There is a phrase I hear constantly in media recruiting: “There just aren’t any candidates.”
Sometimes that’s true. Certain talent pools have unquestionably gotten smaller. Experienced broadcast engineers are becoming harder to find. Newsroom leadership pipelines have thinned. Sales management benches aren’t what they once were. Consolidation, downsizing, retirements and people simply leaving the business have all taken a toll.
But sometimes I look at an opening a company is struggling to fill and come to a different conclusion.
There are candidates. They just don’t want the job.
And that is an entirely different problem.
The Job Changed. Did Everything Else?
Think about how much some television management jobs have changed over the past decade. Teams have gotten smaller. Digital responsibilities have gotten bigger. Managers are expected to understand linear television, streaming, digital, social, attribution, data and whatever platform becomes important next Tuesday.
Corporate reporting hasn’t exactly disappeared, either. Neither have budgets, forecasts, personnel issues, recruiting, retention, client expectations or the pressure to hit increasingly complicated revenue goals.
In some cases, responsibilities that once belonged to two or three people have quietly migrated onto one person’s desk. Yet look at the compensation. Look at the authority. Look at the resources. Look at the career upside.
In too many cases, the job changed considerably more than the employment proposition did.
Then the position opens and everyone wonders why recruiting it has become so difficult.
When a Promotion Stops Looking Like a Promotion
Sales management may be the clearest example.
For decades, the career ladder in television sales was relatively straightforward. You became a successful Account Executive. Eventually you moved into Local Sales Manager. Then perhaps Director of Sales. Maybe one day you became a General Manager.
Management was the next step.
Today, I regularly encounter successful Account Executives who earn as much as—or considerably more than—the managers who would supervise them.
Think about the proposition we’re making. Take on responsibility for an entire sales team’s performance. Manage people. Recruit. Coach. Forecast. Attend more meetings. Deal with personnel problems. Answer for someone else’s missed budget.
And make less money.
Maybe relocate to do it.
Then we wonder why the management bench is getting thinner.
I’ve had conversations with highly successful salespeople where the economics of moving into management simply don’t make sense. They aren’t lacking ambition. They’re doing the math.
If the next rung on the ladder requires more responsibility, more risk and less compensation, we probably shouldn’t be surprised when talented people decide not to climb it.
That isn’t necessarily a talent-pipeline problem. It may be a job-design problem.
Accountability Without Authority
Compensation isn’t the only issue. Another question candidates increasingly want answered is remarkably simple:
What will I actually be allowed to control?
That’s a fair question.
Companies sometimes want entrepreneurial leaders while operating highly centralized organizations. They want someone to “own the market” while major decisions are made somewhere else. They want innovation but maintain approval structures that make innovation painfully slow.
In other words, they want accountability for results without necessarily providing equivalent authority over the decisions that produce those results.
Good candidates figure this out quickly. They ask about staffing, budget authority, hiring authority, pricing, digital strategy, corporate oversight, capital investment and reporting structure. They’re trying to determine whether they’re being recruited to lead something or simply to be accountable for something.
Those aren’t the same job.
If you’re hiring a leader, give that person something meaningful to lead.
The Frankenstein Job
There’s another version of this problem showing up across media. I call it the Frankenstein job.
A position opens. Instead of replacing it, pieces of the job get distributed. Then another position opens and some of those responsibilities get combined. Eventually the company decides it needs to hire someone and creates a role assembled from pieces of three different jobs.
The job description can be impressive. So can the list of required qualifications.
Ten years of leadership experience. Deep digital knowledge. Strong linear television background. Revenue expertise. Strategic vision. Operational discipline. Recruiting ability. Coaching ability. Budget responsibility. Community involvement.
And preferably someone who can leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Then comes the compensation range.
That’s when the recruiting conversation gets interesting.
There is nothing wrong with asking talented people to do more. The business has changed. Jobs should change with it. But there has to be some relationship between what you’re asking someone to carry and what you’re offering them in return.
That return isn’t always money. It can be authority, resources, flexibility, career trajectory, equity, incentive compensation or the opportunity to build something meaningful.
But there has to be something.
Would Your Best Employee Take This Job?
Here’s a question I think every hiring manager should ask before declaring that the talent market is broken:
Would one of your best employees take this job today?
Not five years ago. Today.
Explain the responsibilities, the hours, the reporting structure and the compensation. Explain the relocation requirement, if there is one. Explain the resources they’ll have and the authority they’ll actually possess.
Then ask whether they’d want it.
If your strongest internal candidates look at the opportunity and say, “No thanks,” why are we surprised when external candidates reach the same conclusion?
That is useful information.
Your employees understand your company better than almost anyone you’re going to recruit. If the people already inside the building don’t see the position as an attractive career move, the external market may simply be confirming something your internal market already knows.
Stop Calling Every Hiring Problem a Talent Shortage
This distinction matters.
If you truly have a talent shortage, you solve it by expanding the pipeline. Recruit earlier. Develop people. Identify high-potential employees. Build succession plans. Consider unconventional candidates. Look outside the traditional industry talent pool.
But if you have a job-design problem, recruiting harder won’t necessarily solve it.
You can call more people. You can post the opening on more websites. You can hire another recruiter. You can tell yourself candidates aren’t as ambitious as they used to be.
None of that changes the underlying economics of the opportunity.
Eventually somebody has to look at the position itself. Has the job grown while the compensation remained essentially unchanged? Does the responsibility match the authority? Are you requiring relocation when it isn’t truly necessary? Is there a credible career path beyond the position? Have you combined multiple jobs and continued paying for one? Are you asking someone to assume risks the company hasn’t acknowledged?
And perhaps most importantly: If I were the candidate, would I take this job?
That’s an uncomfortable question. It may also be the most useful one.
The Talent Market Is Giving You Feedback
Recruiting is a market. Companies sometimes forget that because they’re accustomed to defining the opening, establishing the requirements and setting the compensation.
But candidates get a vote.
If one qualified candidate turns you down, that may be the candidate. If five qualified candidates turn you down for similar reasons, that’s data.
If a position remains open month after month despite aggressive recruiting, something is being communicated. Listen to it.
The answer won’t always be more money. Sometimes the job needs more authority. Sometimes it needs better resources. Sometimes the requirements need to change. Sometimes the relocation expectation needs another look. Sometimes the company needs to articulate a much better reason why a successful person should leave a perfectly good job to take yours.
And occasionally, yes, the compensation simply needs to move.
The point isn’t that companies should give candidates everything they want. The point is that we should stop automatically blaming the supply of talent when the demand for the job isn’t there.
There may be fewer candidates than there used to be. That’s real. But before declaring another talent shortage, take a hard look at what you’re actually asking people to sign up for.
Because sometimes the talent market isn’t broken at all.
It’s working exactly as it should.
And it may be telling you something about the job you’re trying to fill.
About Carver Talent
Carver Talent specializes in recruiting high-impact leaders across local television, digital media, revenue leadership, news management and broadcast operations nationwide. We understand this industry because we live in it every day.
Ty Carver has more than 30 years of recruiting, HR management, sales and leadership experience, including the last 15 specifically in the broadcast media industry. He is the Founder/CEO of Carver Talent and the former Head of Recruiting for Raycom Media, where he developed deep relationships throughout the industry.
Have a media corporate executive, management or television station management recruiting need? Contact ty@carvertalent.com for more information.