Did you know that there are 6 million job openings in the US and yet 6.8 million are actively looking for work? That’s 100% correct. Today, a whole ton of articles came out that were talking about how many jobs that we have open and how many Americans are looking for work. It’s absolutely bananas.

Now, did you also know that there is a talent shortage and a skills gap that’s causing this to happen? This video is about listing the top 10 hard-to-fill positions of 2017, but I would be crazy to list the top 10 positions of 2017 without acknowledging why they’re hard to fill. We’ve first got to talk about why they’re hard to fill.

As you can tell, it doesn’t really matter if we have 6.8 million people actively looking for work in the U.S. alone. If they don’t have the skills to do the job at the present moment and time, they’re not getting the job. That’s a big deal, and that’s also the talk of the town.

These are some of the articles that I pulled over the last six months to a year of where people are actually talking about what’s taking place in their specific industries. As you can see with these articles, they’re talking about the skills gap. They’re talking about the talent shortage. They’re talking about how much it costs to not have all of these people in play to help build companies, to help build dynamic ideas. We need people to make that happen. The only way we can make that happen is by closing the skills gap. In order to do that, that’s something that we have to do together as a country, as a community.

Now, some of you may be asking, “Dee, what in the heck is a skills gap?” It’s pretty simple. The skills gap is defined as the gap between what employers need and what employee skills are available. You might be surprised as to why there’s even a skills gap. Let’s take a look at it:

• First, shortage of talent.
• Two, wages are insufficient to attract specialized talent.
• Three, unrealistic expectations of job applicant training and experience.
• Four, students are not being properly prepared for the real work.
• Five, lack of on-the-job training.

Now, in a recent Manpower survey, employers listed the following reasons as to why it was hard to fill positions today.

• 24% said lack of available applicants or no applicants. That’s huge.
• 19% said lack of hard skills, technical competency.
• 19% said lack of experience.
• 14% said the talent is looking for pay than is offered.
• 11% said that there is a lack of soft skills or workplace competencies around candidates, around talented employees.

Even the American Association has defined or told us or stated there are 196 difficult-to-fill occupations in the US. But guess what? Today we’re only focusing on the top 10. You ready? Let’s get started:

Engineering, information technology, scientific. You know this is the STEM space:

1. Computer and information research scientist: so hard to fill.
2. Information security analyst: super hard to fill.

If you’re in the healthcare space:

1. psychiatrist
2. general internist.

In the industrial space, you have:

1. heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers that are hard to fill and all of these truck drivers have to be put through dot verification, making it harder to find verified drivers for these positions.
2. Bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists are also hard to fill.

In the office and clerical administrative space you have:

• Interviewers except for eligibility and loan, and then you also have
• Sales floor and stock clerks, hard-to-fill positions.

In the professional and managerial side, you’ve got:

• Tax preparers and
• Police patrol officers that are hard to fill.

It does not stop there. When you’re talking about hard-to-fill positions, we’re talking about QA engineers, embedded systems designers, sales representatives, computer network specialists, statisticians, insurance specialists, nurses, gynecologists, DevOps, programmers, teachers, database administrators, sales representatives, podiatrists, surgeons, financial advisors, information security analysts, obstetricians, finance cost management, insurance specialists, full stack developers, home health aides, restaurant and hotel staff, programmers, IT leaders and managers, physician’s assistant, marketing managers, UI/UX designers, allied workers, developers, personal assistant jobs. Did it say marketing managers and full-stack developers? Ah! Finance enterprise risk management professionals, software architects, operations research analysts, HR managers, clinical research associates, and nurse practitioners. This list can go on. Mobile developers, QA engineers. These are part of the 197 positions that are hard to fill.

And guess what, my fellow viewer? We need your help. You’re probably saying, “What? Why, Dee? Why do you need my help?” Well, because, globally, we cannot solve world changes, build new infrastructures, create new technologies, cure illnesses and disease, or progress forward if people don’t have the proper skills, the right people n right jobs who can actually do the job. Right? You with me.

Since employers are having a hard time finding quality talent who can do the job, as large as the Internet is, and as many staffing companies that are out there, and there are 22,000 just to be exact in the US alone, there are still companies out there who need help finding great talented employees to hire and to put into great roles with their companies, especially when it comes to the positions that I listed earlier.

That’s where you come in. You may be wondering again, “Dee, how can I help?” That’s a great question. Let me just tell you, we’re looking to connect with you. That’s right, we’re looking to connect with forward-thinking professionals who are passionate about the current and future state of the economy, who are passionate about entrepreneurship, who loves building and bringing new ideas to life.

We’re looking to connect with professionals who are competitive and who believe in executing their ideas with excellence. If that’s you or you know someone who fits that description, veteran, retirees, college grads, Solopreneurs, recruiters, contractors, consultants, or even more importantly, you are someone or you know someone who holds one of the hard-to-fill positions that we listed above, your skills and knowledge and network and energy is needed. You are, in fact, the answer to fixing the skills gap. And, if you’re interested in finding out more, please book a call so that we can start the conversation.