There have been some very interesting statistics that have come out of 2013. Based on an extensive survey by Robert Half international, Inc., it seems that while most businesses are very optimistic about their growth, more than half of their CFO’s are worried about recruiting.
It has always been true, and will no doubt continue to be true that a company’s success is based largely on the quality and skills of its people. The larger an organization is, the more it relies on the personnel who perform critical tasks. This is especially true for IT. In today’s ever-increasing technical world and a rapidly expanding digital customer base, the ability to find and hire qualified IT professionals is critical to the growth and success of virtually every organization.
The results of the Robert Half international survey, conducted by interviewing more than 2100 CFO’s sheds some interesting light on today’s staffing situation. The survey began by asking a group of CFO’s how confident they were about their company’s growth in the first quarter of 2014. The responses were broken down as follows:
• Very high confidence level – 46%
• A middle range level of confidence – 45%
• A very low level of confidence – 8%
• Didn’t have an answer – about 2%
Interestingly, 91% of the CFO’s interviewed had a better than average confidence in their growth potential. When you compare this to the results when they were asked how challenging it was to find quality personnel to fill professional-level positions, the results were:
• Find it difficult – 16%
• Find it somewhat challenging – 46%
• Don’t find it that challenging – 29%
• No answer – 7%
When there is strong potential for growth and an overall feeling that finding people to accommodate the growth is difficult, it certainly means good news for skilled people searching for jobs. Thankfully, with today’s internet and mobile technology, the ability to match skilled professionals and quality companies searching for them is easier than ever. It would be interesting to see the results of a similar survey later in the year.