Question Time: Is there a talent shortage?
In this clip from our first Melbourne Mumbrella Question Time:
- The Communications Council’s Audrey Maxwell asks the panel whether they believe there is a talent shortage and what could be causing it.
- Making up the panel: John Thompson, senior manager for road safety and marketing at the Transport Accident Commission; Clemenger BBDO Melbourne’s MD Peter Biggs; Crikey co-owner Eric Beecher and Naked Communications’ Melbourne MD Frankie Ralston Good.
Watch additional Mumbrella Question Time clips by subscribing to Mumbrella’s Mumbo Report YouTube channel.
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Yes there is, and it is not just in the ‘fun’ roles either. Try and find a decent ‘midweight’ finance guy for an agency or a decent IT person. Plenty around, but they all seem locked in so to speak.
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Why does everyone miss the bloody point? There is no talent shortage. There are a huge number of people of every age available on the market. It is just that there is an obsession with employing “kids” with little experience and training them into an agency’s understanding of digital. See that huge bloody elephant in the room? The elephant that represents the early 30 something person who is already seen as too old, much less the 40 somethings and beyond who are being squeezed out of the industry. They already have digital skills and a whole lot of other experience as well. Add to this a deep understanding of how consumers think and act as well as a dose of life experience and you have masses of people just like me who simply can not be employed because they are “too experienced””. It is blatent age discrimination directed at those of many different ages and it is illegal.
I am quite simply pissed off and disgusted with an industry I have given so many years to who simply wants to squirm uncomfortably and make excuses then simply change the bloody subject. Several months ago I approached Ad News with this issue and suggested it should be discussed. They ran a double page spread including a number of people who I knew had a definate point of view on this issue. There was then a massive amount of discussion on blogs where the elephant in the room was named several times but in open forums like the one featured on this clip, it is once again swept under the carpet as those in jobs who are illegally perpetrating the crime change the bloody subject. When will the industry simply grow some balls and discuss an issue that needs to be solved? Where is the depth of experience in the industry? Where are the mentors who can lead and guide people? When is the industry going to show those entering it that tthere is a career path you can look forward to beyond thirty or are they all destined to get a tap on the shoulder because they are not young enough?
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Finding talent is never easy. Nor is retaining it for that matter.
The recently announced ADMA Mentor Scheme has been created by to help young, motivated individuals with an interest in direct marketing further their careers.
Created by the ADMA Agency Council, the scheme will pair hot young talent with senior agency mentors at many of Australia’s best agencies including the likes of M&C Saatchi, Mark, Ogilvy One, Clemenger, Wunderman and more.
If you want to be a part of the scheme, don’t dilly dally, as the first intake of applications closes on 24th December. With a 2nd intake closing on 25th January.
Best of all, the Mentor Scheme is free!
To find out more or register visit: http://wndr.mn/ewxx
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I think the real problem here is managers who are thinking about themselves and not the competitiveness of the business.
These managers who are responsible for employing new staff are afraid of employing people who are highly skilled in a bid to protect themselves and their job prospects by dumbing down their subordinates.
Maybe this is a result of having a sizeable media market and not enough senior management positions available.
The USA seems to have this right. The culture of senior management – whilst being competitive in the work place, are very supportive of bringing new talent into the business and keeping it there – for the primary interest of the business and not themselves.
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I also think there might be a case of taking the safest possibly option when hiring.
To exposure new talent there needs to be an element of risk involved, taking someone out of their comfort zone and really giving them an opportunity to have a go at it (with support from senior staff of course). If juniors / mid-weights are hired based on there predictability and for similar roles to what they already have (‘we know what they done somewhere else so we know what they’ll do here’) then nothing will ever change. I.e if you hire the same types of people for the same roles you’ll get the same results.
I also partly agree with Tony in that age is an issue. There are too many agencies around with a very large percentage of there staff that have been at the agency for less than 2 years and are under 30. I get that it’s easier to hire kids and mould them into what you want, but it’s very hard to teach life experience and what it is to be a professional.
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Having been on both agency and client side its kind of embarrassing watching these young turks present their ideas based on their huge amounts of experience as they balance on their training wheels. Watching the restrained smurks from those around the board table is entertainment in itself.
I get the feeling watching the clip that they are a bunch of people who really don’t know themselves why all these younger people are being hired. They seem to base their hiring practices on the fact that each of the people they are hiring spend an inordinate amount of time on social media and if they can take their exposure and somehow mould it to where they want it to go, then they can tick the box that says ” we understand Social Media”
It reminds me very much of the days of Y2K compliance where companies ran out and hired Y2K Compliance Managers to demonstrate that they had a manual on how they would handle the impending crisis. It was simply an exercise in appeasing nervous boards and demonstrating that they had an expert in something they really didn’t understand. The whole thing turned out to be a fizzer and all the Y2K gurus disappeared.
Social media is a rapidly growing channel but it is still just one communication channel for clients to consider when making decisions about an increasingly fragmented marketing budget where the focus on return on investment increases daily. With tighter budgets, figures celebrating the number of branded conversations are likely to raise no more than continued smurks around board room tables as the tables are thumped demanding sales.
Clients have every right to demand holistic views of how best to spend their marketing budgets and agencies have a responsibility to deliver a depth and mix of abilities and experience in ever increasing tough times.
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Tony’s comment is very interesting – the Y2K comparison is apt.
“It was simply an exercise in appeasing nervous boards and demonstrating that they had an expert in something they really didn’t understand”
Same thing is happening now around SM. Is SM the new Y2K? The great disaster rapidly approaching which requires panic and token hiring?
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