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Photo: Jeremiah Lawrence

Closing Analytics Talent Gaps: College to Career

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Nearly all organizations are struggling to find top talent and identify best practices for aligning college and career pathways. Moreover, there is a substantial talent gap when it comes to early-career hires. Recent research from Strada/Gallup found that while 95 percent of chief academic officers felt graduates were prepared, only 11 percent of business leaders felt that recent hires possessed the necessary skills to be successful at the start of their careers.  

 The solution lies in getting all the components right, which means aligning the right skills, taught in the right academic programs, to the right students, who are ready to work at the right companies. 

The Demand Challenge

For educational institutions, increased interaction with employers will likely better prepare students to enter the labor market. These relationships will help institutions develop programs and curricula designed to prepare students with the most in-demand knowledge and skills to compete in the job market. The ten emerging tech jobs for 2020 — as forecasted by Emsi, a labor market analytics firm — point to a continually evolving digital landscape. Some of these jobs reflect nascent technologies, while others exemplify how quickly yesterday’s innovations have become standard operating functions today. The list is telling, including Cloud Data Engineer, Site Reliability Engineer/Developer, MVC (Model View Controller) Developer, Data Analytics Specialist, Cyber Defense Engineer, Visual Interaction Designer, and Infrastructure Developer. 

As higher education faces declining enrollment (some of which is triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic), ensuring that students receive the training they need for the most in-demand skills is essential. A better connection between educators and employers could mean that curricula are adjusted more quickly to reflect labor market needs. In turn, this could enable educational institutions to not only provide up-to-date training and enablement, but also increase enrollment as a result.  

Aligning College and Career Pathways

To close the competency gap and find top early-career talent, it may not be enough for companies to simply post positions in a variety of places and engage prospective employees at college career fairs. Many academic programs partner with workforce organizations who work with a variety of employers to help their students with data projects, internships, and in-demand skill-building to help ensure their students are more competitive on the job market.  

In the data science and analytics space, SAS Academic Programs is one of the leading workforce analytics organizations. Recently, I spoke with Lynn Letukas, Director of Global Academic Programs at SAS, a leading analytics software company, to better understand the tools and strategies that align great early-career talent to top employers.    

As Letukas explained, “SAS is uniquely positioned to align college and career pathways because our analytical solutions are used by 90 of the top 100 Fortune 500 companies, so employers look to us to gain a competitive advantage in their hiring needs. Programs at colleges and universities that teach SAS also look to us to help their students obtain those in-demand jobs.” SAS does not just work with large multinational companies, as Letukas explained, “Through our work with Fortune 500 companies, we gained considerable expertise on best practices for building college-career pathways and now, we’re broadening that work through the use of a scalable solution that can help any company fill their early-career talent needs.”  

In an effort to offer a more expansive opportunity for prospective employees and employers, SAS recently partnered with Handshake to help customers identify top early-career talent.  Letukas explained, “We are very excited to work with Handshake on a scalable solution so that nearly any organization looking to find top talent in the analytics and data science space will have more equitable access to the talent pipeline. By expanding the scalability of talent connections, we are helping to facilitate a more unified college and career pathway.”  

A New Approach

What’s notable about this new paradigm in talent sourcing is that it returns to an age-old tradition of higher education as the provider of talent — armed with not only the traditional breadth of knowledge, but competencies that remain viable into the future. At the same time it circumvents a rising issue in education: not all students who are aiming for jobs in the technology sector are choosing obvious majors, and a large proportion don’t settle into careers related to their majors at all. 

As reported by CareerBuilder, half of college graduates do not go into the field of their university major and one third never work in the field of their major. Further, an Emsi report on college students’ early career tracks indicates that the typical career path is more circuitous than straight — which may mean employers are missing out on attracting the right candidates if they are only hiring from the same academic programs or majors. To put it simply, there is clearly a need to better align supply and demand. 

What my conversation with Lynn Letukas brought to light is that companies need to participate in talent acquisition far sooner along the employment journey, which for smaller firms, until recently, may have been somewhat limited. From a talent perspective, being able to quickly engage in a new job has a marked impact on the success of an early hire. For students, that can hinge on receiving an education that has its eye on the market, and gaining access to pre-hire opportunities, such as internships and other early experiences, to not only get a feel for an organization and a role, but also to get a sense of their own competency and potential. The Strada/Gallup survey found that for college alumni, “supportive relationships and relevant, engaging learning experiences,” are connected to higher engagement and wellbeing in the workplace. 

Expanding Opportunity

The SAS/Handshake partnership provides a new roadmap to acquiring early-career talent for all sides — it democratizes opportunities both for companies who may not have the resources of a Fortune 500, and for students who may get lost in the maze of larger talent connection platforms. 

This partnership also provides a new resource for recruiters looking for the means to increase talent pools by turning universities themselves into talent pools, and providing ways to make contact, connect, and source. This, in turn, may bring about an effective solution to another pressing need — to create more diverse teams in the workforce. This is also a new way to find top talent outside of traditional STEM programs, and create more dynamic and ongoing relationships and outreach. That’s exactly what our future talent needs to help them start their careers, and it’s what companies need to close the analytics skills gaps and meet their growing hiring goals. 

