These are great days for talented digital folks. Most companies want successful lead gen campaigns as they continue to allocate more dollars to the wonderful world of digital. Unfortunately they are spending less overall.
When I try to recruit programmers I can find plenty but they are all working and not looking for new opportunities unless you want to pay them Harvard MBA salaries.
Check out a video called Talented People Are Hard to Find.
Search Jobs on LinkedIn and everybody is looking for Programmers and SEO folks.
All agencies want talented SEO folks, especially ones for $50K. That’s an Oxymoron for sure.
I have talked to agency principals that have told me that there are 5 jobs for every programmer.
Geeks are hipsters today. But most still look like Geeks. A number of them come from countries Americans have never heard of.
Industry and scholastic institutions do not train enough folks in these areas and a lot of young people don’t want to get into the game because learning programming is hard. Let’s major in something easier that will get me to Wall Street.
A plethora of need is often accompanied by a cornucopia of hype.
The digital world has always been the wild Wild West.
We have all received an e mail about the impending deposit of $400 million dollars into our bank accounts, if only we would give Yuri our bank account number.
There have always been white hat and black hat SEO folks. How many times have I been in conversations with folks that thought they knew marketing, who knew this guy, who can get anyone ranked number one on Google for next to nothing.
I don’t think that Google trades at $589 bucks a share today because some person in a basement can outsmart them.
It reminds me of the early fire hose days of Social Media when everybody was a Social Media expert.
Many turned out to be empty suits.
I recently had a Starbucks with a digital agency owner. We sat in one of those uncomfortable chairs that Starbucks is busy installing at all their locations. (This is where the office of the New Normal is going to go)
We talked about a number of things and then the discussion switched to finding digital agency talent.
“I am tired of kissing frogs,” he said. I sensed years of frustration of hiring numerous people who over promised and undelivered.
Reminded me of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale of a princess who befriends a frog who becomes a Prince.
All clients and agencies want to find those undiscovered digital frogs who will become the Prince or Princess of their firm.
Unfortunately most frogs remain frogs in the time of the Grimm Brothers and today.
They just ribbit ribbit ribbit.
In the New Normal if you are a Prince you will probably start your own company or freelance from home and work when you want to.
Those who believe in digital fairy tales are wishing upon a star. That’s not a bad thing but that’s not a probable outcome, and isn’t one of the powers of the digital world metrics?
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Watch a Video Called When Is It Time to Fire Your Agency?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py3DOk3meUY]
Hank,
Does this mean, the agency of the future, builds into their strategy “Training”. Thus we go back to the future, by investing in our talent, teaching smart people the skills we need, instead of chasing the frogs. Why pay to kiss 10 frogs, when you can invest the same in training 15 and end up keeping 1/2? Appreciate the idea starter