With the kickoff of the NFL season just days away, CPAs, CEOs, colleges students, dentists, and all the other good old fashioned sports fanatics are manning their computers and becoming the coaches/owners they always dreamed they could be. That’s right, it’s fantasy football time.

Would-be Super Bowl champs can spend hours breaking down stats while preparing for the fantasy draft. They can compare players’ catches, touchdowns, rushing yards, fumbles, and just about anything else in order to put together their dream teams. They can elevate rookies to the top of the list and they can demote so-called superstars to the bottom based on a collection of stats, and when draft day comes decisions have to be made fast, because the guy you wanted on your team might have already gone elsewhere. It is a dynamic, interactive, and real-time environment. Sorta like the real world, huh?

Yep, from the outside the fantasy draft doesn’t look all that different from the online employment world. Hiring authorities and recruiters develop a list of top picks based on some crucial statistics, and hope that those candidates are still on the board when the time to hire comes. But what is it that they’re looking for, and how can job candidates become first round picks? And if they don’t get what they want, what do they do now? Well, most employers would say that as of now, the majority of candidates simply lack the necessary skills to make the top of the list. If we just had enough perfect candidates, everybody would be OK. Take the IT industry for example:

“The problem, according to the SHRC and CATA Alliance, is there is a disparity between the kinds of skills companies are looking for and the kinds of workers actually available. Employers want the worker who has it all - someone who can program in C++, understands the theory of the long tail and knows how to rationalize business processes so they meet requirements for Sarbanes-Oxley and PIPEDA. And let’s not forget that this jack of all trades must also have the ability to resolve business problems with the innovative use of technology, boast at least 10 to 15 years of experience and possess a tongue of gold with which he or she can finesse IT and business workers alike.” (From IT Business Canada)

And it’s not just Canadian techies that don’t have the perfect set of skills. The problem has infiltrated almost every American industry, as well:

“Fifty-five percent of hiring managers surveyed for this year’s Employment Dynamics and Growth Expectations (EDGE) Report said it was difficult to find qualified candidates 12 months ago; 81 percent said recruiting is equally or more challenging today. More than half of hiring managers who are having trouble recruiting cited a shortage of qualified professionals as the primary culprit.” (From CMA Daily News)

Does this mean that the fantasy team just isn’t out there? Of course not. There are highly skilled workers in virtually every market, but it’s become harder for parties to connect. There are others, that with an acceptable amount of deverlopment, can become top notch.

It’s also become almost impossible for job candidates to determine where their skill sets fall short. We touched on this before, and it’s big enough that we will continue to harp on it. We all know it would be better for hiring managers and recruiters if they could quickly hone in on the best talent with the skills they’re looking for, and we know the world would be a better place if job candidates could see where they ranked in relation to a specific job and to the other “players” out there. Well sports fans, the fantasy HR draft will soon be a reality: That’s what we are all about, and we are getting real close to delivery. Soon we will produce a system that evaluates talent based on the recruiter’s needs and damn fast. We will also provide job candidates with an opportunity to isolate the skills that they’re lacking so that they can develop a strategy to improve those skills and get on their dream team.

Change is a coming and itzbig. In the mean time, bet the farm on the Texas Longhorns this week over those red shirted invaders from Columbus.

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