First published by SHRM, October 12, 2017. 

A new study highlights how several states are helping students choose what to study depending on the skills local employers say they need.

The report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW), a nonprofit research and policy institute based in Washington, D.C., outlines ways that data is being translated to help job seekers and employers better understand the connections between the skills available in local talent pools and what students study in college.

“Learners and workers need a modern guidance system with clear and comprehensive consumer information that will help them make good college and career decisions,” said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the center and the report’s lead author. “Such a system will also help employers frustrated by skills shortages to more precisely identify and hire talented workers, colleges to refresh and strengthen their programs to improve student outcomes, and policymakers to better allocate resources to build strong economies.”

The report features examples of eight states integrating data to:

• Assist schools in developing curricula aligned with the skills and abilities that job seekers will need to succeed with local employers.

• Help workers understand how to take advantage of postsecondary education and training options as they change jobs and navigate their careers.

Applying Data—Quickly

“The challenge is to use local market data that is captured in real time so that students can see the relevance of what they’re doing and employers can see how those skills connect to what they need,” said Mike Knapp, CEO and co-founder of the job placement platform SkillSmart, which connects employers, job seekers and educational partners to help close identified skills gaps. “It is also important for the states to allow school systems to make curriculum modifications based on local market needs, or for the states to be able to aggregate the real-time skills of local industries into a broader statewide curriculum. There are some good tools out there that walk students through their interests and how those align to the workforce but [that] don’t then link to local or regional markets.”

In Maryland, for example, state officials implemented several new assessments to ensure that high school graduates are “college or career ready” but neglected to connect the test results to the skills employers said they needed, Knapp said. “While the effort is good, it’s still going to take a while for states to go from a theoretical exercise into a practical local activity that shows students how the skills they’re learning in school link directly to jobs in their communities.”

Lessons Learned from the States

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce and Indiana Chamber Foundation created IndianaSkills in 2012 as an online jobs database that allows employers to compare educational requirements by job, view wages paid to similar employees around the state and create job descriptions. Job seekers can use the site to find career opportunities and short-term training programs that best match their skills and interests, are in high demand and offer competitive wages.

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First published by I-95 Business, October, 2017.

Cybersecurity is one of this century’s most urgent global imperatives. Financial damages are measured in the trillions of dollars and are a result of the proliferation of digital devices into every aspect of our daily lives in pursuit of the holy grail of convenience, access and speed with little or no regard for protecting valuable assets from adversaries. And these cyber adversaries are increasing the sophistication, variety and frequency of attacks. Adding to this is the fact that cyber attackers have advantages: it’s easier to attack than defend, and there are many weaknesses in all but the very best systems.

Maryland’s Unprecedented Opportunity

There is a silver lining in this gloomy cloud, and it’s Maryland’s opportunity for unmatched job creation. As a result of our proximity to and experience with the U.S. intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense as well as our stellar academic and training organizations, we have some of the most skilled cybersecurity workers and the highest geographic concentration of cybersecurity workforce in the country (according to NIST’s CyberSeek program data). And with the U.S. federal government market no longer capable of delivering high job growth, focusing on capturing high market share in a high growth, high pay industry like cybersecurity is smart.

Globally, there are 1 million open cybersecurity jobs, a number that experts project to rapidly increase to 1.5 million. With the cybersecurity jobs demand exceeding workforce supply, Maryland companies are competing with companies across the United States and internationally for existing talent, leading to a need to embrace “new collar” jobs, a phrase coined by IBM CEO Ginni Rometty referring to jobs that require skills but not necessarily specific degrees.

Solution: Maryland Cyber Jobs Platform

To take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity for job creation, the non-profit Cybersecurity Association of Maryland, Inc. (CAMI), in partnership with Germantown-based SkillSmart, recently launched Maryland Cyber Jobs (MCJ) at www.MDcyberjobs.com. MCJ is a state-ofthe- art online jobs platform. What makes this platform unique and more valuable in comparison to traditional, mass-market job boards is its reliance on a skills-based methodology and algorithm to identify qualified candidates that match employers’ specific needs. It’s a process that ultimately saves employers time, effort and money.

