Picture this: amidst a skills and talent crunch, an organization’s most senior leaders and top-performers retire, taking with them much more than a gold watch – 30 or more years of experience and intimate knowledge of the company. As middle managers move up to fill the gaps, new gaps will appear, until the entire organization from top to bottom is riddled with vacancies – and customers hanging in the balance.
Suddenly recent grads of the Y generation will be at the forefront of the battle for top talent, and companies will have to compete for honour roll students and campus superstars.
Why not hire them now?
Recruiting recent grads is something some employers are making a priority – not just to fill entry-level roles, but as a strategic component of succession planning and sustainability. It’s about being proactive, rather than reactive, as some would say.
As the Globe and Mail recently rolled out their list of “Top 50 Employers for Young People” (with the editors of “Canada’s Top 100 Employers”), Career Edge was profiled in a timely feature in the Globe today, entitled “Keeping a Generation from Getting Lost.”
The article by Randy Ray highlighted the challenges faced by the large number of unemployed youth in today’s tough job market, particularly those who graduated at the height of the recession and have remained unemployed since.
The article, featuring an interview with our own Janice Rudkowski, Director, Marketing & Communications, raises the question – what will become of this cohort, and what will happen when employers need fresh talent? Will they be “passed over in favour of the next crop of fresh graduates,” as Janice postulates in the article. Will they lose some of the skills and knowledge they graduated with months, or in some cases, over a year ago?
Fortunately there are some excellent companies out there that recognize the value of recruiting and training new talent now. Loblaw and Kraft – both host employers to our Career Edge program for recent grads – both appeared in the article as examples of excellent programs that are “kick-starting careers” and enjoying the benefits of new talent.
As the economy recovers, now is a great time to build a “talent pipeline,” because before we know it, we’ll be facing a talent drought.