Why Competing For New Talent Is a Mistake | Harvard Business Review

One factor contributing to the talent shortage that we continue to hear about and experience is: many organizations tend to favor hiring the top, job-ready talent rather than invest in developing their existing workforce. As organizations continue to “fish from the same external talent pool,” the talent shortage will only worsen. To address this challenge, this short HBR article reinforces the need for a talent strategy that is heavily driven by “Build” vs. “Buy” tactics where an organization intentionally addresses current and future talent gaps by developing its internal talent marketplace. It does this through upskilling, reskilling, internal mobility, etc. Such an approach also relies on hiring talent from overlooked communities (e.g., veterans, persons with disabilities, retirees, etc.) and providing them with training and apprenticeships to prepare them to meet talent needs. We need to think beyond just hiring and poaching talent to close talent gaps and, as stated by Josh Bersin in a recent article, “we have to shift to a world of creating candidates- not attracting candidates.”