The platform also helps candidates identify not only jobs that match their current skills but also skills they might need to acquire for the jobs they want. There is no cost for job seekers to create a profile and use the MCJ platform, which will show them how they stack up (score) against specific hiring requirements for individual jobs. MCJ goes a step further in the job search process, presenting job seekers with information and connections to education, training, certification, internship and apprenticeship resources where they can get the skills and experience needed for jobs of interest.

 

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First published by Baltimore Business Journal, August 22, 2017.

The Cybersecurity Association of Maryland Inc. is launching a new online jobs platform in partnership with Germantown job-seeking firm SkillSmart.

Maryland Cyber Jobs was built to address the shortage of qualified candidates to fill open cyber positions across all industry sectors. Using a skills-based methodology tailored to each hiring company, the platform aims to reduce the time, effort and expense for Maryland employers to find qualified candidates for cyber-related positions.

The Maryland Cyber Jobs platform can also help potential employees to find jobs that best match their experience and current skills, and identify any skills they need to acquire for the jobs they want. The service identifies relevant education, training, certification, internship and apprenticeship resources in Maryland, where job seekers can obtain necessary skills and experience.

Private employers and state officials have been making strides recently to confront the cyber talent gap issue. The new jobs platform is another step in that vein.

Labor statistics have shown that more than 200,000 U.S. cybersecurity jobs are currently unfilled, and the shortage is projected to grow to more than 1.5 million unfilled positions by 2019.

The talent shortage is particularly an issue for Maryland, which has more than 12,000 IT and cybersecurity companies, serving organizations like the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command. The state is also home to 17 higher education institutions that have been designated National Academic Centers of Excellence in Cyber Defense.

Stacey Smith, the Cybersecurity Association’s executive director, said numerous commercial businesses and cybersecurity companies have complained that using standard job boards is laborious. Recruiters often have to sift through too much information to find the few people they might actually want to hire. The new jobs platform marks an attempt to streamline the cyber recruiting process.

“For us, it’s not about the number of applicants, it’s about the quality,” Evan Dornbush, founder and CEO of Point3 Security, said in a statement. “I’d rather have four good ones to review versus having to sift through 400.”

Smith said the jobs platform is not just for use by cybersecurity companies, but for any business, government entity or nonprofit looking to fill a cyber position. Smith said she hopes as the platform grows, it will attract potential candidates from across the U.S. and from foreign countries as well, brining a larger skilled workforce to Maryland.

Maryland has one of the most robust cyber industries in the world, but it needs to be supported by a strong talent pool to continue to grow.

“This is a highly valuable competitive advantage for our state, and we’re excited and proud to offer it,” Smith said in a statement.

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First published by Phoenix Business Journal, July 31, 2017.

Washington, D.C.-based Village Capital brought 12 education startups from across the country to Phoenix to meet local companies, mentors and city and business leaders for possible partnerships.

The four-day workshop was held at the Phoenix-based social entrepreneur incubator Seed Spot from July 25 to 28. The local workshop, which focused on workforce development, is part of a series of three workshops held in various cities across the country, said Marissa Lowman, Village Capital’s education practice lead.

“Village Capital finds, trains and invests in entrepreneurs that may not traditionally get funding, such as entrepreneurs from smaller cities and founded by minorities and women,” Lowman said. “We chose Phoenix because of its leading universities, thriving startup ecosystem and the high number of local companies that our startups could partner with.”

For example, Jason Green, co-founder of SkillSmart, a D.C.-based software-as-a-service startup designed to improve hiring outcomes, talked to the Phoenix economic development department and Arizona State University on future partnerships.

“I am quite impressed with the work being done locally,” said Green, who was visiting Phoenix for the first time. “I didn’t have to convince people here of the importance of workforce ability, which has been difficult in other cities. We’re mainly here to build partnerships, relationships and maybe open an office here one day.”

Nathan Doctor, CEO and co-founder of Qualified.io, a San Francisco-based software startup that trains and assesses software engineers for companies, had a good conversation with Scottsdale-based ed-tech company Parchment.

