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A new jobs dating app that matches people to jobs, based on skill
11 May 2022 HR Tech and Data Sponsored
Story by
Dr Kelly Neaves Chief Content Officer, Cognisess
We’ve all heard of the skills gap: “Nearly 9 out of 10 executives say they are facing a skills gap” McKinsey 2020 survey. But new evidence shows that “the skills gap” doesn’t even slightly do the crisis justice; we are now on the precipice of a skills abyss.
Choose the Skills Matrix from Cognisess on Vimeo.
What on earth does that mean and how do we survive the fall? The simple answer is that the skills gap can no longer be plugged, and we must all learn to live in a constantly evolving skills market.
Read on to find out how you can get the best out of skill in changing world, how to embrace human potential, and how to keep the people with the skills you need …
According to the 2021 Talent Trends Survey, most companies recognise that they do need to do something about the skills crisis but don’t know how. So here is a solution that might make the crucial difference between success and failure.
What skills do you need?
There is an ongoing debate about whether Soft Skills or Hard Skills are more important.
Step back 20 years and everything was about Hard Skills – the knowledge, qualifications, and technical skills you must have to do the job. Soft skills were seen as the weaker partner. Hence the name “Soft”.
Now the tables have turned, and everyone is talking about Soft Skills. According to the 2020 future of Jobs report, Soft Skills – such as critical thinking, problem-solving, resilience, flexibility, creativity, originality, initiative, and communication – are the top skill sets that global employers see rising in prominence in the run up to 2025.
There are now countless articles out there suggesting we should all be employing people based on their Soft Skills, not their Hard Skills.
But perhaps this isn’t a competition …
Perhaps the real magic lies in the interplay between both Soft and Hard Skills.
Some things in life go together. Like Gin and Tonic, Wine and Cheese, Unicorns and Glitter… Hard Skills and Soft Skills.
Enter the Skills Matrix
Ingredient One: Soft or Human Skills
From here on in am going to scrap the phrase “Soft Skills”, a far better description is “Human Skills”.
These Human Skills: – the skills that make us uniquely human and allow us to communicate, lead, and apply abstract thought – have always been much harder to quantify and measure than Hard Skills. Right from school, Hard Skills such as literacy and numeracy are systematically measured and graded. But empathy, and flexibility? Not so much.
But that is changing. With deeper understanding of psychology to ascertain behavioural preferences and machine learning to mine language and context; we can begin to evaluate “Human Skills”.
With robust psychometric and cognitive assessments, we can understand who has natural tendencies for things like critical thinking, resilience, and flexibility.
In addition to this, at Cognisess, we are using Artificial Intelligence to objectively analyse self-reports and interviews for relevant Human Skills experience.
Some people are already ahead of the game in this. Global giants Google and Amazon have, for some time, been predicting success by selecting people with key Human Skills such as learnability and problem solving.
Alongside Congnisess there are now, a growing number of organisations that offer psychological assessments and career matching based on Human Skills. But, although it is right that Human Skills have been given the status they deserve, that doesn’t get away from the fact that hard qualifications and knowledge are also vital requirements for many positions.
Ingredient Two: Hard Skills
If I am going for open heart surgery, it is vital my surgeon possesses Human Skills such as working under pressure, rapidly adapting to change, leading a team etc. But I also want them to have a robust medical degree and an up-to-date and in-depth knowledge of the latest surgical techniques.
So that’s easy – let’s simply look at their CV and check they have the right qualifications for the job.
Think again…
Because Hard Skills have always been easier to measure with qualifications and exams, they are often dismissed as being simply something that you can list on a CV. But the reality is that a list of qualifications gives little indication of how recently and frequently a skill might have been used. Given the choice of two surgeons with identical qualifications – one with 10 successful operations under her belt in the last year, and the other with only 2 – I know which one I’d choose.
When faced with thousands of candidates or an entire corporate workforce, ascertaining the quality of skillsets gets a lot more tricky.
The good news is that recent breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence, mean that it is now possible to measure the quality of skills at scale.
At Cognisess we have trained CogSkillsTM – our Artificial Intelligence – to turn the subjective language of skills into robust data.
CogSkillsTM can rate and map the quality and frequency of use, of thousands of skillsets. It can successfully match people to relevant jobs and rate the transferability of skillsets into new roles at scale.
Result: The Skills Matrix
If we put all of this together – Hard Skills, Human Skills, Skills Quality, Skills Frequency, Skills Experience, Skills Transferability, Skills Potential, Skills Preferences…
We end up with a revolutionised Skills Matrix.
This powerful matrix is where the magic happens.
It provides a way of truly understanding the complete skillset of any individual, team, or an entire organisation.
Layer on an understanding of cognition and personality and you have a complete holistic approach to people management that leads to successful, happy, equitable, adaptable, and futureproof workforces.
At Cognisess we measure everything you need to know about people in one easy to use place. A fun but insightful application for matching people to jobs at scale.
We provide game-based assessments that evaluate all vital aspects of skill, personality, cognition, emotion, behaviour, values, culture, and knowledge.
Over 60 people focused games and assessments.
Measuring over 120 attributes of human success.
Creating millions of insightful datapoints.
We can assess your entire workforce or candidate pool in just a matter of hours giving you the flexibility to adapt to a constantly evolving jobs market; all at a price that is affordable to all.
Our mission is to democratise human skill and unleash everyone’s true potential.
The idea of a “Skills Abyss” might sound terrifying and, many companies are likely to fail as the world rapidly changes. But I for one see this as an exciting opportunity to discover the true potential of humanity. If we adapt and bravely dive into the skills abyss, I hope those that succeed will emerge to a liberating new era of human work, where people are fulfilled, and we value all the human qualities.
Get in touch with Cognisess to find out more.