Published on: February 18, 2026 at 2:13 pm
Despite there being numerous job postings at executive levels, many of these roles remain stubbornly open. This presents a challenge to business leaders and recruiters on how to tap into candidate pools more effectively to fill needs in a shifting labor market.
Academy of Management Scholar Sekou Bermiss of the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School researched how candidate pools influence strategic leadership decisions. Bermiss said the reason why you hear stories of job openings not being filled is due to “a disconnect between available labor and what companies think that they need to fill these roles.”
“To fix that disconnect, dropping some of the historic requirements for some of these jobs, so that the candidate pool could be expanded, should lead to more of these openings getting filled as well,” he said. “We’re starting to see a little bit of movement there around expanding the candidate pool to recruit talent for unfilled job openings.”
Bermiss urged leaders to reconsider historic requirements in preparation for the “oncoming silver tsunami” of baby boomers retiring, which threatens to widen leadership gaps.
“We’ll see a lot of very senior people retiring in the next five to 10 years, and there are not currently enough people who have the qualifications that we normally see in people who take on these leadership roles,” Bermiss said.
“To adapt to the shifting labor market, the executive labor pipeline needs to be strengthened so that there are more people who are ready to step into C-suite, upper-level leadership, and senior management sorts of roles, and that they’re prepared to do so successfully,” he said.
