BRIEFINGS PODCAST:

Hiring: The Great Mismatch 

NOTE: While this transcript has been reviewed, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript.

Jill Wiltfong:
 Okay. Hi, I'm Jill Wiltfong, Chief Marketing Officer for Korn Ferry, and this is Briefings, our deep dive into topics that corporate leaders need to care about.

There's no question this has been a very tough job market, and for a long time. But take a look at some surprising numbers. Recently, there were actually seven million job openings in the US. And in the UK, to give you some global perspective, a much smaller country, there are over 700,000 vacancies. True, the numbers are falling, but the fact is companies do have jobs, and they're in diverse fields. Just last January, one major semiconductor company alone was advertising for more than 3,000 open positions.

But firms are struggling to fill these openings because they can't find enough people with the right skills. Welcome to one of the greatest talent gaps we've seen in a generation, where firms need more people who can work side by side with AI, or without it. The so-called war for talent that made headlines years ago now seems to have been replaced by what you might call a battle for balance.

It's an issue that, if left unaddressed, could lead to meaningful losses in productivity and revenue for companies, and a lot of frustration for those chasing the wrong jobs. So today, let's look at how we got here and what can be done to solve the great hiring mismatch.

Before we start, if you're watching us on YouTube, please be sure to like, subscribe, and leave a comment to let us know your thoughts on this topic. You can also read about the subject today in a great feature in our Briefings magazine, available at airports and online.

I'm joined now by Iktimal Danishbar, Korn Ferry's Vice President of Recruitment Process Outsourcing in EMEA. She works with many company leaders to ensure that roles get filled at scale. So it'll be great to have her take on all of this. Iktimal, thanks for joining me.

Iktimal Danishbar:
 Thanks for having me, Jill.

Jill Wiltfong:
Iktimal, give us the broad view here. We've had talent gaps before, but what makes this mismatch so unique in your view?

Iktimal Danishbar:
We have had it before, but I think this time it's the speed and the shape of the mismatch. Historically, the mismatch has been quite linear. We've been able to see it coming. So we've been able to have new technology emerge, universities have been able to adapt, companies have been able to upskill, and then the workforce has been able to catch up. But now it's so uneven and unpredictable.

Jill Wiltfong:
So let's break this down into two workforce subgroups. You've got white-collar and frontline workers. The World Economic Forum found nine in ten leaders face AI-critical skill shortages today, with one in three reporting gaps of 40% or more. But it's been over three years since ChatGPT came on the scene. Why haven't the skills caught up with the technology?

Iktimal Danishbar:
Look, I think when it comes to white-collar, the perception was that AI is here and people will adapt. But people can't adapt in ambiguity. And I think what was missing with these organizations is that they haven't really understood what they need within their organization for the white-collar workers, right, to be able to help train those people to get there. What we've seen is the training's being fragmented. AI has not been as intuitive as people thought it was going to be.

Jill Wiltfong:
Moving now to frontline workers, you've said that shifting generational perspectives on frontline work are making those roles harder to fill. Tell me more.

Iktimal Danishbar:
So frontline workers, whether they're manufacturing or retail, they're not seen as the sexy jobs. When you have a look at the younger generations and you ask them what do they want in a workplace or in a job, they want purpose, they want flexibility, they want to be able to progress probably a bit more quickly than they should, but they want to be able to progress. And that's not what frontline work gives younger people.

Jill Wiltfong:
That's a scene from the movie Hidden Figures, where Octavia Spencer plays a character in the early 1960s who retrains her coworkers to adapt to the coming computer revolution. And today, many experts say that retraining is the answer here to this current skill shortage as well. But Iktimal, you say that before even considering retraining, companies need to take a step back and determine what skills they actually need. What makes you say that?

Iktimal Danishbar:
Do you remember when you were younger, people used to ask you, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Companies didn't ask themselves that—what do they want to be when they grow up? And I don't think that companies are investing enough time at the very beginning to understand where do they want to go and how do they get there. And that "how" is what skills do they need and what skills do they have.

I could be a finance manager with a marketing degree, but you won't know that if you look at Oracle or SAP and see what job I'm in today. You have to ask that question. You have to invest the time in knowing your people before you can figure out what you need to train them on.

Jill Wiltfong:
You've mentioned that leaders have expressed frustration with how automated hiring has become today, and that it may even be making candidates less keen on engaging with the hiring process altogether. Do you see a world in which firms return to more of that white-glove approach to fill certain skills gaps?

