The skills shortage is one of the biggest threats facing the internet marketing industry. we look at the potential solutions to the problem

Thursday, 11 January 2007

A recent article from the New York Times reports that the demand for jobs at Google is now so high that the media giant uses algorithm scanning to rank candidates on a score from 0 to 100. So in a similar way it searches the web for the most relevant websites for your enquiries about ‘winter diets’, Google now scans the job applications of potential employees.

But this situation where the demand for jobs outstrips the positions available is atypical of the current situation in the UK online advertising industry, where We are in the grips of an internet marketing skill shortage. Due to the rapid growth of online - three consecutive years of 60% year-on-year growth – many companies are struggling to find experienced staff to fill positions. Laurent Ezekiel Senior client partner at digital agency LBi told the IAB that; “The rapid growth we have experienced has simply outpaced the talent pool. In some departments shortages are as high as 50%. There's a lot of opportunities out there with too few people to manage them properly.”

The skills gap was an issue raised by WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell at our first annual conference, Engage 2005. He noted that the lack of investment in the digital sector from marketers with traditional backgrounds would ultimately cause them problems in the future. Of course marketers from all backgrounds are now using online as an essential, integrated part of their advertising strategy and no longer as an afterthought or an add-on. They are finding however that their lack of urgency with regards to their use of digital two to three years ago is causing problems. Mid-to-senior level expertise is in short supply and not even Google’s spiders can find them.

Dot com bust

Many of the problems we are experiencing today can be traced back to that pesky dot com bust. To put it mildly, a number of fingers were burnt by investing in the fledgling online medium at the turn of the century. Those companies that survived the crash neither had the budgets nor the inclination to employ graduates and that missing gulf in experience has left what Wayne Arnold, chairman of IPA Digital and managing director of digital specialist Profero, described in Media Week last year as a “lost generation”.

"There simply aren't enough skilled personnel to service demand. People with three, four, five or even six years' experience are lacking severely," IAB CEO Guy Phillipson told Revolution Magazine recently.

Mass migration from 'traditional' sectors

Our series of training courses, IAB Progress, is one of many industry initiatives that aims to address the skills shortageThe fact that internet marketing is so fast moving, creative and regarded as essential by forward thinking marketers, means that a mass migration has begun from traditional areas of marketing to digital. Great news for the online industry in the medium-to-long term, but in the short term an interesting dichotomy has presented itself. Employers are having to choose between young, talented, digital experts abreast of the new technologies or people with a grip on marketing and the vital experience of handling clients.

For those moving to online from traditional media backgrounds getting trained up on internet marketing essentials as quickly as possible is, well… essential. Our series of training courses, IAB Progress, is one of many industry initiatives that aims to address the skills shortage. I-level, IPA, IDM and AOP - who reported in March that 74 per cent of their members had unfilled vacancies - also run programmes to help get people up to speed with the fast moving online industry. Training courses like IAB Progress are already making a difference to those crossing over to online and also to graduates looking for a career in the industry.

Graduates lack basic rules of digital advertising

Despite turning out talented graduates, universities are not providing students with everything they need to make it in the online sector. In a recent interview with Revolution Magazine Neil Morris, deputy managing director of the IDM outlined the basic rules of digital marketing that universities appear to be neglecting:" Web pages have issues of eye-tracking, entry level and call-to-action and you can often see that people don't understand some of the principles behind how a page was designed… There is a generation of talented people who really understand how to make web sites sing and dance. We have to help them focus on the marketing imperatives and what they need to achieve."

A number of agencies have started graduate programmes to do just that, whilst also tailoring their courses to suit the demands of their particular company. Dare Digital came to the realisation that finding and recruiting talent was the single biggest problem facing the digital industry, so - in their words - they decided to breed their own.

Dare School was born May 2006 as a program to recruit the best graduates and young talent from universities and colleges in the country. Rather than searching for online specialists, the only criteria for acceptance to Dare School was great ideas and an enthusiasm for digital. 50 applications were received and the best five have embarked on a 12 month course that involves weekly lectures and tutorials along with project work to allow them to grow their industry experience.

Student initiatives

But there exists an argument that to fully future proof our rapidly growing industry holistic training and experience should be offered even earlier than graduate level.

Steve Roest started his Open House blog to help and support students looking to get into the marketing and advertising industry by exposing them to new ideas, new campaigns and issues that are of importance to our industry. As a student, Roest struggled to find impartial resources that could help him learn more about the industry he was set on joining. He found that he wasn’t alone: “In a focus group when I asked for suggestions about how agencies or companies could help students looking to get into the industry, all of the suggestions the students made related to employers becoming more engaged with students. Almost every suggestion ended with the phrase "as other employers do in other sectors."

The fact that there is an industry skills shortage is a topic that is now widely acknowledged and steps are being taken to address it at all levels of expertise. New technology to aid the marketer is being created on an almost daily basis. The integration and convergence of digital and traditional media means that it is the responsibility of all marketers to get to grips with online and this wider shift in thinking will ultimately bring about further solutions.

• For more information on the upcoming IAB Progress courses