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Conventional wisdom is that the sure-fire way to land your dream job is by earning a four-year college degree. But the reality is that many of the rewarding and well-paying jobs today do not require a university degree at all.

I’m talking about jobs in technology, healthcare, communications, infrastructure, pharma, customer service, even fintech and government services. Many of these demand skills that can be acquired in far less time and for far less money than a college degree. Apprenticeships, certification programs, and online learning platforms allow you to learn new skills affordably, or in many cases completely free. You can focus on skills that are tailored to your specific career goals, whether you’re looking for your very first job or embarking on a career change at any stage in life.

Here is how can you land your dream job in 2021, with or without a college degree.

Do Your Research, Tap Your Networks

Research different occupations and the pathways to get there. If you’re unsure which career you want to get into, explore jobs in one of these six industries that humans will always need: education, health, shelter, energy, entertainment, and food. Look at industries that serve these, such as the way that transport serves the food industry, and how telecommunications serves entertainment.

Take stock of what skills you have and determine what new skills you need to pursue your chosen path. Consider modern apprenticeships. They’re a great way to combine work and study, and can present opportunities for further applicable education.

Keep close to your existing networks and develop new ones. Let people know you’re looking for work or considering a career change. Communication is key. Make and refresh connections with people and companies you’re interested in.

Craft a Plan, Stay Nimble

Be aware that the business model of your chosen industry is likely to change over the next 12 months. Find out what skills and capabilities will be required during this transition and how you can adapt accordingly.

Digital skills will be crucial: Covid-19 has expedited the move towards technology- enabled, remote delivery of services. To keep up, workers need to upgrade digital literacy skills and master the digital platforms used by their company.

Find out what skills you will need to acquire or upgrade for your chosen path — and make a plan to do it. Sites like Udemy, Khan Academy, Udacity, Coursera, and EdX (to name a few) offer a dizzying array of free and low-cost courses you can do from home, some of which come with certifications.

Always be nimble. Flexibility and adaptability have never been more important, no matter the job or industry. Periodically reassess your plan, take on feedback, and keep a watching brief on your chosen industry or career. Adjust your strategy with the times.

Make It Easy for Them to Hire You

Help time-pressured managers to make an instinctive hiring decision by reading the criteria thoroughly and responding directly to the employer’s needs in your application or cover letter. Create a skill-based resume and customize it for the job you are seeking.

Be persistent. Many companies are overwhelmed. Don’t just wait by the phone for them to call you back. Instead do a quick call within the week to make sure your application was received.

Prepare for online interviews and meetings by practicing in advance. Make sure you have proper lighting and a neutral background with no interruptions. Do practice interviews with a friend to get comfortable conveying eye contact and presenting yourself well through the medium of your camera lens.

Some tips on keeping the job once you get it:

• Choose a better response when things get tough. When receiving difficult feedback or struggling with a new challenge, find opportunities to improve and seek out help where you can rather than going on the defensive.
• Note the highlights in each day and week for you. Keeping focused on the positive will help you stay motivated to respond better in more challenging moments.
• Try to achieve more each day than you did the day before. Instead of resting on your laurels or doing the minimum required, look for opportunities to be a bit more productive or bring something new to the table every day. Continue pushing your growth edges.
• Know your limitations and boundaries. Be realistic in your expectations of yourself rather than struggling to over-achieve.
• Remember the value of your soft skills. Your value at work is not limited to your technical, job-specific skills. Far more than that, your employer and colleagues will appreciate your self-presentation, punctuality, enthusiasm, strong work ethic, co-operation, humility, and resourcefulness.
• Find humor in your work.
• Be willing to help others and be accountable. Being a strong team member and good collaborator is valued in every organization.

Jobs without people. People without jobs. Employers know about the mismatch between the skills they need and the skills workers have. To address such gaps and prepare individuals to meet sophisticated talent needs, more organizations are implementing apprenticeships.

Whether your company already has an apprenticeship program or is contemplating one, here’s what you should consider to ensure you and your people get the most out of apprenticeships.

