Why skills are more important than ever
As new technology drives an evolution in business needs, it is less likely you can get by in today’s job market with the skill set you established 10 or 15 years ago.
The World Economic Forum has suggested that 1bn people need to be trained in new and evolving skills by 2030. The types of professional skills for which the WEF forecasts high demand include not only specialised technical abilities for working with new technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing, but also the soft skills necessary for collaboration and interacting with others, like team building and developing strong company culture.
Recent data from LinkedIn shows how quickly the ground is shifting. According to the professional networking platform, skill sets for jobs have already changed by 25 per cent since 2015. This is expected to double by 2027. As a result, some hiring practices have started to place more emphasis on skills: the number of recruiters who are using LinkedIn skills data to fill positions is up 20 per cent compared with last year — with those who follow this method more successful at getting hired.
In its present form, “the job market works a lot better if you went to the right school and had a certain job title from a brand name company”, says Rohan Rajiv, a product manager at LinkedIn. “But the challenge is, what if you didn’t?”
In an effort to create more equitable outcomes, Rajiv and his team build product features for the professional networking platform, such as tools that help companies search for candidates based on skills and to explicitly list skills in job postings, as well as allowing jobseekers to clearly compare how their own skills match up to a position’s requirements.
Prioritising competency over, say, a CV studded with glossy companies and a degree-level education, could help to ease a tight labour market. This type of skills-first hiring approach would de-emphasise details such as educational degree, years of experience and previous job titles, and instead focus on the candidate’s ability to demonstrate that their professional skills map well to the requirements of the job for which they’re applying.
Loosening degree requirements is especially important for the many workers who skip traditional higher education altogether. A recent report published by Opportunity at Work, which helps people without degrees to find jobs, said there were more than 70mn American workers, many of whom are people of colour, who have developed skills without obtaining bachelors degrees at all.
Rohan Rajiv, a product manager at LinkedIn, is working on tools to help companies search for candidates based on skills
A skills-based approach could help companies to better assess candidates’ potential, because “potential trumps all”, says Jill Chapman, a senior performance consultant who specialises in recruitment and onboarding. “In today’s hiring economy, an employer who hires for potential commits to taking on candidates who may not have the past experiences or preferred education when they start, but do possess the traits that make them a fit for the organisation now and successful in the future.”
Chandra Turner is one career coach who is already advising clients on how to change careers by successfully marketing the skills they have gained in the media industry. In Chandra’s experience, hiring managers are already “very open” to people pivoting, particularly when hiring for newer industries such as brand publishing or affiliate marketing, because not enough people have backgrounds and expertise in those specific areas yet.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Sophia Smith
