We Know Why. We Know Who. Now, How?

Nothing concentrates the mind like necessity.

As employers scramble for skilled workers to meet the rising demands of the post pandemic economy, most now realize “the why” of expanding their sources of talent (hint: the US has 10.3 million open jobs, the highest on record). And employers who take data seriously in their talent strategies are also realizing “the who”: by whatever name, tapping into the talent pool of more than 70 million U.S. workers without bachelor’s degrees who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs) is vital to success.

So what about “the how” of reaching the right part of the STARs talent pool??Here, there’s not a single right answer, and each company, industry, and regional economy needs to find the mix that works best in their contexts and for their needs.?Just as STARs gain their skills in a wide variety of ways - in community college, partial college completion, military service, skills bootcamps, and on-the-job learning - employers will need to tap into their talents and #HireSTARs in a wide variety of ways.

Removing unnecessary degree barriers is the right first step. That’s when the work starts: finding good “signals” to “screen in” STARs with the right skills; working with inclusive talent developers, such as setting up Year Up,? Per Scholas, or Merit America; apprenticeship programs, which allow learning and earning to work in tandem; even using contract-to-hire or new models of outsourcing for upskilling and advancement shows promise.

As Cheston McGuire notes in Opportunity@Work’s latest Opportunity Wrap, in-demand fields like cybersecurity are reaching new sources of skilled talent to beat the “math mismatch” of their standard and narrow approaches, interest is growing in removing degree screens and adopting STARs-hiring as the State of Maryland has done with Opportunity@Work, and more companies are turning to apprenticeships to “mainstream” inclusive hiring.?

• In The Wall Street Journal, James Rundle and Kim S. Nash report on the cybersecurity field’s reckoning with its basic talent math: “The idea of considering candidates with nontraditional backgrounds is gaining traction for external hires, as well as existing employees.”? Among other insights, McDonald's Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Shaun Marion said “You won’t get all your talent from college,” adding, “Even if you could, I don’t know that I’d want to.” buff.ly/39aWa4t?
• Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s initiative to #HireSTARs continues to attract positive attention. Bridgette Gray, Chief Customer Officer at Opportunity@Work, spoke to Doug Lederman of Inside Higher Ed about how the partnership between Opportunity@Work and the State of Maryland is working, as well as opportunities for a much wider range of employers to remove pedigree barriers and tap into overlooked talent. buff.ly/38Yo17J
• There are many ways to mainstream inclusive, skills-based hiring. Rebecca Deczynski writes in Inc. Magazine about white-collar industries gravitating towards apprenticeships as a model: “some businesses say it's the future of entry-level employment.” Utilizing apprenticeships and skills-based hiring is a “huge cultural change for companies," says Jennifer Carlson, co-founder and executive director of Apprenti. buff.ly/37AIkI0

What do all these examples have in common?? They’ve all moved past “talking” and into “doing”. If you’re not sure how much STARs talent there is out there that’s relevant to your business or agency, the best way to find out is to look. “Screening out” makes you blind to the talent your business needs to deliver value for your customers. Find more talent, solve more problems, make more progress.

All the best,

Byron