There is no overall STEM shortage as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure that hiring is difficult for many employers, but that doesn't mean there is a shortage.

Here are some things to consider if you're hiring and you think you're facing a shortage:

- Have you examined desk-rejected candidates' applications manually? I know someone who was contacted by some HR quality-control person at one company after never hearing anything back about multiple opportunities they applied to there. As it turns out, HR's automated software incorrectly decided my friend was unqualified and never forwarded their applications to a human. That was despite the fact that my friend was apparently one of the most qualified applicants for those positions. I'm sure this is common.

- Are you advertising the job in the right places? A lot of jobs aren't posted widely. I get that you'd have to filter through a lot of unqualified applicants if posted widely, but if you're not getting as many qualified candidates as you want you probably should do something to increase the number of applicants.

- Would a qualified candidate decide to apply to the position if they read the job ad? I've read a ton of very vague job ads that I hesitated to apply to. Yet, after applying I got an interview and learned that I was a good fit for the position. It's unclear to me why these ads are so vague. Also annoying are the job ads where the title doesn't describe the position well. Argonne National Laboratory has a ton of positions titled "Postdoctoral Appointee", which basically tells you nothing aside from that you need a PhD to apply. How would I even know to click on that? I have to check each one manually.

- Are the job "requirements" actually requirements? I've seen many that list things that would be nice to have or things that are not actually necessary, eliminating many good candidates who may not look like what the employer expects.

- Are you proactive in reaching out to candidates? In programming jobs this seems to be the norm (often via quite annoying recruiters) but it's quite rare in my experience outside of programming.

- Is the job in a bad location? Does it have relatively low pay? I see the various DOE-funded labs complain a ton about having trouble hiring people, but they seem unwilling to do much anything about the facts that their pay is quite low and their locations are often terrible.

- Are your application and interview processes unnecessarily difficult and/or time-consuming? I'm much less likely to apply to a company again if they require me to prepare something first like a presentation and have all-day marathon interviews. That's a huge time investment for a relatively low chance of getting a job. In fact, at this point I might decline to interview once I become aware that's a company's process.

- (Added later.) Do you place onerous restrictions on non-work activities of your employees? For example, a lot of IP agreements assign basically everything an employee does on their own time to their employer. I know someone who has turned down a job offer because they considered these clauses to be overly restrictive and the company was unwilling to change the clause to something more reasonable.