“We had good synergy with Parchment, which had used a competitor of ours but no longer does. We talked about how to improve their hiring process and train current developers with new technology,” Doctor said. “People are super friendly here. It seems like a great community.”

At the end of the third workshop, which will be held in Denver in mid September, two startups will receive investment from Village Capital. The winning companies will be chosen by the attending startups through a peer ranking, Lowman said.

“The workshops are held in different cities to show them what different communities have to offer and as a way to build new relationships,” she said. “We are very impressed with how engaged the community is here. Everyone wanted to help out.”

The AT&T-sponsored workshop was the first big event for Seed Spot in its new space in Phoenix’s Warehouse District. Village Capital and Seed Spot have partnered over the past six months as Seed Spot launched in D.C., said John Johnson, Seed Spot’s community development manager.

“We were happy to support them by providing a space for them to hold their workshop in Phoenix,” Johnson said. “This workshop did so much for the Phoenix community from what I observed. All of the ventures participating in the workshop were from other parts of the country, providing a new set of businesses for our community leaders to engage with. There were more than 30 leaders from the community, including Mayor Greg Stanton, who visited the space to provide support and guidance to the businesses. I believe this event gave the Phoenix community a glimpse into how Seed Spot’s expansion has already and will continue to bring positive connections to Phoenix.”

Paul Parent, a product marketing director with Gilbert-based financial aid software company CampusLogic, was part of a local group that offered ways to help Village Capital through company connections and letting them know what’s going on in the ed-tech community.

“I wanted to pay it forward, create connections and hope good things will happen,” said Parent, a volunteer with EdTechAZ, a website that promotes the Arizona ed-tech ecosystem. “I’m hoping for future partnerships, company expansions and just basic knowledge sharing. I’m excited they brought this here.”

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Three Questions With Ryan Craig, Jason Green, and Jason Palmer. Interviews conducted and compiled by Susanna Williams of Innovate+Educate. Edited for length.

1. How do you see work changing?

Jason Palmer, General Partner at New Market Ventures:

People are going to have more different jobs and careers than ever before.

Jason Green, Co-Founder of SkillSmart:

This is part of the evolution of work. We have to understand the regularity with which people change jobs- as many as 16 times over the course of their lives now. Jobs are much less defined- instead of rigid jobs you could go to school for, we’re seeing all sorts of new jobs that use skills in new combinations.

Jason Palmer:

People are getting much smarter about figuring out what skills and credentials they need that will ladder them up their career path, but it’s still a complicated world out there and people have to self-navigate. We’re seeing more companies popping up to reduce friction and help people get the credentials they need. It’s really exciting as an investor, because it’s messy out there- and innovation thrives on building new structures in the messiness.

Jason Green:

Right, but there’s still an asymmetry of information. The employers hold all the information. Skills based hiring is a more transparent process that’s helping to democratize hiring, but that means employers also have to become more engaged.

Jason Palmer:

Someone recently said that technology jobs are the blue collar jobs of the 21st century, and I agree with the general point. You can become technology literate and get yourself a middle class job much faster than you can get a college degree. All jobs are becoming technology enabled- after all, Uber drivers need to use technology to pick up riders- and tech really is driving almost everything.

Ryan Craig, Managing Director, University Ventures: 

Particularly for entry level jobs. Whereas a decade ago those might have been more freewheeling and unstructured, today they are much more mediated through software like Salesforce. And that is a talent supply issue that traditional universities haven’t yet caught up to and don’t particularly seem interested in getting involved in.

The real challenge is that most employers have given up on the notion that new college graduates will have experience with that platform and have imposed experience requirements on jobs that used to be entry level. It is a fact that entry level sales reps probably don’t require the four years of the developmental education that college requires.

Mission U is a one year bachelor’s alternative. It’s the first degree that’s explicit about being a replacement degree. There is no tuition. It’s an income share agreement– 15% of your income for the first three years of work. A good number of their first cohort were enrolled in elite universities and left after their first year to enroll in Mission U.

