I read a post from a recruiter recently complaining that there’s a ‘talent war’ out there currently in adland. Is this correct?

Tons of in house jobs getting filled by agency folk. Now agencies are looking for people but haven’t full recovered from last year so salaries are lower than usual so jobs are going unfilled. I saw an outpost of a very large network was looking for Sr CW. The salary: 65. Juniors in the same city start at 50. A large tech company in same city was paying Sr Designer 100k. Where do you think creatives are going to go?

I honestly believe most recruiters are full of it. They are picking and choosing who they like instead of passing qualified candidates on, so that the company can choose if they believe they are a good fit or not. I know so may amazing creatives, especially women, POC’s, etc.. looking for work. So they can save it with that crap. I once reached out to a recruiter about a role, I knew I was a great fit for. she looked at my LinkedIn and then wrote back “you have a misspelling, good luck”, with a smug attitude, as if I did something to her. Actually the spelling was correct, she just didn’t know that part of design. so I sent her a Google link and a scholarly journal explaining the word and that segment of design, and if she would like to discuss the role that I had originally reached out to her about I would great. then she didn’t write me back after that. Needless to say they are full of it.

There’s a hiring frenzy going on right now, and recruiters are struggling because they’ve spent the last 10 years treating creatives like garbage.

Now no one will return their calls and creatives are all going in house.

You reap what you sow.

👻Same. But I’m also a female over 40 🙄

Where? I just see ghosts!

Probably because they all keep ghosting the same people. 🤷‍♂️

If there's a talent war I'm not a part of it 🙃

Not sure about talent war, but I know a lot of people who went back to their home country or went freelance and don’t want a ft job

Perhaps people have left the industry. Or gone client side. Or have given up responding to job listings. As someone who is trying to hire, I can say that finding good talent is very difficult these days. Why?

There are certain hot traits that are hard to find- juniors who are good and cheap is one (as always). People who allow the agency to meet diversity goals while also having the ‘right’ background are another.

i don’t understand how this can be. i’ve been ghosted by so many recruiters / job applications. even after following up

In my experience recruiters rely on checklists and keywords. Their own process is why they can’t find good as creatives. Right Degree? Check! Jargon? Check! Fast Learner? Check! D-1 athlete (weird but it comes up all the time as a reason to hire someone in my agency)? Check! And then they get to the interview process and you have to be convinced that they’re worth interviewing because they’re obviously such a poor fit. Anyone else?

We are making offers to people, they accept, then walk away from the offer because they get countered by their existing gig or another position they have interviewed for. We make offers and candidates have two or three other offers on the same day. I think this is the war the recruiters are speaking of.

Talent war: Agencies fighting over the same VCU graduates for junior roles and the same WK veterans, who were laid off during covid, that only want to freelance now.

Yep.. there’s not enough freelancers. Not enough GOOD ones

Recently had to fill some positions in my team. After a recruitment war for the “usual candidates” I took a step back and made a broader search. Gave a good double look at all those who usually get sorted out. Took in 4 wonderful creatives. 3 of them had never worked before on an agency (2 of them over 30) and I’m delighted with what I’ve found. Sometimes we focus so much on getting the best talent that we forget to look for what we need and what we can offer to the creative. I’m confident my new recruits will become rockstars on their own and they are already showing their colors.

what does that even mean?