How to fix the Talent Problem

We keep listening to senior executives emphasize the ever growing need for talented employee and how difficult it has become to get right talent for the job.

Also, increasingly you would hear them talk about the significance of the Talent Management and and how it has become strategic in the current environment. They also claim to have a good TM practices. But at the same time, they keep complaining about the shortage of talent and how they are not able to hire right talent.

They are puzzled by the fact that despite having a good reputation/image, compensating better than the peers, providing exciting opportunities to grow etc. still ending up with Mediocre Talent.
They are often confused about this situation of ending up with Mediocre Talent even though everything else seems to be right. They claim do all the right things but still not able to resolve the issue. If you ask them what is the reason, more often than not they dont have a clue where they are going wrong. They do not know what to fix first.

My recommendation to them is to consider using principles of Theory of Constraints.

If they do some basic analysis, it will be surprising for many that the weak-link( bottle-necks) exist right at the beginning of the chain – the Talent Manager/Hiring Team.

Who have not experienced the hiring team’s sheer incompetence to understand the business model and the key talent/skills needed for the organization. It starts right from poor Job Descriptions, that set the bar very high and intimidate an honest and skilled professional (who does not like to exaggerate accomplishments) or having outright wrong qualifications/skills mentioned or too broad requirement to be meaningful for the right target.

Have you not come across a JD for middle level manager that sounds like a JD for VP?
Who does not have a first-hand experience of an HR manager not able to comprehend the difference between similar sounding educational qualifications but varying widely in terms of content and quality (e.g. BCA/ B.Sc. Computer Sc /B Tech Computer Sc ) and also their lack of understanding of related but different domains e.g. Sales and Marketing, Finance and Accounting etc.

So, it is very important to fix the Talent Acquisition Team first before you address other issues. It is important to first bring right talent to the talent management team. Bring some diversity in the HR department by inducting people from business function. But, please do not be complacent. Find the next bottleneck and fix it too and do it again and keep doing it!