Every dog has its day and perhaps mine will be today at 2:00PM EST with a no-holds-barred chat:
The future of networking careers with Brad Reese
Don't be shy!
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Update:
View a transcript of the chat here:
Cisco skills shortage is baloney, expert says
Thanks to all who participated and a very special thanks to both Julie Bort and Beth!
Sincerely and most gratefully yours,
About Brad Reese on Cisco
Brad Reese is research manager at BradReese.Com, advancing the careers of 1 million certified individuals in the growing Cisco Career Certification Program.
Contact him.
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Brad Reese on Cisco archive.
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Talent Shortage Baloney or Reality...You Be the Judge
According to the transcript from Brad's talent session, he would have you believe that Cisco is the only company out in the market talking about a talent shortage. Below are several studies that will hopefully allow you to form your own decision about if there is a talent shortage, but perhaps the best example I can give uses BradReese.com. According to BradReese.com it has 453 resumes from 55 countries (supply). Monster.com, in the US only, has more than 4,000 Cisco job postings (demand). This rudimentary example shows a nearly 10x shortage.
Furthermore, if supply is so great you'd think of the more than 1 million Cisco Certified individuals that Brad would have more than 453 resumes, which calculates out to less than one, one-thousandth of a percent of the total Cisco individual certified population.
Studies
According to PriceWaterhouse Coopers's 11th annual Global CEO Survey, CEOs said that combined technical and business experience, global work experience and leadership skills are the most difficult areas for their companies to recruit.(http://www.management-issues.com/2008/1/23/research/fear-of-recession-haunts-ceos.asp)
Talent was also a hot topic at this year's World Economic Forum, which was captured in this Business Week story.(http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_04/b4068034072937.htm?chan=magazine+channel_in+depth+--+davos+special+report)
Of course the study by McKinsey, Making Talent a Strategic Priority is another great source on the talent topic. The respondents of this study stated..."finding talented people as likely the single most important managerial preoccupation for the rest of the decade." http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Organization/Talent/Making_talent_a_strategic_priority_2092_abstract
According to a recent Gartner Study of nearly 1500 CIOs only 27% feel they have the talent to address their business needs (http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS137605+23-Jan-2008+BW20080123)
For those thinking this is a large enterprise issue, Achilles Group did a recent study on owner trends in the SMB market that found finding and recruiting talent as biggest issue. http://www.achillesgroup.com/Q2%202007%20SMB%20Owner%20Trends%20Research%20Report,%20Press%20Release%20FI.pdf
For more information on if the talent gap is real... simply go to the Taleo blog, which has a wealth of knowledge and information from a variety of sources on the topic. (http://www.taleo.com/talent-management-blog.php)