The Modern Apprenticeship
Modern apprenticeships are a powerful option for recent high-school graduates, college grads, military veterans, and workers seeking a new start. They’re available in a broad range of 21st-century industries and occupations, from cybersecurity, healthcare, and data analytics to hospitality management, green sciences, engineering, and advanced manufacturing. (Check this official list of approved occupations for registered apprenticeships.)

Key components of modern apprenticeships include customized, supervised, and paid on-the-job training at reduced or no cost, as well as wages graduated in step with skills gained during training. Programs also vary in length depending on the employer and industry. Detailed work-based training components are determined by the employer or industry sponsors, and apprentices advance based on achieved competencies. Moreover, many workers who complete apprenticeships earn a nationally recognized qualification.

For example, Interapt, a software design and development company based in Louisville, Ky., is running a program called Interapt Skills. The program’s apprentices include career-changers, veterans, displaced workers, and recent high-school and college graduates.

Interapt CEO Ankur Gopal explains that his company “recruits and hires software engineers, but it was difficult to draw senior-level people here. And because we’re a cutting-edge business in the service industry, college grads weren’t meeting our needs. They had lots of theoretical knowledge, but lack experience and skills in the latest software development tools.”

The apprenticeship program, however, helps provide a supply of talent by blending classroom and on-the-job training with a strong mentorship component.

Getting Started
An apprenticeship program should not be a one-size-fits-all proposition. Still, some steps in creating are fundamental:

1. Identify the occupation in which you’re looking to create an apprenticeship.
2. Assign an internal team, including people from direct service, middle management, and leadership, to develop and roll out the program.
3. Work with external partners, like community colleges, high schools, civic and nonprofit groups, and state apprenticeship organizations.
4. Outline the qualifications that candidates should possess.
5. Determine core competencies and skills you’d like to develop in your talent.
6. Identify mentors and coaches.
7. Create on-the-job training goals (performance measures) and related curricula.
8. Determine type of training and scalable wage schedules.
9. Set up marketing and recruitment strategies.
10. Develop ongoing monitoring, evaluation, and improvement processes based on feedback and outcomes.

It might sound like a lot for an employer to create a customized program from scratch, but a faster-track option would be to get some technical assistance. Many organizations, such as the Urban Institute, help schools, employers, and other stakeholders start and expand registered youth apprenticeship programs. Some also provide modest funding to help employers offset training and creation costs.

Meanwhile, the American Association of Community Colleges and the Department of Labor have set up a $20M partnership to create a revamped network of apprenticeships over the next few years. (Still, we need more employers to take up the challenge, join the job skills revolution, and create more apprenticeships.)

Gopal also suggests making sure that you do an early skills test when you induct apprentices. That way, you’ve got a context for the amount of work they have to do to get up to speed. He additionally encourages employers to be transparent with apprentices from Day One about which skills they need to master and when they can advance up the pay scale.

“Consider having mentors on the team and plan for how they will be checking in with the apprentices,” Gopal recommends. “Also make sure you involve apprentices throughout the process, and give them exposure to discussions that they might not otherwise be invited to.”

Two years since Interapt launched its apprenticeship program, more than 40 companies — including Humana, Ernst & Young, and GE Appliances — have signed the program’s graduates. In other words, proof that apprenticeships can be a powerful match of skills and opportunities to move the economy forward.

Article by Nicholas Wyman.

Original Posting:

Apprenticeships That Bridge Skills Gaps

Upwork, the globe’s largest remote talent platform, posts three million jobs and transacts $1 billion of work each year. It recently released Freelance Forward 2020: The U.S. Independent Workforce Report, based on insights from 6,000 U.S. workers about the impact of COVID-19. It shows that 12% of the workforce started freelancing during the pandemic for the first time.