A decade ago, you’d get a lot of reasons for why students enrolled in college. It used to be about half were focused on getting a job afterward. Now it’s north of 90%. They’re very focused on that first job and faster and more efficient pathways to that first job are going to see enormous growth in the next few years.

None of us want less education in aggregate or per capita. What’s important is that colleges and universities develop very clear secondary and tertiary pathways. It can’t just be about the four-year or two-year degree.

Jason Green:

We have to acknowledge that people engage in skill development in places that are outside traditional educational institutions and we have to find a way to quantify that skill attainment, regardless of where or how those skills were learned.

Ryan Craig:

The real question is which colleges and universities will be able to make that leap away from the four year bundle to a faster and less expensive pathway. The key to that change is the connection to the employer. Any college can change their curriculum, but where I’m struggling is with the question of employer connectivity. If you see the level of connectivity that many of these last-mile intermediaries offer, at a minimum they’re getting direct input from employers, which is anathema to traditional faculty. Some are co-locating, some intermediaries are hiring the student directly and not charging any tuition. I think lots of colleges will try to do it but I don’t know how many will be successful.

Jason Green:

Workforce development is no longer limited to job training programs. All programs are going to have to be more accountable and engaged with industry. Providing a relevant curriculum will lead to having engaged learners, better persistence, completion and, importantly, attainment of the skills needed for employment.

2. What are the biggest challenges facing employers in hiring?

Jason Green:

Employers are starting to deal with their over-reliance on technologies they no longer have confidence in- job descriptions and resumes. Job descriptions haven’t changed all that much in hundreds of years, even as work has. And resumes are a limited two-dimensional view of a three-dimensional person who may or may not be a fit for jobs that are increasingly four or five or six dimensional. We’ve used degrees as proxies for skills, but we’re getting to a point where that’s no longer satisfying our talent identification needs.

Ryan Craig:

[University Ventures] spends as much time with employers as we do with higher ed. The top of the funnel is broken, specifically at the intake. Filtering overweights technical skills because those are easy to identify, but jobs are more than technical skills.

Jason Green:

Absolutely. The current system is based on a crude filter.

The ease of the application process is actually becoming a hindrance to identifying a qualified candidate. These technologies have created a situation where we are getting 100 applications for every job posting.

One of the biggest shifts that we’re going to have to make is in the psyche of human resource professionals. They’ve held on to a volume mindset as a metric of success, but the problem is not about getting more applications, it’s about finding the right person for the job.

Ryan Craig:

We’re starting to see the emergence around the world of microassessments assessing cognitive skills that are given at the outset of the hiring process which will then determine whose applications are seen by a hiring manager. These are proliferating everywhere but the US because of an adverse regulatory environment fostered by the EEOC.

If you actually do shift from the current pedigree and degree based hiring to microassessment as your first filter, you increase diversity a lot. The problem here is that EEOC accepts on face value degree based hiring, which is actually replicating inequality, and focuses all of their enforcement activities on assessments. Instead, employers should be measured based on their hiring outcomes, and given safe harbors to experiment.

Jason Palmer:

Smaller and medium sized companies are already ignoring the rules.

Qualified is being used to qualify coders by proving you can solve coding challenges. They’re working with Andela to place sub-Saharan Africans as remote coders, as well as hundreds of American companies. Lots of people without college or even high school are training up and demonstrating that they can do these jobs.

Ryan Craig:

70% of micro-assessment usage is for clients outside the US. In a world where we are very focused on making sure US employers don’t offshore jobs, not having access to hiring tools like this is a very strong incentive to not hire American. If we could unlock this barrier, we could give millions of low income Americans meritocratic access to these jobs.

It is so important to look to other markets, like the UK. Apprenticeships, competency based hiring have almost become government policy to encourage shorter pathways to jobs.

We want American employers to invest in American workers. Revature is running free coding bootcamps. They offer guaranteed jobs, staff their students out for two years. Students often then get hired by the companies themselves, making this their first and second job.

