Is the skills gap a myth in renewables?

While not everyone agrees on whether a skills gap actually exists, one thing is clear:

the renewable energy skills gap question is trending. Is it a myth or reality?

A quick scan of google and linkedin will garner these headlines.

"A significant green energy skills gap of around 200,000 workers is emerging that must be addressed if the UK is to meet its net-zero target, analysis suggests"

"By 2030, there will be a global shortage of seven million skilled workers required for climate and energy projects"

" The green skills gap is widening"

"Projects cancelled and delayed due to lack of personnel"

Still, employers say they have trouble finding competent renewable energy workers to fill the jobs. Businesses reported difficulty filling openings at all skill levels in 2023 and previous years. In some areas, companies are turning down business because they could not find the necessary workers.

It seems that, although we have enough people to fill the jobs, we don’t have the right people with the right skills for those jobs. Or do we?

Maybe it's because the way we advertise positions? Advertising is a game of pure luck in renewables and every other industry.

Companies place thousands of job adverts every year on job boards in hope they get the right candidate apply. Or even on there own websites waiting for that 1 person who fits the criteria.

Some companies advertise with the pay on the advert and don't get the right replies because the pay is too low. The length of rotations is sometimes an issue on the adverts also.

Add to that the amount of unqualified personnel that then apply, leaving an HR employee to go through maybe the first 30 CV's out of the 200 plus that applied. The rest of the applicants don't get even a look, chance or a reply and you may have missed the very person you were looking for.

In some cases I hear of adverts recieving of 1000 applications and the boss told the HR employee just pick 10 or 20. "Don't waste your time on the rest".

You see jobs getting readvertised after they had maybe hundreds of applications in round one also. Why? Did they just pick ten and needed another ten, was no one out of the 300 that applied suitable? not even 1.

Is the message between Ops / HR and recruitment consultants getting confused also, because I've seen so many cases of personnel arriving at pojects after getting an advertised job only to find out it's completely different at site than was previously advertised.

Add to all of that whereby some people do not read job adverts correctly, or even at all, and write interested or try to apply direct to the person positing rather than follow clearly marked instructions on how to apply.

Are candidates and the jobs advertised also like ships passing in the night where you simply do not see each other.

There is something disticntively wrong with this system of pure luck advertising and the lazy applicants who do not read correctly. It's a gamble for sure.

Yes, there is some software that will auto scan CVs looking for the keywords you give it and Ai is helping with this also. But at the end of the day a person has to spend long hours designing adverts, posting it at cost for 2 weeks to a month or longer waiting for replies, going through all that has been picked by the software. This all takes a lot of time.

People I know using these sytems for renewables hiring report its lengthy and still doesnt completely do whats required to do moving the company's projects forward in a timely manner.

How do we change this luck to certainty in renewables and beyond.

It's actually very easy!

A single global Talent pool for renewable energy and beyond.

One great thing about a global renewables talent pool is that both employers and employees benefit from a cross-pollination of skills, competencies, knowledge, available projects, availability and perspectives that span time zones and borders if they can see them in one place.

The multigenerational, multicultural renewables workforce is here to stay – bringing with it a broad range of skills that reflects the education and opportunities in each project location.

To fill a renewables skills gaps or myth, it’s easier than ever for employers to look beyond their immediate communities to find talent. The trouble is, everyone else is looking, too! The skills gap or myth isn’t simply a single country concern; other countries, too, are working harder to find and develop the skills they need or missed from luck based advertising.

Simply said, the need for skills and talent is universal. We all participate in a global renewables economy that broadly requires the same sets of highly desirable skills. When those skills are scarce or not even seen, you’ll likely face hefty competition for what’s there.

We can recruit better, using factual information going direct to the personnel you require in a single global talent pool instantly.

How?

Before you have even spent time getting your advert to your own website, a jobs board or an outside recruiter, you know what that candidate has to have in terms of skills and you know when and where you will need them.

At www.bhivelive.com we want to improve the renewables industry as a whole giving every company instant access to the global renewable energy talent pool flying straight through the skills gap or myth giving you all certainty in an instant. Likewise we want the worforce to know that they can be hired without bias based on their skills location and availability.

Being able to see those skills and talent year round, both internally and externally when you require them is going to be placing people in the correct postions over 85% fasterwithout the need to advertise.

We intend to save the renewables industry millions of personnel hours and money.

Conclusion

Skills gap or myth? Draw you own conclusions obviously by looking, reading, listening and learning about the renewables sector.

However, getting it right for a growing #renewables sector is what we at Bhivelive are pushing for.

We knew and have experienced the problems in hiring in renewables from the field to the office, so lets break with tradtion of advertsing jobs for weeks on end which is 70 plus years old.

Get rid of the long term game of luck by simply making sure the right people can be placed in the right postions instantly.

Enter the Hive. #Bhivelive