All up, 59 million people are freelancing – that’s more than a third of our total workforce. Some 36% of them freelance full time, which is eight percent up on last year. For those who left a job to freelance, only a quarter are making less income than previously. Half of freelancers are highly skilled, offering services such as computer programming, marketing, IT and business consulting, etc. And it’s not just Millennials who freelance. Half of Gen Z, 44% of Millennials, 30% of Gen X, and 26% of Boomers choose freelancing. 

Freelance gigs obtained through global online job platforms often get a bad rap. Some say such platforms recall disadvantaged workers in developing countries eking out a paltry living as a virtual assistant, software developer, or social media content writer, for example. Others say a job through this type of platform is simply a race to the bottom when it comes to potential earnings. But this isn’t always the case – global online job platforms have proven to be useful, as many people use such platforms to posttasks, projects, and even ongoing part-time or permanent roles. The key for freelancers is learning how to navigate these sites and present themselves attractively to those hiring, while the key for employers and recruiter is to comb through a multitude of candidates and effectively identify qualified freelancers with the exact skills they are looking for.

One entrepreneur looking to hire skills told me how she found it particularly helpful when pivoting and scaling up her business. There is no question, the ability to tap into a global talent pool at will, plus name your price and deadline, is desirable to many.

Some platforms, such as Upwork, claim it takes an average of three days to hire because the employer has a job, knows what they need, and are ready to hire now. (There are alternatives such as this site lists, too). 

If you’re a professional looking for a side hustle through to ongoing work and everything in between, your profile on an online jobs platform may well be a standout. That’s if they accept your application – it can be competitive, particularly in some categories, so the more niched you are, the better. These are the skills that earn an average of $200 or more per hour on Upwork: legal entity structure, blackline, bitcoin, international accounting standards, and software licensing.

As a little-known Indian entrepreneur, Venkatesh Rao writes on his blog, The Art of Gig; there’s an assumption out there that people shouldn’t have to work more than one full-time job to earn a living. That’s a perspective of a “one-person-one-job world.” But how many Americans have had to take second jobs to make ends meet or maybe take on a mix of casual and part-time roles?

Rao continues: “The idea of someone who works more than one job out of choice, who is a small-scale, capitalist who owns at least a small piece of the means of production (a laptop, a car, a guitar), who wants to play with risk-and-return decisions, whether they involve record deals, viral blog posts, or pricing surges on rideshare, is deeply threatening to how traditional labor politicians build and exploit a base of political power.”

What policies are needed for the gig economy?

You guessed right if you thought he was writing about the anti-freelancing law that came into effect on 1 January in California. It reclassified freelance worker as employment, so they get the same benefits as ‘regular’ workers. It’s still contentious and doesn’t embrace the future of work. Gigs are part of that.

What are the benefits of sites like Upwork for freelancers?

Upwork is a window into the future of work. It contrasts with job boards that just advertise vacancies – or supposed vacancies where companies are only building a register of possible candidates when one does come up. To advertise on Upwork, the employer deposits funds into Escrow to show they’ve got the funds – if they don’t, the freelancer is notified, so might think twice about applying for the job. 

Even the way you apply for jobs is next generation. Successful proposals don’t start with how many years’ experience and name dropping your previous employers; instead, you jump straight in with how you’d tackle the task and what you’d need to do so. Perhaps you upload some evidence of similar work you’ve done. It’s like you’re interviewing them about the opportunity. It’s a mind shift. 

One freelancer selling skills told me about a year ago Upwork started charging a nominal and sliding fee to bid for jobs depending on their duration and hours. It’s a quirk that seems strange on the surface – why should a job hunter pay to apply for a job? However, Upwork explained its reasoning – it introduced the charge to help employers who had been inundated with irrelevant bids. By the way, employers don’t pay freelancers’ holiday pay or health insurance. But, it’s assumed the freelancers absorb these costs in the fee, which they raise over time as they complete jobs successfully and see their ratings rise, too. If there are any communication, work quality, or other issues, the job platform usually steps in to arbitrate, but their business proposition appears to favor supporting employers over freelancers.

Online job platforms are a different way of working and built for our times. Even when our workplaces, schools, and international borders might be closed here and there around the globe, this is one example of the future of work happening right now.

