Predictions that the economic recovery would result in a talent tug-of-war weren’t exactly accurate. It’s now looking more like a talent scavenger hunt. According to the third-quarter Duke University-CFO magazine Global Business Outlook Survey, attracting and retaining qualified employees was the top concern among the nation’s business leaders. This quest for qualified workers is shaping corporate strategy, according to the report, primarily by inhibiting growth. The report found that 89 percent of business leaders didn’t expect their company to peruse all the value-creating avenues they’d wished, and about half of them cited an inability to hire the employees they need as the primary reason. While respondents said managerial skills were in the shortest supply, they also reported struggling to hire rank-and-file workers with the requisite skills to be successful in day-to-day jobs, such as basic writing and math competencies. And while this is troubling, it isn’t the entire story of why growth seems stagnant. During the recession, companies had their pick of overqualified candidates and made a habit of being extremely selective. Because of this, leadership’s hesitancy to expand workforces to pursue growth projects has become culturally ingrained—and the looming specter of recession prevents full-blown expansion.