• by Don Leon , November 19, 2007

With the recent announcement that AOL is moving its headquarters from Dulles, Virginia to New York City and slashing its workforce, the company is stepping forward to present itself as a major player in the increasingly competitive world of online advertising.

Despite the initial shock of the numbers, the layoffs may have been inevitable as AOL works to reinvent itself and looks for people that will advance this new path. However, the talent with the necessary skill sets and know-how that AOL needs for their evolution is few and far between. Industry giants Google and Yahoo! are already struggling to find enough top people and AOL's aggressive push into digital Madison Avenue means an industry facing almost zero unemployment previously is becoming even shallower.

The real issue of the talent fight AOL will be facing is that, simply, the most qualified candidates for these positions are hard to identify. On one end, they are not the seasoned players who have reached the top of the traditional advertising chain. Yet at the same time, many of the Gen X and Yers who grew up and trenched through the late-90s dot com boom and bust are also lacking essential sales and marketing skills. To succeed in today's competitive marketplace, it is frequently the people who straddle both; those who can handle the convergence and balance of old media proficiency with new media abilities. Yet finding the people who can accomplish this union is the hardest of all and everyone is looking for them.

Beyond this war for talent there will be a significant strain on the employees who make the trip to the Big Apple and those hired locally as they will no doubt be confronted with the growing pains of a company trying to break through to the next level while at the same time attempting to make a beachhead in New York. Fueling the challenge will be AOL's struggle to play catch up with the established companies already comfortable with Advertising 2.0 thinking. AOL will not only have to find the people who are able to integrate messages with video downloads through YouTube or use mobile marketing, but also steer them away from their competitors to eventually get ahead. Additionally, they will be working hard to prove to Wall Street that they are nimble to changing economic times with the purported elimination of 2,000 jobs while simultaneously trying to attract the best and the brightest for their future.

Will AOL rock digital Madison Avenue and cause a reshuffle of the top talent? Perhaps, but smart competitors will also be ready for this player. Talent retention is a fluid process and no company, no matter how established or cutting edge can assume their employees are "safe." A company out to revolutionize is a powerful force and once AOL integrates itself as part of the Madison Avenue digital landscape there may be more of an immediate threat to the HR line than the bottom line.