Jason Palmer:

We’re seeing pretty serious traction in middle and even elementary school with the teaching of computer science and technology and coding. Computer science courses now count toward graduation in 23 states. There are companies offering full-course solutions in elementary schools. Rhode Island and Washington state are leaders pushing this envelope. These companies do extensive professional development with math, science, and music teachers to train them how to teach computer science. They initially looked for just math and science teachers, but now 10 – 20% of the teachers they work with are from the art and music domains.

3. What are the biggest challenges facing job training programs and the workforce development sector?

Ryan Craig:

It’s a different universe. I agree with Secretary DeVos- simply making small changes to the Higher Education Act (HEA) is not the way to go. We need to rethink our higher education system in order to solve a problem- how do we take students from the point they finish K-12 and move them into a good job in the growing economy? We have balkanized our system of higher education and put up on a pedestal one pathway– the degree. All of these systems would do better to work together in a more coordinated way.

We’re looking at a separate Department of Labor pool of money that is separate from the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) funds that is disconnected from the apprenticeship process. We need an integrated system that offers a much greater diversity of pathways to a good job.

Jason Green:

We certainly need a different kind of thinking- and that starts with letting go of old filters. At SkillSmart we have developed an alternative means for evaluation based on the lived and learned skills which allows employers and workforce agencies to relax their grip on traditional resume based evaluation.

Jason Palmer:

Employers need to adapt. If employers can find people who’ve held a job for two years, but don’t have a college degree, they’re worth hiring and they can be trained up with the the specialized skills they need. Small companies are popping up to onboard and run internship and apprenticeship programs.

Ryan Craig:

I agree with Peter Cappelli – employers want the perfect candidate and aren’t going to sully their hands with training. The market is coming up with solutions– we’re seeing the emergence of small private lenders who are lending on what you’re likely to earn in the future, so-called income share agreement models. This significantly reduces the risk for the students. We’re also seeing innovations in staffing models- a try before you buy kind of approach, which reduces risk for students and employers.

Jason Green:

We hear from a lot of employers who are willing to go along with the status quo even though it isn’t meeting their needs because they don’t want to take the risk of trying something new. Those of us who can see the bigger problem need to do a better job of articulating what inaction looks like, because there is a real cost to not changing the way we’re hiring and training and educating.

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SkillSmart is twice as effective at identifying qualified talent for hire than its online counterparts. Watch why SkillSmart has been successful helping brands across the country like MGM Casino & Resorts, Milwaukee Bucks Arena, Purple Line Transit Partners, and others with their large-scale hiring efforts.

“At no point along the way do we want the job seeker to say ‘I don’t have that,'” says Mike Knapp, CEO and Founder of SkillSmart. “We want them to see ‘I don’t have that, but here’s the next step.’ And so we try to continue to link them.”

More, SkillSmart helps community training and education programs tailor their courses to teach the skills employers need. Doing so significantly increased targeted enrollment and resulted in greater outcome of people getting hired upon completion in one recent hiring effort in the DC Region.

SkillSmart streamlines the talent recruitment and hiring by focusing on the skills needed, improving the effectiveness and experience by both employers and job seekers.

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Published by Scott Paulus of Milwaukee Business Journal

The Milwaukee Bucks and the city of Milwaukee recently hosted the first in a series of town hall meetings to introduce prospective job seekers to the SkillSmart platform and potential work on the team’s $500 million arena in downtown Milwaukee. Check out the attached slideshow to see photos from the Dec. 15 meeting held at Journey House.

More than 100 city of Milwaukee residents attended the meeting. The NBA team, which is committed to the hiring of Milwaukee city and county residents for arena construction and the new arena district, contracted with SkillSmart of Germantown, Md., to create a pipeline of qualified workers and help prospective employees gain skills they will need for future employment.

As part of the Bucks development agreement with the city, the team’s owners pledged to partner with the city and county on workforce development initiatives. The Bucks also committed to meeting the city’s requirement of hiring 40 percent of trade workers who are city residents for arena construction.

The arena is under construction just north of the BMO Harris Bradley Center near West Juneau Avenue. It is set to be completed in time for the team’s 2018-’19 season.

