A surprising and controversial statistic has been raising eyebrows across the HR industry. The 2009 Employment Dynamics and Growth Expectations (EDGE) Report, which is a collaboration between Robert Half International and Career Builder, cited an impressive 47% of managers surveyed considered “a shortage of qualified applicants” as their top hiring challenge. With a reported 44% of the resumes received deemed “not qualified,” managers are seeing their time-to-fill a vacancy average stretch between 4.5 and 14.4 weeks.

Considering that over 15 million people in the US are hunting for work, there is little question that there are qualified professionals on the market. As we have witnessed firsthand at HarQen, this is the first downturn in our collective memory where top talent has been on the market en masse. There are two primary theories as to why top talent isn’t finding a home… at least in a timely fashion.

Many economists attribute the problem to a simple mismatch between job openings and skills. The jobs that have been decimated in this recession stem principally from Wall Street, the auto industry, and construction. Individuals who have lost jobs in these sectors are misaligned for the new positions opening up in health care, accounting and technology.

That said, we believe that another issue contributes to the problem significantly. Identifying qualified candidates today is harder than ever, as the simple quantity of candidates per opening can be staggering. In some industries, we have witnessed a 9x increase in candidates applying per position. With that much noise in the hiring funnel, finding the right candidate is nearly impossible.

As the problem in hiring continues to shift from effective sourcing to efficient screening, technology has a vital role to play. The key for organizations will be finding the right technology for the job at hand. With HR departments pared down to a skeleton crew, assessing and implementing the right technology will be a significant challenge as time – precious time – is being sucked up in the relentless monotony of doing the same old thing. Too few resources will continue to interview too many candidates… and the dance continues.

The good news is that there is some light at the end of the hiring funnel. As the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) market continues to mature, the leading players are offering more embedded functionality that can truly make a difference in candidate screening. For example, TalentDrive has their sourcing tool, TalentFilter, embedded in an increasing number of ATSes. By embedding within technology that is already familiar, TalentFilter has deftly avoided the all too common rejection points of “doesn’t fit within our recruiters’ workflow” and/or “we’re too busy to learn something new.” Here at HarQen, we are taking TalentDrive’s lesson in partnering to heart. Come 2010, VoiceScreener will be available as a feature in many standard ATSs. Thanks for leading the way, TalentDrive!