Help Wanted but Hiring Slow

If you are actively on the job hunt, or even passively surveying the market, you have probably noticed the job boards exploding with analytic positions. In a time when the economy is making a slow but steady recovery this sounds like great news, right? Well, perhaps at first glance. According to a recent article, companies today have more openings than at any point in the past five years. The bad news? The urgency to hire isn't there.

Whenever clients or candidates ask me for my outlook on the job market, I always point out this recent trend. The lack of urgency is especially true on the senior end, with employers waiting for a perfect match and delaying hires. While I have seen first-hand the reluctance of hiring managers to jump on good candidates in analytics, this is certainly true in all industries and job categories, according to the article.

Overall, the United States Department of Labor reported that job openings rose almost 9% from January to February this year, a bigger jump than at any other time since May 2008. Hiring, however, rose less than 3%, a stable growth, but definitely not what is to be expected considering the amount of job ads we see.

I would love to see companies look beyond the time consuming and oftentimes fruitless search for a “perfect candidate” and instead focus on growing their analytics teams and hiring candidates with a broader range of talents who can work well together. We’ll see what the future holds, but for the time being we have a new normal.