6 things I learned in 6 months.

With a 6 month anniversary at Group GTI on the horizon, I though it was apt to share 6 things I learned in 6 months.

Ok, so within these 6 things, there's a few more bits, facts, trends etc but you get the gist.

Hopefully you find useful for reflecting and planning in Early Careers (or Total Talent?) for 2024 and beyond.

1. Here comes the Skills.

• 88% of UK employers recognise that highly skilled candidates are being filtered out on application because they lack traditional credentials. (LinkedIn 's UK Skills Report 2023).
• UK skillsets for existing jobs are due to change by 65% by 2030, having only changed 25% since 2015. (LinkedIn 's UK Skills Report 2023).
• 54% of ISE employers expect to move to evaluating candidates based on their skills, rather than education or experience. (Institute of Student Employers )
• Skills- based hiring widen the talent pool by 10x on average (LinkedIn ) and McKinsey & Company 's report showed a skills hiring was 5x more predictive of job performance than education and 2x compared to work experience.

Having hired for validated, certified and practically applied skills in a previous role before GTI, I know how much easier it can be to fulfil sometimes unfair requirements by business areas internally.

Are you screening and assessing your early careers and experienced hire roles by skills? Or still stuck in education and experience mode?

2. We can't go on together, with restricted minds.

(Yes, another lyrical pun for you there. Go back to 1. to re-read the first title!)

A drop in demand for low-skilled workers combined with an exponential rise in demand for high-skilled workers alongside an ageing population, early careers, as it is now, is not a sustainable model.?

Stephen Isherwood summarises this new Total Talent world as:

1. Less focus on a person’s age or education exit point, hiring talent from a broader range of backgrounds, relying less on external experienced hires.?
2. Greater focus on retaining talented employees through upskilling and reskilling programmes placing greater emphasis on internal mobility and retraining.?
3. Career progression routes shift back towards managed, internal career pathways with increasing flexibility through a range of short and long form development/learning programmes.?

Are you contemplating a broader way to bring in entry and junior talent and now sure how supply might meet your (new) demand?

3. Yearn to learn.

Students wants interactive employer insights (62%) and those from underrepresented communities are 40% more likely to complete experiential learning activities such as role simulations, employers projects and test assessments. (targetjobs UK & Cibyl - Group GTI )

With there being a distinct unbalance in the make up socio-economically of intern and placement students, wider experiential learning activities such as those shown below, can really equip students with knowledge to navigate in their discovery phases but also cement a focus and relevance when applying.

How are you demystifying your industry/roles to talent audiences and reducing ghosting/reneges?

4. AI: A friend or foe to employers?

In early careers, the leading assessment providers are yet to see AI-fuelled cheating in assessment taken so far. Many firms wish to detect this, as a regulated or audit-oriented firm. Others, are keen to embed and embrace the use of AI in an AI-audited process. Especially when you consider there's a 20x increase in roles advertised that are asking for AI skills now vs Jan 2023. (Indeed )

Are you in need of a AI-proofed process? Or perhaps wanting to build assessments which show the incisiveness and applied usage of AI from candidates?

5. Demand is broadening, supply may be scarce.

More employers are hiring into more different occupations YoY according to Institute of Student Employers Recruitment 2023 survey. I've summarised this below:

This should not be overlooked. It can affect how you position your brand as well as realising there is now more competition for more roles across more sectors.

Non-synonymous brands will have to work much harder given a perception still by students of occupation and sector alignments. i.e Legal roles are all in the Legal sector.

When this has never been and now statistically showing not to be true.

How are you changing student perception of your roles within a non-synonymous sector?

6. Where does this trend STEM from?

STEM students have now outpaced non-STEM students in terms of wanting on-campus in person engagement.

39% STEM v 38% NON-STEM

Is this a surprise to you?

Post-pandemic, we've seen this preference rise from STEM students, far outweighing a preference for digital engagement at only 16%.

Also important to note is the granular preference of those activities be it in person or digital and also which activities are employability/careers led vs non-employability campus led. For example, we know some universities have students with a >45% preference towards employer presentations, whereas others are as low as <15%.

Think about the inefficiencies your replicated operations could be creating as an employer. It may explain why you sometimes have inconsistent uptake and attendance with replica activity.

How are you finessing your attraction strategies heading into 2024 and beyond?

If you'd like to discuss any or all of the above in more depth and how you can navigate these challenges with current, new and incoming solutions from Group GTI , drop me a message or book a call via here .

Thanks to all colleagues, customers and partners for an enjoyable half-year at Group GTI .

See you all in 2024!