Does your company have a niche skills shortage?
David Bloch, MD of the Brightwater Group comments:
Working in Recruitment, I was 90% sure the balance of the above question was ‘yes’ because as the year has progressed, so has our job flow. Less of the classic roles that Recruitment Consultancies fill, more the unusual roles, the difficult to fill roles and the niche roles.
Information Technology is the classic example of niche, because a very large percentage of the roles are niche. With constantly evolving technology and highly specialist skills needed in so many areas, it has been estimated that there are currently 5,000 unfilled IT roles in Ireland at the moment.
Other sectors that have niche requirements are Banking (yes, banking!) legal (mostly in-house positions), Insurance, Reinsurance, Engineering (national and international requirements), science, pharmaceutical and increasingly Accountancy practice. Generally it is the medium / big companies that have niche requirements…, but the essence of niche means these people are valuable, but difficult to find.
Along with the question of niche, is the question of unique ability. People recruit to make money, or save money. The most obvious such examples are Accountants and Sales people. With sales you are not just looking for experience in an area, you are looking for a top draw track record - and key people are very difficult to find. In fact, not only has our job flow gone down over the last 18 months, but so has our candidate flow, which means that when you look for niche people, there are less out there.
The reality is that the best and the niche are not idle, they are employed and there is more and more competition for their skills. So, if you locate someone key for your organisation, don’t hesitate, don’t undercut and don’t take too long, because they will be snapped-up (even in 2009)!