We have now been enjoying a candidate driven market for several years in the long march from the crash of ten years ago. Jobs are plentiful in quantity if not quality. Candidates can expect a range of options and employers have to compete for the top talent. So far so great so futures bright etc. It is an indicator of buoyancy and generally good news. That said there is a real distinction between how this works in today’s market and the loosening liberating effect which has happened in previous cycles. Why is this? Is it a good thing?
So what are we saying? Company decision makers are very much understandably risk adverse in terms of focussing on safe bets which will avoid the great expense of a failed hire. This is particularly accentuated in sales where a revenue stream which never arrives can result in pure loss and missed opportunity. The need for competitiveness is such that a learning curve is an uncertainty too far. This can result in a recycled pool of talent and experience. It can mean that sheer sales talent doesn’t get the training and opportunities to break out into new skill area and thus widen that talent pool .This is not to decry the supreme importance of results short and long term. We can all be high minded at the expense of profits which fund our wages and taxes. A buoyant job market is not now accompanied by an easier low hanging fruit economy. This provides a challenge for training and recruitment to make the best use of sales talent. In many ways a snap cookie cutter approach can simplify the recruiters work but it precludes the development of talent and the deployment of the best wealth creating salesmen. In short order the better Salesman will always outperform the already assimilated hack from the competition.