Incentive Anyone?

Companies who are looking for qualified candidates need to change their strategy if they are not finding the qualifications those jobs require.  By doing so they will gain, not only great employees, but loyal employees as well.

"In a brutal job market, here's a task that might sound easy: Fill jobs in nursing, engineering and energy research that pay $55,000 to $60,000, plus benefits.

Yet even with 15 million people hunting for work, even with the unemployment rate nearing 10 percent, some employers can't find enough qualified people for good-paying career jobs.

Ask Steve Jones, a hospital recruiter in Indianapolis who's struggling to find qualified nurses, pharmacists and MRI technicians. Or Ed Baker, who's looking to hire at a U.S. Energy Department research lab in Richland, Wash., for $60,000 each.

Economists say the main problem is a mismatch between available work and people qualified to do it. Millions of jobs with attractive pay and benefits that once drew legions of workers to the auto industry, construction, Wall Street and other sectors are gone, probably for good. And those who lost those jobs generally lack the right experience for new positions popping up in health care, energy and engineering.

Many of these specialized jobs were hard to fill even before the recession. But during downturns, recruiters tend to become even choosier, less willing to take financial risks on untested workers." -- Associated Press

So, you can see, a strategy shift is in play. Why don't these companies, who are looking for qualified candidates, pay a lower wage in the beginning, utilizing the rest of what they were going to use in salary to educate and train the employee(s) they need, in the way they need. They ought to utilize a contract and the incentive of higher pay following the education and/or training to entice those prospectively fabulous employees?