When examined from a high level, the current state of the Finance & Accounting industry is clear. Open positions drastically outnumber available skilled professionals, resulting in a talent shortage that makes hiring difficult and skews compensation figures. However, the details of this phenomenon vary by location.
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As hiring managers and business leaders in the Finance and Accounting industry continue to grapple with a profound skills shortage, securing knowledgeable talent has never been more difficult. The field’s low, 2.2% unemployment rate has magnified this shortage, leaving hundreds of thousands of positions unfilled.
No longer just a trend, today’s tight labor market is something that hiring managers in every industry grapple with each day. With demand in most fields outpacing supply, a dramatic skills shortage has driven the national unemployment rate down to 4.1%. Such a low level indicates the country is at a level of full employment that has talent happily employed while hiring managers struggle to keep their organizations fully staffed. This phenomenon stunts the growth of businesses in a number of ways and magnifies the importance of implementing a new hiring strategy.
At a time when hiring managers and business leaders continue to wrestle with a distinct tech skills shortage, finding and recruiting knowledgeable talent has never been more difficult. A low, 2.5% unemployment rate in the field has magnified this shortage, leaving hundreds of thousands of positions unfilled across America.
Some people seem like they were born with a high level of creativity. Perhaps it’s in the way they speak about their craft, their ability to quickly offer a solution to a problem, or the way they make their job look so easy. While creativity can’t necessarily be taught, employers can still nurture and help grow an employee’s ability to fulfill their role and tap into creativity they didn’t even know they had. Doing so is key to filling the creative skills gap
When skilled talent is in high demand, hiring managers must tailor their hiring strategies and open roles to better meet the preferences of job seekers. As more and more candidates desire short-term jobs or freelance-type work, it has led to the rise of the gig economy. It’s estimated that by 2020, 40% of Americans will be working outside of traditional permanent full-time jobs. Nowhere is this future more visible than in the creative field. A study of LinkedIn users found that 46% of all freelancers work in Art/Design and 35% work in Media/Communication. In all, creatives make up 80% of the gig economy.
When you need to hire for an in-demand role like Internal Auditor, Web Developer, or Creative Director, does it turn into a long and difficult process that doesn’t even result in the best candidates? You’re not alone. Today, a skills shortage affecting the Finance, IT, and Creative fields is no passing trend but a new normal that cannot be ignored. Regardless of your industry, continuing with the same hiring strategy will only achieve the same subpar results. It’s time to adopt a new recruiting approach that can increase your talent pool while placing the best candidates into your open roles.
Those looking to hire in the creative field are quickly faced with a hard truth: locating and recruiting creative talent is a challenge. CareerBuilder numbers confirm this difficulty, as in the last year there have been 401,498 creative job postings but only 65,869 available candidates.
It goes without question that hiring managers in nearly every industry are finding it more difficult to fill roles with top talent. Part of the reason stems from external factors that make it harder to locate the right candidates when there are so few of them available. However, the lion’s share of recruiting difficulty arises from internal factors related to the hiring timeline. The average hiring process has stretched to 23 days, an eternity in high-demand fields. There are many risks associated with a long hiring process, but luckily, many solutions exist.
It’s no secret that the Finance and Accounting field is being transformed by technology. In a study from EY (formerly Ernst & Young), 58 percent of Finance leaders are focused on combing leading-edge technologies with process improvement. Furthermore, where organizations once relied on their IT leaders to drive these changes, CFOs are now reporting their increased involvement in the decision-making and adoption of these new technologies. According to EY, there are a number of technologies that significantly impact hiring in the Finance function.
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