Hooray! We have a new jobs report this past week that shows nationally we have continued to hire workers on a solid, steady pace. The kicker is that there are not enough workers in the job force for companies to bring on board now. We still have firms with near record levels of job openings. There is less unemployed talent in general than in past times that I can remember. Also, there are more open searches than we can remember. We are handling all of our searches like one would do as retainer-based search firm with no doubt.  Meaning we need to go and find those candidates & offer them something better, stronger and faster before anyone else. It’s a race on all levels.

In all honesty, these open searches will more than likely not be filled anytime soon. They are jobs that have a solid skills gap with top talent or are in huge demand; again all due to the low unemployment rates.

We think, and most of the leaders in the talent space feel that this will lead to stronger wage growth because firms will need to pull candidates from other, competitive firms. What’s better than that right? Get the top performer from across the street and do whatever you can to bring them over to your camp. The limited supply of labor will make wages with no doubt move north.

I feel that growth for marketing firms will be in new biz only. They have enough people on board to do the jobs. What’s next?  Right-sizing. This will come in the forms of business needs shifting and reorgs from some of the larger firms who hired too many too quickly.

Additionally, marketing firms need to diversify their client bases for sure. Having all your eggs in one client basket is dangerous and in all too many times won’t fair out well. We have now seen a solid 4+ firms in just this past quarter who have gone through reorganizations due to client cutbacks. Of course, those let go are snatched up fast but the after effects are those same firms being gun-shy to hire quickly to replace and or using this as an opportunity to truly retool what’s (and who) is needed.

Finally, firms that are investing in new products and services within marketing need to come to the table with investment dollars to make themselves different and attractive; at least much more attractive to be competitive with other firms who are racing next to them now. This is the only way to attract the best of the best candidates and for the clients to stay afloat.

This is basic economics. Companies have faced high unemployment rates and now they are not. There is low unemployment universally. Even with companies with large amounts of cash at hand, they still need to remain at the forefront of the competition. Invest in you and invest in talent.