Many news sources state that there is a skills shortage in various sectors of IT. However, in close inspection this really is not the case at all. In fact, there is huge talent pool out there of candidates eager and willing to work. In most cases, for every job there are hundreds of applicants. Organizations are just looking for cultural fit. In other cases, one might have the skills but just not be someone that the employer gets along with. That does not mean that there is a skills shortage. In fact, it just means the organization is discriminating on the things they are looking for which are not even relevant to the role and the skills. In fact, outsourcing is a key factor in buying in talent on the cheap leaving local talent behind. Many human resource evaluations do state that the larger degree of the interview is about the person rather than the quantifiable skills that they can bring to the team. It is more about the likability which is a form of discrimination again people want to work with people that are more like them. This definitely does not imply that there is a skills shortage in the market. There are plenty of women out there that are very good in Big Data and Machine Learning but does one see them on their team. Employers are basically utilizing a wand of cultural nonsense and overlooking what really matters is the ability of the candidate to perform based on their skills as well as to innovate. Large organizations like Twitter, Facebook, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others harp on about skills shortage but they not focused on diversity and inclusion within their teams. They also buy in cheap outsourcing contracts from places like India ignoring the local thriving talent pool within the prospective regions. We need to recruit more women and generally people of all types and backgrounds in IT, supporting the local communities of where multinationals are based, and that starts from each individual that is well positioned towards evaluating applications on merit and objectivity. If people hire people, and people are generally not always objective, then perhaps, artificial intelligence needs to diminish the responsibilities of the human resources function in organizations.
