Solving the Skills Shortage

A historically low unemployment rate, changing business models, and technological innovation have combined to create a talent shortage of major proportions.

The skills shortage is the number one hiring challenge for staffing professionals, and the majority think the problem is only getting worse.

So, how can the recruitment industry find candidates to fill these open jobs? The answer is reskilling – take candidates with the aptitude to change, and invest in education to outfit them with the skills required of the jobs of the future.

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Developing Tomorrow’s Talent Today

With the need for qualified candidates at historic levels, now is the time to begin thinking about what you can do to bring reskilling services into your business.

What does a successful reskilling program look like? K2 Partnering Solutions— a leading global staffing firm in the tech space—introduced K2 University to provide reskilling and training for professional and graduate candidates, and to support them throughout the entire recruitment process. Here’s their story.

Identifying and hiring the best of today’s talent is much more than simply headhunting and recruiting, which is why we launched K2 University to help develop talent with the most in-demand skills.
Dylan Griffiths Global Marketing Director, K2 Partnering Solutions

Reskilling by the Numbers

Staffing pros are in agreement that reskilling matters—74 percent say it’s an effective way to address the talent shortage— but few are taking majors steps to incorporate reskilling into their business.

Just five percent said reskilling would be a top priority for their staffing firm. The good news? If you incorporate reskilling into your business, you’ll have a major differentiator from your competition.

 

Learn More About Reskilling Trends

 

Watch Art's Engage 2018 Keynote on Reskilling

The recruitment industry loses half a billion dollars in annual turnover. Imagine if we took employees from lower-wage jobs and reskilled those people. This could be a trillion dollar industry with a very different profile. This isn’t a crisis, this is a huge opportunity for all of us.
Art Papas, Founder & CEO, Bullhorn

4 Steps Toward Reskilling

Your agency might not be ready to reskill just yet, but as you start to devise an initial strategy, here are four steps toward reskilling that might be helpful for you:

Assess Your Open Reqs

What percentage of jobs involve the same skill sets, and what trends can you identify as far as popularity of emerging skills and competencies?

Create an “Aptitude Translation” Chart

Leverage your recruitment expertise to map the skills keywords that characterise available candidates from your ATS to jobs for which they may one day be relevant, if given proper training. Is a candidate returning from active military duty? He or she may have innate leadership ability, logistical insight, or sales aptitude.

Consider Hidden Talent Pools

Returning mothers, service members, and candidates with special needs are phenomenal sources of talent and they have been traditionally overlooked.

Invest in Your Talent

Reskilling hinges on making an investment in educating the candidates with which you work to ensure that they can be effective in new roles. As their guide and partner, you have the power to show them that they have the capacity for change, and that your clients should trust their pure aptitude to tackle new challenges.

Reskilling Education Resources

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Master new skills in design, marketing, technology, and data — online or at our campuses around the world.

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Resilient Coders is a free, highly competitive bootcamp that trains people of color for careers as software engineers.

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Turn on the power of critical thinking in teams and networks with The Science of Working Smarter.®

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Join the millions learning to code with codecademy.

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Penn Foster provides staffing firms with scalable, online training programs to better attract & retain associates.

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Choice, Confidence, Customization

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