Talent Shortage or Talent Blindness?

There is a talent shortage. So I was told millions of times. My answer is always the same. There is no talent shortage, only talent blindness.

Each time I talk to leaders, managers, recruiters and HR, I am amazed by their inability to identify talent and see potential in them.

Sometimes I straight ask them, "What are you looking for?" to which I get bullet points from job descriptions. And that's the problem.

They are so caught up in their lists that they ignore what is in front of them; the natural talent that can perform the job if invested in it.

They want people who are "ready to hit the ground running". We all know what it means, right? People who require no training, coaching, or development.

Guess what? There are no such people!

When we learn to identify talent and see what those talents can be turned into, we will stop crying about talent shortage.

It is literally the case of the forest from the tree, the forest being the talents and the tree being the CV & the job description bullet points.

I wish to get to a point where recruiters want to hear something like this about people and can translate that to possible roles:

"You are a possibility thinker, meaning you often see a bigger picture than others. This is more than just optimism. You see beyond what is obvious because your mind combines uncommon combinations of ideas and resources. When people say it can't be done, don't be discouraged. Show them what you see and open them up to new possibilities."

I literally just advised a leader to hire somebody based on this description.

#talent#development#talentwar