Employers are missing out on the best staff because of a failure to adapt to new job-hunting behaviours, according to the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).
The organisation claims many senior posts are going unfilled because of a mismatch between employer recruitment and employee job-search tactics.
According to the National Management Salary Survey, 80% of companies struggle to recruit staff but the CIM believes this is simply because employers are advertising vacancies in traditional media such as newspapers where potential recruits are less likely to look.
But research released by the CMI after a major study by the Institute for Employment Studies and Department for Work & Pensions revealed that 67% of managers regularly browsed job adverts, with 56% saying they were actively seeking a more senior position.
Over three-quarters (76%) said they focused specifically on online job adverts and 72% said they were most likely to use online job searches.
But just 37% actually found their current position on the internet, again raising doubts over the use of this medium by employers.
"Clearly a concern for employers should be about how to avoid wasting the impressive talent pool that exists in the UK," said Jo Causon, director, marketing and corporate affairs at the CMI.
"There is certainly a need to adjust recruit behaviour because without casting the recruitment net wider, organisations run the risk of losing out on senior staff who have embraced technology to boost their career prospects."
