Glen Cathey

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The "skills gap" is the greatest ghost story ever told in corporate America.

We’ve been hearing about it for a decade. We’re told that the reason 10 million jobs sit open is that the workforce simply doesn't have the "technical chops" to fill them.

It’s a convenient narrative. It shifts the burden of training from the employer to the individual.

But here’s the thing... the data tells a different story.

When you look at the "unfilled" roles in most Fortune 500 companies, you don't see a lack of applicants. You see a lack of "perfect" applicants.

→ ATS filters that reject 98% of resumes for missing a single keyword.

→ Hiring managers demanding 10 years of experience in a 3-year-old technology.

→ Salary bands that haven't been adjusted for 2024 inflation.

→ Interview processes that require 8 rounds and a "take-home project."

We aren't suffering from a skills gap. We’re suffering from a "flexibility gap."

I’ve seen this play out in real-time. A company will leave a critical engineering role open for nine months—losing millions in productivity—because they refuse to hire a candidate who has 90% of the skills and train them on the remaining 10%.

Think about that.

We would rather lose millions in "potential" than spend thousands on "development."

For those of us in TA and HR, this is our moment to push back. We are the ones who see the "silver medalist" candidates who could be gold medalists with four weeks of onboarding.

If we don't fix the selection process, the skills gap will continue to be the perfect excuse for stagnant growth.

Stop looking for the unicorn. Start building the stable.

What do you think? Is the skills gap real, or is it just a failure of our hiring systems?

I go deeper into the "Selection Paradox" in the link below. 👇

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