Iktimal Danishbar:
For certain roles, a hundred percent. Look, talent acquisition was the first place that automation was brought into. When it came into HR, it was the easiest place to implement AI. And it worked, and it still works for high volume. But when you talk about scarce skills and very senior-level roles, the experience is going to matter as much as the role. And if you have these people speaking to a black box, and they're one of many, and the experience is not personalized, then there's going to be disinterest. You have to make them feel special. Why do people change jobs? Because they feel wanted. And a chatbot doesn't always make them feel wanted.

Jill Wiltfong:
Iktimal, we always love having you on the show and getting your insightful perspectives. Thank you for being here.

Iktimal Danishbar:
Thanks for having me again.

Jill Wiltfong:
Okay. We've talked about some of the issues around today's great hiring mismatch. When we come back, we'll talk to a professor of information systems and online behavior researcher on how AI could be worsening the skills gap and what to do about it. Stay tuned.

[Break]

Jill Wiltfong:
We're back. In the first half of this episode, we talked about a generational talent mismatch in the workplace. And my next guest thinks AI could make this talent gap even wider.

I'm joined now by Naama Ilany-Tzur, a professor of information systems and online behavior researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. Naama, thanks for being here.

Naama Ilany-Tzur:
Hi, thank you for inviting me.

Jill Wiltfong:
That last clip featured AI and design researcher Advait Sarkar talking about how AI may be hampering our critical thinking abilities. And Naama, you've said something similar—that in the past few years since generative AI has taken off, you've seen a similar decline in the quality of your students' output. But we've experienced multiple tech revolutions in the past, from the industrial revolution to the computer age, where human output has actually improved. So what makes this AI revolution so different?

Naama Ilany-Tzur:
I see a decline in the basic skills. It's not a general decline in everything, but in the most basic, fundamental technology skills, there is a definite decline. The difference between the previous technological revolutions regarding information—we can think of the internet, personal computers, telegraphs—all of those revolutions mainly increased and improved our ability to transmit information, to save information, to scale information. The AI revolution is fundamentally different in the sense that it is changing the way we create information.

Jill Wiltfong:
When it comes to the skills gap that companies are facing, you've said that AI could make it worse and even possibly disempower the next generation of leaders and experts. What makes you say that?

Naama Ilany-Tzur:
AI is intervening in the process of creating thought. And what we know about that process in humans is that if you don't use it, you lose it. So by allowing or even encouraging young people to rely on AI, we're definitely setting them on a path that might end up in overreliance. This will not just prevent them from developing their skills to the fullest—I think it will actually damage their confidence and their ability to perform those tasks.

Jill Wiltfong:
That's a clip from Dead Poets Society, where Robin Williams plays a boarding school teacher in 1959. The scene hearkens back to a time when people read exclusively from books and did all their work by hand. And in an interesting twist, Naama, you said that the best method you've found to combat the downsides of AI is trying to do just that—have your students return to working with pencil and paper. Do you see that continuing to be effective?

Naama Ilany-Tzur:
 I definitely think that this is one of the most effective ways of avoiding the pitfalls of AI. And I'm aware of some of the biggest companies in the tech industry that are using paper-and-pencil tests to screen their employees. It actually makes a lot of sense. And I think as we progress with the AI revolution, that will be a key determinant of people's ability to showcase their skills.

Jill Wiltfong:
Leave us with your final thoughts. What's your best-case scenario for AI-human interaction? How might people, companies, and AI best work together to bridge this talent gap?

Naama Ilany-Tzur:
My most optimistic take is my fundamental belief in humans. I have a very good friend—he's an entrepreneur in the fintech space—and one of the ideas he proposed was a mentorship or apprenticeship model. It's a very vintage approach, much like paper and pen, but it's super interesting. It could be a new way for senior people to communicate with younger people on a different level. It could bring back more in-person interaction, create opporunities to grow, and help find solutions.

Jill Wiltfong

The executive producer of Briefings is Jonathan Dahl. Today’s episode was produced by Rupak Bhattacharyya and Zachary Dore, and it was edited by Jaren Henry McRae.

It contains reporting by Russell Pearlman, Ariane Cohen, Peter Lauria, and Meghan Walsh. Our video segment contains original artwork by Fraser Milton, Haley Kennel, Jonathan Pink, and Sasha Kotzek. Our web operations are managed by Ed McLaurin.

Don’t forget to read our magazine—available at newsstands and at kornferry.com/briefings.

That’s it for Korn Ferry Briefings. I’m Jill Wiltfong. See you next time.