The War for Talent

This morning, as I was performing my morning ritual … perusing some of my favorite blogs as I sipped my first cup of coffee of the day, I was reading David Perry’s Guerilla Marketing blog.

David referenced an article by Sarah Needleman at The Wall Street Journal entitled “Tough Times Don’t Mean Tough Luck on Salary.”

Since there has been an ongoing conversation about the “war for talent,” or lack thereof, on My Linked In Power Forum, I found this article very interesting. A few excerpts that support the existence of a “war” include …

“If you have the kind of skills that are in short supply and are critical to a business’s bottom line, employers are often willing to pay ‘above and beyond the market average,’ says Ravin Jesuthasan, global practice leader at Towers Perrin, a Stamford, Conn.-based consulting firm.

Employers are also increasingly sweetening job offers for high-demand candidates, with benefits previously reserved for workers already in the company, such as flexible schedules and work-from-home arrangements, says Kenan Abosch, leader of the compensation consulting practice at Hewitt Associates Inc., a provider of human-resources services based in Lincolnshire, Ill. ‘If a company has someone they’re really hot to get, because it’s a pivotal role, they’ll go the extra mile,’ he explains."

If your skill sets are not extraordinary … meaning every one of your competitors brings the same thing (usually responsibilities) to a prospective company, you have been relegated to commodity status and there definitely is not a big battle for these candidates.

However, with a clear, compelling, and highly–coveted marketable value proposition, you may very well find yourself in the midst of a war with several great offers on the table … even in this tight economy.