The SkillSmart site breaks down available positions in terms of necessary skills and prerequisites, while inviting job seekers to build a personal profile based around their work experience, training and qualifications. The tool provides job seekers with scores for each available position based upon how well their skill set and qualifications align with a job.

Locations for additional town hall meetings will become available in the coming weeks.

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Published by Rich Kirchen of Milwaukee Business Journal

The Milwaukee Bucks, which is committed to the hiring of Milwaukee city and county residents for arena construction and the new arena district, contracted with SkillSmart of Germantown, Md., to create a pipeline of qualified workers and help prospective employees gain skills they will need for future employment.

As part of the Bucks development agreement with the city, the team’s owners pledged to partner with the city and county on workforce development initiatives. The Bucks also committed to meeting the city’s requirement of hiring 40 percent of trade workers who are city residents for arena construction.

The Bucks and the city of Milwaukee will host a series of town hall meetings throughout the city to introduce prospective job seekers to the SkillSmart platform. The first event is slated for Thursday, Dec. 15, from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Journey House, 2110 W. Scott St. Dates and locations for additional town hall meetings will become available in the coming weeks.

The SkillSmart site breaks down available positions in terms of necessary skills and prerequisites, while inviting job seekers to build a personal profile based around their work experience, training and qualifications. The tool provides job seekers with scores for each available position based upon how well their skill set and qualifications align with a job.

SkillSmart also provides resources to potential employees on additional training to become stronger candidates for available positions. SkillSmart’s algorithm can calculate how closely an applicant’s skills align with overall employer need. If job seekers do not have the necessary skills for a job they want, SkillSmart will provide suggestions for training opportunities, according to a November report from JPMorgan Chase.

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Some organizations are increasing on-the-job training to meet the challenge

Published by Roy Maurer of Society of Human Resource Management

Employers across the globe are facing the most acute talent shortage since the Great Recession, according to ManpowerGroup’s latest Talent Shortage Survey.

Of the more than 42,300 employers surveyed, 40 percent cited hiring difficulties—the highest level since 2007 (41 percent) and up from 38 percent in 2015.

Closer to half (46 percent) of U.S. employers reported difficulties filling jobs due to lack of available talent, a significant rise from the 32 percent that reported so in 2015.

The most severe talent shortages were reported in Japan (86 percent), Taiwan (73 percent) and Romania (72 percent). Just 10 percent of Chinese employers reported hiring difficulties, the lowest of all countries surveyed.

For the fifth consecutive year, skilled trades positions such as electricians, carpenters, masons and plumbers remain the hardest to fill across all 42 countries surveyed.

“Part of the problem is fewer people see these roles as an attractive career path, often not realizing how well many of them pay,” said Sunny Ackerman, Manpower’s vice president and general manager for U.S. field operations. “With relatively strong job creation over the past few years, individuals simply have more choices about where they work—we are shifting from a talent rich environment to one that is far more competitive.”

The global IT talent gap has noticeably widened, with tech roles the second hardest-to-fill, up from ninth place in 2015. Demand is strongest in Asia Pacific, where IT roles now rank as the top most difficult to fill for the first time in a decade, but has grown steadily across all other regions as well. IT roles are ranked No. 10 hardest-to-fill in the U.S.

The rest of the global list of hardest-to-fill jobs includes: Sales Representatives, Engineers, Technicians, Drivers, Accounting and finance staff, Management, Production operators/machine operators, Secretaries, receptionists, administrative assistants and office support staff.

U.S. Employment Paradox

In many ways the growing talent shortage reflects an issue of quality versus quantity, or an abundance of labor, but not enough in-demand talent. Employers in the U.S. say there aren’t enough candidates with the skills they need, while “real” unemployment is estimated to be at around 10 percent and underemployment remains high. Unemployment levels for high school graduates is 18 percent and underemployment in 2016 is 34 percent, compared with only 27 percent in 2007, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

“Low unemployment paired with shorter skills cycles due to the speed of technological change means employers across the United States are struggling to fill positions,” said Kip Wright, senior vice president of Manpower North America. “We see this particularly in industries like manufacturing, construction, transportation and education.”

