him through the process, and the same for getting a certified copy of his BC and then I contacted his manager to let him know what was going on. And then I suggested to his manager that we advance him a day of PTO so he could go and take care of all of this the very next day and not lose a days’ pay, to which his manager agreed. Heck, I was even willing to go with him to the SSA office if that was what it took to get this guy working.
He came in the next day with a receipt from the SSA for his replacement card and let me know the process for getting a copy of his BC was underway and with many thanks for my helping him and advancing him the PTO day.
Yea I know, us HR folks are just plain “evil”.