 This post is sponsored by SAS.

Photo: Anders Jildén

#WorkTrends: Assessing Digital Skills for Hiring Now

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Remote work has gone from a luxury to a form of everyday survival, with technical, practical and cultural challenges. It has also shifted the hiring process further into the digital sphere — whether we like it or not. Sean O’Brien, Senior VP of Education at SAS, joined host Meghan M. Biro for this #WorkTrends podcast episode to discuss key strategies for hiring in today’s environment. That means not only knowing the competencies your organization needs, but also having the digital capabilities needed to hire now.

Whether you’re hiring people on-site or remotely, there’s one rule, Sean said, “Return to the fundamentals.” The first step is to ask the right questions: “What skills does my company need? How often? Which skills are the most important?”

And then, a clear way to assess potential applicants is not just on skills, but on potential to learn these skills. This means interviews in remote hiring scenarios need to focus more on demonstrating those necessary skills, Sean noted. For example, hands-on assessments, portfolios at-the-ready, and potential on-the-spot problem-solving can all be done over video. Meghan added that it’s important not to forget about establishing good eye contact, pointing out the need to present ourselves in the best light, whether in-person or in video meetings.

Sean also recommended that hiring managers rewrite job descriptions. Many are written poorly or in a generic way — without reflecting the company’s needs, and lacking language that acts as a filter to guide the right people to apply.

Meghan said this means that organizations must understand the skills they need. And given the turbulence and change going on now, that also means it may be necessary to hire an expert who can help. Sean agreed, “Depth of knowledge is necessary to be successful.”

Another smart strategy is to develop the talent already in your organization, by teaching your existing workforce the new digital skills they need to keep evolving and growing professionally.

Listen to the full conversation and see our questions for the related live #WorkTrends Twitter Chat. And don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, so you don’t miss an episode!

Twitter Chat Questions

Q1: Why do some organizations struggle with hiring for the right skills? #WorkTrends
Q2: What strategies can help accurately assess a potential hire’s skills? #WorkTrends
Q3: What can leaders do to bring the right skills into the organization? #WorkTrends

Find Sean O’Brien on Linkedin and Twitter

This post is sponsored by SAS.

Can You Actually Learn Essential Skills Online

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Digital Skills: Is E-Learning Enough?

Digital skills are becoming increasingly essential for future-proofing your career and not least because of the rapid proliferation of digital industries. According to Daniel Patel, the SAP (Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing) delivery director at Eursap, the world’s growing talent pool has made digital skills imperative. He has said “with the SAP market becoming saturated and competition increasing, having an SAP resume that stands out is now more important than ever.”

From coding to copywriting, transcribing to taxation, finding online courses for digital skills is easy. The popularity of e-learning platforms suggests that we enjoy this new format of education too. But when careers depend on the skills gained, we must be sure that we’re getting at least the same quality of education as others participating in real world learning environments. So, are we?

The Rise of Online Learning Platforms

From the simple DIY YouTube tutorial to more advanced video learning experiences, such as Google’s Academy for analytics and other Google tools, people are taking to video for many of their lessons.

Lynda was founded in 1995, but its appreciation has skyrocketed over the past few years. This has seen LinkedIn buying the platform earlier this year for a whopping $1.5 billion. The thinking is clear: E-learning will become more accessible, more innovative, and its flexibility will attract users who are unable to attend lessons.

The Human Brain Registers Information Better in a Real-World Environment

Though e-learning offers a flexibility that classroom teaching cannot, it still does not offer the learning experience that real-life environments can. As the drop off in Kindle sales this year illustrates, we do not always find it easy to process information from a screen.

Scientific American has claimed that the brain is able to process information from paper far more effectively than from a screen. They argue the tactility of a physical object is an important factor when learning and often entirely absent when interacting through a screen.

The Key is to Combine the Two

A tutorial on Google Analytics, Microsoft Excel, or video editing can give us the basic how-to points. But if these skills are to be practiced in a business environment they need expertise. This is much harder to achieve when you only have the e-learning experience.

It has been noted in an article from AoC Jobs that technology is encouraging new teaching methods in further education. In their blog, they discuss how it can provide an additional support for ESL students “who might need help when reading and look for pronunciations and meanings as they work through a text on a tablet.”

Business skills training platforms have also taken this into account. Tutor-led training company Activia Training have curated courses that can be personalized to individual needs and include e-books, digital learning, and the benefits of the classroom environment.

E-learning platforms can easily fit into our lives, but making the most of them goes far beyond simply learning at home. Finding practical applications for the skills gained will have immeasurable benefits that can boost employability.

Bottom-Up Leadership And Digital Skills Training

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A well-run business is like a car cruising down the highway. The road may not always be even, but the machine is designed to withstand minor shocks and keep moving smoothly. Sometimes, however, an unexpected change of environment catches the car’s “leadership” in the driver’s seat by surprise: the car hydroplanes, or hits black ice, or blows a tire. The situation is suddenly dire. In an instant, the superior vantage and planning of the executive behind the wheel is useless. The whole enterprise is at the whim of a changing, unpredictable circumstance down where the rubber meets the road.