The talent shortage is driven, in part, by changes to skills requirements with employers increasingly needing more specialized skillsets. Nearly one in four respondents to the Manpower survey reported a lack of applicants, while another one in five employers said applicants do not have the relevant experience required, and lack technical skills.

That’s consistent with what Mike Knapp, CEO and co-founder of SkillSmart, a platform which connects job seekers with employers based on their skills, is seeing in the labor market.

“We believe these two elements are related in that people either aren’t applying because they know they don’t have the right skills, or many are applying knowing they don’t have the skills and are applying anyway, or don’t know they aren’t qualified,” he said. “Either way it is clearly becoming more critical to increase the transparency of skills that employers are seeking so jobseekers know what they’re shooting for, otherwise this gap is only likely to get larger.”

On-the-Job Training Increases

The majority of U.S. workers view continuous training as essential to their future career success, according to the recently released State of American Jobs survey by the Pew Research Center and the Markle Foundation. The survey showed that workers believe a mix of technical and soft skills is essential, and most value job training, given the profound changes in the workplace over the past few decades.

In fact, on-the-job training has skyrocketed in the past 12 months, according to the Manpower study. Nearly half (48 percent) of U.S. employers reported upskilling their staff in 2016, while only 12 percent were training their employees a year ago.

“When the talent isn’t available, organizations need to turn to training and developing their own people, and in many cases this means first identifying the skills that will be required in increasingly digital industries, like manufacturing,” Wright said.

This is where companies like SkillSmart and open online educational providers like Coursera—which offers job-specific training—come in.

Upskilling the current workforce can make it easier to fill higher-level skilled positions and backfill entry-level positions, but “there still needs to be more effective and transparent strategies to identify and communicate the skills requirements for the entry-level positions,” Knapp said. “In addition, this strategy also requires developing clear career pathways for existing employees so they know how additional skills can increase their growth opportunities within the organization.”

The Hiring Process Re-envisioned

Experts said that ultimately, employers must become more flexible and creative in their recruitment strategies in order to find a solution to the talent shortage.

Hiring managers can be better educated on the talent market. “HR can partner with the business and develop rotations into HR focused on recruitment as well as get buy-in for greater involvement and participation from the business on interviewing and selecting candidates and developing job descriptions for critical roles,” said Shanil Kaderali, executive vice president of global talent solutions at San Jose, Calif.-based Pierpoint International, a global recruitment process outsourcing firm.

Ackerman suggested employers consider all talent options available to them, including capturing untapped talent pools and ensuring qualified people are not screened out of jobs unnecessarily for not exactly matching criteria.

“Another important option is to explore different ways of working,” she said. “For example, a client in South Dakota was struggling to find individuals to fill a number of 40-hour a week manufacturing roles, but we kept meeting college students who were interested in part-time 20-hour per week roles. We worked with the client to divide the 40-hour role in half, and then were able to fill the positions. It just takes a bit of creativity.”

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Lack of Access to Technology and Poor Data Present Challenges for Low and Middle Skill Workers’ Ability to Find Good-paying Careers

Published by JPMorgan Chase

Technology innovations that match job seekers with employers are transforming the labor market, but these tools are not doing enough to help low and middle skill workers find quality jobs, according to a new JPMorgan Chase report. Both access and design issues are preventing potential employees and employers from identifying the appropriate job fit.

The report, “Swiping Right for the Job: How Tech is Changing Matching in the Workforce”, highlights the problems low and middle skilled workers and employers face in using technology, explores how tech is changing labor market interactions, and identifies the benefits, challenges and design changes required for labor market technology to have its greatest impact.

“Despite an increase in technology usage, we’re seeing missed opportunity in job matching due to design flaws and access barriers,” said Chauncy Lennon, Head of Workforce Initiatives, JPMorgan Chase. “We’ve identified how to more efficiently connect people with the jobs and training they need and if we turn these lessons learned into smarter tools, we’ll create economic opportunity for everyone.”

