Sheila is a very talented friend of mine. There’s this job she wants. And she should get it. She’d crush it. She’d literally make the company extra millions of dollars in her first 30 days there.

But she can’t get anyone at the company to talk to her.

This is a problem. A massive problem. And from my months-long research into the current labor quagmire, it’s maybe the real reason no one is getting hired.

And the ironic thing is that it’s also the easiest problem to fix.

You All Know “Sheila” Already

I’ve been talking with and about her for a while now.

I first wrote about Sheila when her current tech company employer — one you’d know if I named it — made her current tech job impossible to do. At that time, she started her next job search.

That was six months ago.

I’ve known Sheila for about a decade. I’d call her extremely skilled and motivated. I advised her as best I could through her search, including through an episode where a hiring company got the jitters when she started solving their problems during the interview, and another where the hiring company used bad math to justify their unicorn search. Both companies wound up not finding their hire.

Then Sheila found her dream job, which kind of turned into a nightmare.

The Worst Kind Of Silence

About six weeks ago, Sheila checked the careers page of a company she had always admired. To her shock, a new listing on that careers page described a job that Sheila was perfect for.

Excited, Sheila spent a couple hours editing her resume and perfecting the application and the cover letter. She also reached out to everyone at the company she could reach on LinkedIn, and polled her network to uncover any other possible connection.

She waited a week. She followed up. She waited another week. Then another. Nothing.

She checked the website. Job was still open. No one at the company returned her messages. So she held off. You only go so far bugging people before you risk looking like a whackjob.

She brought me in. I reached out to the CEO, who I didn’t know personally but I happened to be connected to outside of LinkedIn. Same deafening silence.

Confused, frustrated, and beaten, we called in a hired gun.

You All Know “Rosa” Too

Rosa is an incredibly experienced head of HR who has served as an internal or external recruiter and hiring lead for dozens of well-known companies. I’ve known Rosa forever, longer than I’ve known Sheila.

Rosa got a response from the company right away, because she went HR to HR, and what she found out was alarming to me, but not to her.

“Same shit,” she told me. “HR has the ball and they’re holding it.”

“What does that mean?”

“They’re running through the process, applications are in, probably thousands, and they’re filtering them, probably with AI, and they haven’t hit their number yet.”

Thousands of applications. And they haven’t found enough to go to the next level?

“I don’t know the blocker exactly,” she said. “Could be too few made the cut, or too many, maybe they need to rethink the job description. Maybe they’re overwhelmed. They either haven’t gotten to your friend yet, or they auto-rejected her already, or… they’re just not moving forward with the search for whatever reason. They… didn’t really want to elaborate.”

“OK. Not shocking. But why can’t we reach anyone?”

She made a noise that sounded like he didn’t want to answer. “I’m guessing. They might have a gag order on the rest of the company until they finish what they’re doing. That way the ‘waters don’t get muddied.’”

I wish I could describe the sarcasm she dropped on that last part. It’s one of the reasons I like her so much.

“Rosa,” I said, calmly. “Tell me more.”

Leaders, You Have One Job

Rosa and I talked about the silence for a while, and she made it clear the “gag order” may not be a mandate or anything formal, but might just be understood.

She also wouldn’t speculate on the reason for the silence from leadership, but noted it’s happening a lot. It might be outside pressure to normalize the hiring process, or not wanting to question an investment in software that’s supposed to return the right candidates, or maybe just overworked managers who can’t be bothered with the distraction.

Honestly, I don’t care why the silence is happening. I care very much that it is happening.

Here’s what I don’t get.

All you have to do is turn the machine off.

I’m probably being naive.

A CEO should only have to hire a few people a year, and every other hire in the company can be delegated. And then when the hire gets delegated to a VP or Director, that person should only be hiring a few people per year. And then when it hits a manager or team leader or senior whatever, that person should only be hiring a few people per year.

The thing is, that hire is the most important thing that leader will do until the right person falls into place.

We’ve forgotten that. We’re relying on machines and boilerplate job descriptions and overworked junior HR reps to do the most important thing we do as leaders. And then once we hire a couple hundred folks using that strategy, we look at the productivity numbers, freak out, and then conduct massive sweeping layoffs and start all over again.

Is that the definition of insanity? I think so.

Hey, CEO, It’s You. You’re the Problem.

There’s only one person who can fix this. It’s not HR, it’s not the hiring managers.

Whether the silence is born of policy, or procedure, or the hesitancy to question an infrastructure or investment, once you’ve limited your talent flow to a single pipeline and that pipeline gets jammed, only one person can flush it.

Why don’t those VPs and Directors and Managers have their own pipelines?

I know LinkedIn is a social network and content factory now, but there are still loads of connections between your best folks and their best folks.

And if that leader doesn’t have the robust network of connections, why are they in a managerial role? And if they’re in a managerial role, why aren’t they leading the hiring of their team with robust help from HR?

Because AI can do it better?

How’s it working out?

Sheila is contracting now and will eventually land a permanent job soon. It won’t be the one she wanted, but she’ll still be good at it. Probably great.

But I can’t help but feel like a huge opportunity was missed. That job is still open as I write this, and I’m sure the pool they collected six weeks ago needs to be flushed and recollected. All because someone who is supposed to be a leader won’t take the time to speak directly to someone who knows how to solve their problem.

What kind of leader is that?

I’ll keep poking the bear and suggesting answers. Now would be a good time to join my email list and get a heads up when I’m published.

Written by Joe Procopio