Bridging the skills and employability gap...

Just over a year ago Career Codex was a concept, an idea, a different way of looking at the job market and a burning passion to get the best employability education (based on real life experience) to market, to empower and help as many people as possible at all levels.

You can’t help reading or hearing about the ‘skills gap’ if you pick up a newspaper or watch the national and often local news, but what does it really mean?

The ‘skills gap’ is the disconnect between employer and jobseeker. The employer complains that they are unable to find an employee with the right skills and experience for their business and the jobseeker is frustrated that there just isn’t the right job out there. The sad irony is that businesses want to hire and on the flip side of the coin, jobseekers want jobs.

The Career Codex team in the 'green room' filming the most comprehensive employability education and training course for schools, colleges and universities.

For me the ‘skills gap’ exists for 3 reasons:

1) Employer training – as the recovery gets underway, employers are looking for candidates who can hit the ground running. For experienced hires this is expected, but for entry positions this can be difficult. As competition increases between organisations for the best hires, firms are sometimes unwilling to train staff for fear of losing them (and their increased skill set) to the competition. This to me is nonsense as training and developing staff, should if done correctly build loyalty and allegiance to the business providing the training. However, perception is often reality and the reality is that this is the rationale that many organisations give for their decision not to train.

2) Jobseeker education – jobseekers are often studying the things employers are not looking to hire. For example if everyone was studying French, but there were no jobs for French speakers, then naturally a so called ‘skills gap’ would exist. This is down to schools, colleges and universities putting on the right classes and courses to produce individuals with the skills that businesses want. For example in a city with a high concentration of manufacturing organisations, it would make sense for educational establishments to offer and promote courses in manufacturing. Where these have a vocational element instead of being purely academic, the education received would likely be seen as more valuable by businesses.

In an ideal world where businesses are willing to train and hiring from local educational establishments that are putting on the right courses – what can still go wrong?

To answer this question, I look back to when I was interviewing graduates to join my recruitment business as a trainee consultant. I wasn’t worried about bringing someone in with recruitment experience (my company would provide all of the training needed and more), but I had certain expectations.

I recall one candidate in particular, who I asked:

Why do you want to work for my business?

Her answer was:

Well you’re based in Nottingham.

Sadly and unsurprisingly this response met none of my expectations and the interview ended shortly afterwards.

She clearly didn’t really know what she wanted to do, hadn’t researched my business and didn’t know how to present herself properly at interview.

By contrast, the candidate I ultimately hired turned out not to be a graduate, but had off his own back secured two weeks worth of work experience in the recruitment industry. The way he approached me and communicated his experience and ambition left me with no doubt that I absolutely had to have him join my company, which I’m pleased to say he did.

The above example highlights the importance of the final but often overlooked element of the ‘skills gap’.

3) Employability skills – deciding what you want to do and running your own recruitment campaign to find the job you want is critical to finding success in the job market.

Career Codex is working with MMO UK and Learning Nexus to produce the most comprehensive video and eLearning product to tackle the employability ‘skills gap’. As students (and their parents) become more discerning in their decisions on where to study, more emphasis is being placed on employability outcomes.

Where schools, colleges and universities already have an employability offering in place our education is there to supplement and support. In addition through it’s availability on smartphones and tablets it will be easily available to students on the devices they use on a daily basis, to study and learn at a time convenient to them.

Most traditional careers and employability education starts with the CV. While a CV is important it’s not the most important thing. Career Codex recognises this and starts by giving a detailed explanation of how the job market really works, next comes jobseeker psychology, followed by planning and how to put together a ‘personal jobseeker plan’. This provides solid foundations, before the more traditional mechanics (presented in a totally different way) of finding job market success are introduced.

Filming is going really well and we’re back in the studio in early January to complete the project. For more information please contact Career Codex.

Lights, camera and action as Career Codex starts filming in MMO UK's studio.

Director Andrew Longhurst clarifies a point with Career Codex Founder, Simon Gray.

What was I supposed to be saying again?

For more information on Career Codex please visit the website career codex.co.uk