Labor market matching technology exists primarily online, and low- and middle-skill workers, who typically have wages below the median, are disproportionately likely to lack access to computers and the internet at home. Only sixty-three percent of those with a household income between $20,000 and $50,000 have access to broadband internet at home, compared to 80 percent of those with a household income between $50,000 and $75,000.

While job seekers with varying degrees of education use their smart phones for job searching at approximately the same rate, job seekers who have not attended college are much more likely to go through the cumbersome process of using their smart phones to fill out an online job application and create a resume or cover letter than those who have graduated from college. Also, low- and middle-skill workers are more likely to lack proficiency in using computers and the Internet, making it difficult to navigate labor market matching technology.

“JPMorgan Chase’s report underscores that too many skilled workers are being overlooked due to fixable architecture flaws in job matching technology,” said Byron Auguste, President and Co-Founder, Opportunity@Work. “When we design tools to take into account an individual’s personal nature and background, employers will find far better candidates to place in their companies and for a longer period of time.”

One example of a job matching tool design to address these issues is SkillSmart. Their platform is designed to connect job seekers, employers, and educators through mutually identified skills. The program allows employers to specify the skills needed for success in their company and helps individuals find opportunities based on their skillset. SkillSmart’s algorithm calculates how closely an applicant’s skills align with overall employer need. If job seekers do not have the necessary skills for a job they want, SkillSmart will provide suggestions for training opportunities. Additionally, SkillSmart helps educators to include in-demand skills in their curricula.

Based on interviews with 45 industry leaders and an exhaustive review of research, the Swipe Right report highlights that finding the right person for the job is a crucial component of business success, employee wellbeing, worker productivity, and economic health. The consequences of getting the match wrong are high both for employees and employers. The cost of replacing a worker can be as much as 60 percent of an employee’s annual salary.

Without good design, a tool will have limited usefulness and be challenging to implement. Without good implementation, a tool will not achieve its purpose of improved matching and quickly lose relevance. The report includes the following recommendations to improve the design and implementation of job matching technology:

DESIGN:

Build with User-Centered Design: Ensure that the tool is easy to use for both employers and job seekers by involving and consulting them throughout the tool design process.

Use Target-Audience Language: The language used in job postings should avoid jargon and be familiar to the target job seeker.

Encourage Skills-based Hiring: Work with employers to foster skills-based job descriptions and hiring practices rather than rely on increasingly irrelevant gatekeeping credentials.

Engage Employers: Align with employers on occupational and skills definitions to develop a shared understanding among employers, training institutions, and job seekers.

Integrate Training Opportunities and Pathways: IInclude easily accessible information on training opportunities to help job seekers gain skills to qualify for their desired positions.

Consider Implicit Bias Mitigation: Reduce implicit bias in the hiring process by creating tools that do not expose employers to signals like names or addresses.

Keep an Eye on National Trends, Use Local Data: A tool that uses local data and corresponds to the realities of the local labor market will be most helpful to current job seekers.

Optimize for Mobile: An online tool should be created to reflect the ways that people use the internet, and mobile optimization is vital for job seekers who lack desktop access.

IMPLEMENTATION:

Support Job Seeker Needs and Access: Regardless of how well a technology tool is designed, some individuals will need in-person guidance, and digital inclusion efforts may be needed to help everyone access the tool.

Ongoing Activation of Industry Partners: Employers need to post their job openings through the tool and ensure that the information reflects their changing hiring needs.

Recognize Need for Continued Refinement and Investment: Since online technology quickly becomes outdated, continued investment is needed to keep a technology tool up-to-date and appealing for users.

Analyze Outcomes: Longitudinal data collection will help ensure that a technology tool aids employers in hiring by illuminating outcomes after the point of hire and helping determine best practices in labor market matching technology.

This project is part of a $250 million, five-year New Skills at Work initiative that JPMorgan Chase & Co. has developed to help inform and accelerate demand-driven skills training and provide greater economic opportunity for all. Launched in 2013, New Skills at Work is providing data-driven analyses, engaging employers in sector partnerships, and supporting training programs that are aligned with local demand.

The full report can be found online at www.jpmorganchase.com./corporate/Corporate-Responsibility/new-skills-workforce-matching-report.htm

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