Talent Shortages | Missed Opportunities or Waiting for Unicorns?

Hire for Attitude, Train for Skill

Attitude, potential and capability as a core group, are in my experience an excellent combination to begin with in the selection process.

Hiring managers that are prepared to invest and transition their people are the ones to win in a talent short market. Seats that remain vacant for months on end waiting for the unicorn candidate should be calculated in terms of lost opportunity and quite possibly increased fatigue for the team. I'm not suggesting hiring people with no 'transferrable skills', not at all. There of course has to be a solid base to begin with but it's time to consider the individual as a whole and what complimentary skills they can offer.

I'm dating myself, I know but I'm old enough to remember the 90's in law when few were true specialists and property commercial partners created and invested themselves into 'native title' or 'construction' lawyers (cue: smile if I'm not alone). Kudos to them for changing and adopting to the way of specialisation but the move away from generalists has now come at a cost where the search for unicorns are becoming common place yet unicorn sightings are rare. 

Here's to employers who are beating the competition at the talent spotting game. 

A micro-post written by our founder Alex Correa on the skills shortage that continues to challenge law firms large and small.