No STARs talent strategy? You only have *half* a talent strategy.

Amidst an urgent need for talent, smart employers are starting to move on the most sustainable way to hire and grow more effective, engaged workforces: they “screen in” for skills, not “screen out” by pedigree.

Innovative companies are playing to win the talent game, future-proofing their talent strategies by adding STARs (the 70+ million U.S. workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes – rather than bachelor’s degrees) to their hiring plans, recognizing their skills that other companies miss.

STARs are half the U.S. workforce. Without a STARs talent strategy, you only have *half* a talent strategy.

In Opportunity@Work ’s Opportunity Wrap, Cheston McGuire and Leslie Heilbrunn highlight this sentiment, sharing ways top employers are working to “Tear the Paper Ceiling” ; an op-ed I co-authored with LinkedIn ‘s CEO Ryan Roslansky on how companies that truly prioritize skills (not pedigree or “who you know”) will have less “group-think,” more dynamic teams, and a readiness to adapt to what the future holds; and recent reporting on the job-training programs that are creating pathways to upward mobility for STARs, and the employers creating more opportunities for STARs.

• Talib Visram reports in Fast Company that “opportunities have long been slimmer for [STARs], but companies are increasing the practice of screening them out.” A new campaign from the Ad Council and Opportunity@Work – termed “Tear the Paper Ceiling” – creates a new vocabulary to discuss “the inequities that are holding back so many” STARs. https://lnkd.in/evcniyGG ?
• LinkedIn ’s Ryan Roslansky and Opportunity@Work ’s Byron Auguste write on CNN Business : “In this age of uncertainty, when companies prioritize skills (not degrees or “who you know”), they can build a more agile workforce,” and tap into “the 70 million workers who are skilled through alternative routes,” or STARs that have “gained experiences via many different routes.” buff.ly/3VqpQy6
• Steve Lohr reports in The New York Times on the promising results of organizations such as Merit America , NPower , Per Scholas , Project Quest , Pursuit , and Year Up with “established track records of lifting low-income Americans into jobs that can be ladders to the middle class,” and highlights employers like Accenture , Chevron , Google , IBM , LinkedIn , Walmart , and Workday who are “easing college degree requirements in hiring” to open doors to STARs. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/business/these-job-training-programs-work-and-may-show-others-the-way.html ?

Smart employers not only #HireSTARs , they take STARs’ potential seriously and invest in their advancement.?

In my interview with the WSJ ’s Lauren Weber and Theo Francis , I note that when bachelor’s degrees are used as a box-checking exercise, it unnecessarily places a barrier between skilled workers seeking better jobs and employers in need of their talents. For example, when employees are hired for entry-level roles from college, they are usually trained and intentionally developed for advancement – as they should be!?

Unfortunately,? when STARs are hired into entry-level roles, they are all-too-often trained *only* for safety, compliance, and efficiency – which is a mistake.? STARs miss out on opportunities and employers miss out on developing their own STARs talent pool. Beyond this insight, I highly recommend this thoughtful article , which highlights a new Burning Glass Institute “American Opportunity Index” – which attempts to rate the relative impact on economic opportunity of employment at the 250 largest U.S. public companies.?

There are more ways than ever to “screen in” talent with the skills you need. For a full talent strategy, which benefits from the myriad skills STARs, figure out which ways work best for your company.

All the best,

Byron