Article by Nicholas Wyman.

Pods need not always be about physical space

By Nicholas Wyman.

Mention heutagogy, and there will be blank stares. It’s an approach that celebrates self-directed lifelong learning skills and is a good fit for workplaces. The term was coined some two decades ago.

It’s not necessarily a solo activity, either. Learning hooks into social and emotional domains and is a skill one needs to keep sharp and finesse. 

The World Bank has been on about lifelong learning’s crucial role for the global knowledge economy for 25 years. It’s become increasingly essential for creating and retaining knowledge to survive in our 21st-century globalized world. 

Heutagogy highlights learners as independent, but more so interdependent. Researcher Linda Orwin talks about it building each person’s capability so they know how to learn, use creativity to apply their skills in novel and familiar situations, believe they’ve got the skills to tackle future challenges, and work well with others.

It approaches learning on two levels: acquiring knowledge and skills or competencies as well as deeper learning driven by the learner’s needs and motivation. As one of the early writers in this space says, heutagogy is about the questions that the learning experience raises rather than just providing answers.

So, what’s the focus of that learning?

Orwin, whose table comparing pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy continues to do the rounds online, explains: “[They] can go beyond problem solving by enabling pro-activity. Learners use their own and others’ experiences and internal processes such as reflection, environmental scanning, experience, interaction with others and proactive as well as problem-solving behaviours.”

Aren’t these fundamental skills needed for work?

Heutagogy can manifest in the workplace through the form of learning pods — yes, styled on those springing up across the nation due to pandemic-induced school shutdowns. Usually, three to 10 students gather in-person in one of their homes or some other learning space with a tutor/teacher to guide their learning. Pods offer learners social and emotional support they get from learning with their peers. 

Why should school-age kids have all the fun? 

Reframing workplaces as “sites of learning” and “communities of practices” means the hard slog of just a job takes on quite a different perspective. In these heutagogical learning pods, supervisors and managers are problem-solvers, trouble shooters and general consultants. Workers are neither passive nor dependent on the boss. Instead, as learners, they build competence and independence in their roles. No, it’s not about innovations in individual work pods that COVID-19 has prompted.

In the workplace, such pods can spring up based on specific projects, problems, tasks, even learning programs. They can be in-person or online, so they’re technology agnostic. Staff don’t have to be “in the pod” for their full workday — they can move fluidly from different pods as their work needs change throughout the day, for instance. The workplace makes that call.

Learning pods aren’t just a group of people collaborating, but one where everyone embraces and upskills with a focus on a particular project/problem. A facilitator (team leader or manager) mentors pod members to develop and refine the skills Orwin mentions above. That’s an important point about the facilitator: Staff need modelling, guiding and training on how to become self-directed learners. That means structure — organizational protocols and processes — is needed, so staff know what to do and how to do it. 

Otherwise, the staff will go back to their old ways. That’s much like schoolteachers who work in innovative learning environments with movable furniture and flexible floor plans. Without training, they stick to their comfort zone of traditional practices. Consider integrating the training on how to work within a pod actually within a learning pod — learning while doing, if you like.

To use an example, if staff need to tackle a unit of e-learning, why sit them at their own computers in silence to self-pace through the standard digital textbook sprinkled with the occasional video link? Help them bring that learning process to life by encouraging them to bounce their knowledge off each other — actively using it, talking about it, making it their own so that knowledge sticks. Bring a mobile learning app into play as well with online quizzes for spaced learning (which beats the recognized phenomenon known as the “Forgetting Curve”) plus a leader board to inject a bit of competition.

Learning pods are part of a teaching movement called “Genius Hour” (Google sparked this so its engineers could spend 20% of their time on passion projects), professional development, a tribe of learners and good ol’ just getting down to do the work. There’s a lot of promise there as a good fit with the future of work, wherever it might be.  

Nicholas Wyman is a future work expert, author, speaker and president of IWSI America (Institute for Workplace Skills and Innovation).