Employability: Do You Know How To Dance In The Digital Age?
David Shindler
Writer. Mainly. Coach. Often. Volunteer. Sometimes. Learning to Leap. Always.
I went to a networking event at a local university recently on employability in the digital age. One of the speakers talked about 'dancing with data'. It got me thinking about the dance in the social and digital age between higher education and students, HE and employers, students and graduates and employers. Here are some thoughts.
Dancing is a great metaphor for how well a relationship is in step with the tune that's playing. The music sets the mood and pace, and fires the inspiration. No two couples dance the same way, each interpret uniquely. What does that mean for HE, students and employers when it comes to developing employable graduates?
Darren Reed, an academic at York University, is part of Digital Creativity Labs, a 5-year ￡18 million collaborative project with 80 companies on the convergence of the digital and creative economies. He used ballroom dancing as a metaphor for a predicted move from Big Data to Intimate Data. Our relationship with data is often linked to our ability to analyse huge volumes for business insights and competitive advantages. However, our relationship with data at a personal level is also emerging. Examples include:
- Wearable tech like Fitbit and apps for health and wellbeing self-diagnosis and monitoring.
- How we perceive each other - take a look at Crystal, a way of getting clues as to someone's personality from data taken from their LinkedIn profile.
- The mundanity of iPhones today in public and private spaces. In Augsburg, Germany, they have put a traffic light system in the pavement for 'smombies' (a mashup of 'smartphone' users and 'zombies').
- Emergent creative digital products like data visualisation - here is Beethoven's 5th Symphony visualised as data!
- Employment and the creative economy (e-health, e-gov etc).
Clive Gibson, Head of Engineering at Sky Digital, explained how its Leeds office had expanded from 40-400 in the last 14 months. They recruit by tapping into 'tribes' (Google, Spotify etc). They are becoming less and less interested in the technology graduates have been trained in. It's more about behaviours and their impact. They want good engineers with the right behaviours and patterns to fit in to their agile, autonomous world and a cohesive team (age being irrelevant). They are not fussed if they don't have Java and are increasingly looking at people who wouldn't have considered a technical role - they run Boot Camps to upskill them. The challenge is to work with universities to find ways to embed those behaviours.
Charlotte Sweeney, from pioneering Creating Inclusive Cultures, identified the challenge of corporates being congruent around technology. For example. having a brilliant gamification recruitment process, but new hires unable to access Facebook and Twitter on arrival. She felt working differently with more agility is a culture issue.
Four questions jump out for me:
- How are employers involving young people's voices in informing their businesses? After all, it's their futures that are going to most affected.
- How is automation affecting how they do business now and in the future?
- What are the implications for the shape of graduates employers will need as a result?
- What does that mean for universities and employers in what and how they collaborate to deliver graduates better equipped for the changing world of work?
Keeping pace with exponential changes in technology is a challenge for us all. A specific challenge for higher education is keeping pace with employers' needs in an era of skills shortages. My view continues to be that developing young people's mindset, attitude and outlook is a priority over skills and knowledge. We will never lose the human element completely and I see coaching and mentoring becoming even more significant than it is today.
What are your views on any of the issues I've raised?
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David (@David_Shindler) is an independent coach, blogger and speaker, associate with several consultancies, founder of The Employability Hub (free resources for students and graduates), author of Learning to Leap: a guide to being more employable, Digital Bad Hair Days and co-author with Mark Babbitt of 21 Century Internships (200,000 downloads worldwide). His commitment and energy is in promoting lifelong personal and professional development and in tackling youth unemployment. He works with young people and professionals in education and business.
To read more of his work - visit the Learning to Leap blog and download the app to receive his weekly blogs on your mobile (iTunes and Google Play).
And check out his other published articles on LinkedIn:
New Career Opportunities In The Sharing And Gig Economies
New Graduate Hires: Why Managing Up Is Important
Work Readiness: Are You Lost in Translation?
Job Seekers: Test And Learn To Be A Game Changer
Career Adventures: Take A Walk On The Wild Side
Accountability, Productivity And Saving Lives
Being Human In The Artificial Age
The Unwritten Rules Of Graduate Employment
Healthy Job And Career Transitions
Solutions For Closing The Gap From Classroom To Career
The Multiplier Opportunity In The Generation Game
Culture: The Quantified Self And The Qualitative Self
Purposeful Leadership To Create The Life Of Meaning
The Uber Effect: Opportunities For Job Seekers And Employers
Hierarchies are tumbling as Social soars
The Emergence of the Holistic Student
New Graduates: Following Is A Rehearsal For Leading
How Redefining Success Helps You Succeed
Why Developing Yourself Is A Matter Of Life And Death
Generation Now: The Imperative Of Intercultural Skills
#If I Were 22: Choose Insight Before Hindsight
How To Align Talent, Careers and Performance
Liberating The Talents Of All Your Employees