In today’s business environment, a concerning percentage of the economy is heading toward a patch of black ice called the digital skills gap. This is the name by which we learning experts refer to the epidemic shortage of digital skills in both companies and the labor pool of job candidates. The digital skills gap already costs businesses money and productivity — $1.3 trillion annually in the U.S. — and is only growing in urgency. If skills training doesn’t become a priority among the nation’s executives, quite a few company drivers will soon be surprised at the lack of control they have over their vehicles.

The companies that avoid this fate will be the ones that embrace bottom-up leadership. This doctrine acknowledges that good insight is a type of leadership, no matter where it’s found on the organization chart. It is a manager being open to the wisdom of employees beneath her, and ground-level employees speaking up when something needs to change. Bottom-up leadership encourages communication between all nodes in the company hierarchy, which affords executives a clear and complete picture of the organization’s successes and needs. There’s a reason why modern cars devote entire computer systems to gathering data from the tires.

Front-line employees are the ones most likely to recognize a digital skills gap. They are the workers dealing with the digital tools that propel the business on a daily basis: customer relations management systems, point-of-sale software, project management, and so on. These aren’t the tools managers use to plan, recruit, and strategize, so top-down leadership may not notice when employees struggle along without proper training.

A lack of bottom-up leadership could be the reason that executives are failing to address the skills gap. According to a 2012 MIT study, executives pay lip service to the importance of digital optimization — 87% consider “digital transformation” a competitive opportunity — but in practice, only 46% invest in critically needed digital skills training. A stunning 4% offer training aligned with a digital strategy. This is an economy-wide dereliction of management.

It is up to the employees in the trenches, then, to make it known that productivity is being lost to incomplete skill sets. And it is the responsibility of executives to listen, and do something about it.

In good times, when a business is doing well and the competition is at bay, it doesn’t seem necessary to listen to the signals coming from the bottom of the totem pole. Companies can afford to label it “bottom-up leadership” and grant it an air of magnanimity. But when the tires start rattling, and the car starts careening, the trajectory of the whole operation depends on its most humble parts.

 

Jeff Fernandez is co-founder and CEO of Grovo, helping to educate the digital workforce with an end-to-end video training platform that delivers quality results in the shortest amount of time. 

photo credit: hassanrafeek via photopin cc

5 Skills Gaps Employers Need To Address

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It’s no surprise that one of the biggest challenges hiring managers face is finding well-rounded candidates with strong skill sets.

Over recent years, multiple studies have addressed the growing skills gap and how to fix it. However, this has caused many employers and job seekers to think that the “skills gap” is a single catch-all for any employee or job seeker who lacks a needed skill.

What’s important to understand, though, is every field faces its own unique skills gap.

Instead of looking at the skills gap as a single, large issue, let’s break it down into five prominent skills gaps employers need to address:

1. Digital media skills

Research shows that 77 percent of companies believe their lack of digital skills is the reason their business hasn’t been able to adapt to new digital trends. When more than 90 percent of companies don’t have skills in social media, mobile media, and internal social networks, it can be difficult to keep your business moving forward.

Employers can address this skills gap by investing time and money into the development of digital skills. Employers can offer training programs for employees in order to teach them about the company’s digital strategy and give them the tools they need to be successful in the digital world.

2. Soft skills

Although hard skills are important for employees to have, soft skills are more likely to help employees increase their performance in the workplace.

Despite the importance of soft skills, 44 percent of senior executives believe this is a weakness for employees. Many employees lack strong skills in communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration.

To address this skills gap, employers should provide continuous learning opportunities for their employees. Workshops, seminars, and team-building activities can boost the aforementioned soft skills.

3. Marketing skills

The marketing field is constantly evolving, and marketing professionals need to keep up with the latest trends and strategies.

Marketing professionals need to understand various content marketing skills including analytics, SEO, marketing automation, and e-commerce. Employers can provide training in these areas, which will help them develop stronger marketing professionals and tighten the skills gap.

4. Skilled trades and retiring Baby Boomers

In 2012, more than half of skilled-trade workers were 45 years of age or older. According to Adecco, one-third of senior executives believe the manufacturing industry will be most affected by the skills gap.

To address this change in the workforce, employers must actively recruit younger employees and provide training. This will help employers maintain a streamline of skilled talent, even after Baby Boomers retire.

5. STEM skills

STEM careers are expected to grow 17 percent by 2018. Unfortunately, employers believe 12 percent of workers lack software skills and 22 percent lack technical skills.

One way employers can improve this skills gap is to provide on-the-job training and certification for different softwares and technologies. This will allow employees to continuously learn new technologies and keep up with the latest trends in their industry.

The skills gap is a growing issue for employers and it can only be resolved if employers take action. By taking note of these skills gaps, employers will improve their training programs and develop more skilled employees.

What do you believe are some prominent skills gaps employers must address?

Josh Tolan is the CEO of Spark Hire, a video interview solution used by more than 2,000 companies across the globe. Learn more about using video interviewing to jump the skills gap and connect with Spark Hire on Facebook and Twitter.

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