Bertina Ceccarelli is CEO of NPower, a national nonprofit, rooted in community and on a mission to advance equity in the tech industry.
A recent study by Harvard Business School and Accenture showed that 88% of employers believe that qualified, highly skilled candidates are overlooked in the hiring process because they do not fit the job description criteria, including the requirement for a college degree. LinkedIn estimates that the pool of available talent for many job postings would increase 20-fold if companies looked more carefully at skills versus pedigree.
As the CEO of a national nonprofit that provides free tech training to veterans and individuals from underrepresented communities to launch tech careers and advance economic mobility, my team and I are cautiously optimistic about these advancements in skill-based hiring.
I’m also aware that this progress might be disrupted by the emergence of AI-powered recruitment systems that, for the most part, focus on filtering and prioritizing candidates based on college degrees versus assessing a more holistic review of skills, education, EQ and other important factors necessary for career success. While I believe that AI will help many of us accomplish our missions more efficiently, I also see how the deep understanding of human-facing practitioners will, in turn, inform AI. This dichotomy is an important business and societal issue, and I’d like to share three insights that are helping me to reconcile it:
1. Change at massive scale will happen not because AI is the innovation but rather because AI is the enabler of human innovation and potential.
My organization’s instructor-led programs are predicated on a belief that building trusting, personal relationships grounded in empathy and compassion is quite possibly more important than the rigors of technical training. Through this experience, I’ve learned that people don’t want to be managed by tech-powered “systems”; they want to be seen as individuals—unique and full of potential. They want to be treated with respect and to know that there is a 100% commitment to supporting them on their own transition from what is often a low-wage job with limited opportunities for growth to a career that will open doors that they didn’t even know existed.
This is where I reconcile the need for deeply personal, trusting experiences in the work we do. If AI is the enabler of human innovation and potential, then your own team members can be unencumbered by their more routine, administrative tasks to focus on the essential elements of their jobs that directly connect them to the success of our students.
2. We can tap technology to build new systems that augment human connections and that help to make the exception to the rule: turning the anecdote of a life transformed by skills-based hiring into the norm.
There is plenty of data and collective wisdom to codify and model change that can transform the fixed, outdated practices and entrenched attitudes preventing some companies from tapping into a much larger talent pool. According to Deloitte, only one in five companies today have a consistent, organization-wide approach and commitment to skills-based hiring. The 20% that have made skills-based hiring a priority achieve better business results. These companies are 107% more likely to effectively place talent in the right positions; 98% more likely to retain top performers; 63% more likely to achieve business goals than companies that didn’t embrace skills-based hiring; and 52% more likely to innovate.
The individuals who are driving change in skills-based hiring can coexist, and even thrive, alongside technology solutions. It takes collaboration among key stakeholders—policymakers, business leaders, HR officers, nonprofits and higher ed—to create the new organizational formulas that tap the best of human potential, supported by AI.
This change takes courage, calculated risk-taking and an unwavering commitment to creating a culture where employees truly care about the success of those around them, regardless of background. These individuals can build and sustain a system that is inclusive of all talent and build a culture robust enough to serve as an operating system supporting the inputs and plug-ins of AI, of innovation and of change and excellence.
3. Leadership matters—especially now.
While it’s necessary to have CEO support for skills-based hiring, it’s far from sufficient. Not only must the chief human resources officer be supportive, but so do mid-level hiring managers across an organization. Without their complete buy-in, even the most sophisticated technology and well-devised programs will crash. It’s vital to identify champions on the front lines of hiring to pilot, test and endorse new systems that are challenging entrenched hiring practices—systems that blend the best of human connectivity and AI.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the first women editor of the Harvard Business Review, said that the “boundaryless organization” was one that excelled at forming partnerships—real relationships with suppliers, customers, investors—to expand far beyond their own limited capacities and to become industry leaders.
Today, the new boundaryless organization will leverage that same notion of deep partnerships with talent platforms and providers to outcompete their peers in attracting and retaining talent. I believe leaders in the new boundaryless organization will become highly adept at defining their own relationship to technology, providing clarity to their own teams on how technology can push the boundaries of internal capabilities.
The leaders who understand how to do this will be the winners. They’ll win with world-class teams where individuals are seen and respected, where trust prevails and where everyone has the opportunity to grow and contribute at their highest potential. They will create an environment where technology contributes to purpose, humility and humanity.
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