The current labor market is plagued by a major skills mismatch, with workers either over- or under-qualified for their positions and in sectors that don’t match their skill sets.
A skills gap has developed due to a combination of factors, including an aging workforce, a wide range of educational attainment, and a pool of applicants from various backgrounds. Hiring the wrong individuals for a position is easy for various reasons, such as leaving out essential requirements, misreading resumes, or relying too much on an employee’s past performance.
As a result, businesses need to appropriately evaluate individuals’ talents, as skill mismatches are proving to be quite expensive.
What exactly is a skills mismatch?
A skill mismatch occurs when an employee or applicant does not possess the necessary abilities to properly complete the duties of their position. When an employee lacks the skills necessary to do their job effectively or has abilities that surpass what is required, a skills mismatch occurs. And it may cause employees to worry about their futures in terms of employment, advancement, and pay, which can reduce productivity, lower quality output, and reduce revenue.
When employees need more expertise for their jobs, it may significantly impact productivity in the workplace.
According to a poll by Adecco, 92% of American CEOs believe that their staff members lack the necessary skills to do their duties.
Around a third of businesses are confident they have the right people on staff to successfully implement digital transformation.
In addition, a LinkedIn survey found that 59% of HR professionals need help locating and hiring candidates with strong, soft skills.
How can a skill mismatch occur?
Skill mismatches can arise for many reasons, including a lack of an efficient method of assessing skills, an inaccurate estimate of the skills needed to do a job, difficulty in articulating the competencies you require in your hiring criteria, a dwindling talent pool, and a lack of time and resources. Some of the most frequent are…
Vacant job postings that fail to include required skills
When a job’s qualifications aren’t reflected in its posting, qualified applicants who lack certain necessary abilities may nevertheless apply and be hired. Then you’re stuck with an employee that needs help to do their job properly and may need to replace them shortly.
Problems with the recruiting procedure
Skill mismatches may be caused by several flaws in your recruiting process, such as poor communication with the HR department, an incomplete understanding of the set of skills needed to fulfill the requirements of a function, or an absence of tools to adequately assess applicants’ skill level using situational questions, simulations, and other methods. Skills testing, which may provide a more accurate approach to evaluate a candidate’s ability to accomplish tasks and find skills matches than depending on higher school degrees, is often overlooked in the recruiting process.
Someone at work has become complacent and has lost touch with their abilities.
A mismatch might occur if a person has the theoretical ability to do the job but is either out of practice or is used to doing the tasks at hand with outdated equipment. Retraining them to use modern tools and methods may be necessary. There is a skills gap in specialized areas, and workers in such fields may need to retrain via traditional educational channels or online courses to keep up with the times.
If several highly trained people retire at once, it might leave a generational knowledge gap. This is especially problematic in highly specialized specialty businesses where years of experience are priceless on the job market.
Hiring for new technologies
Recruiting for a position requiring someone to learn how to use brand-new technology might be challenging if you can’t pinpoint the skillset of a labor market candidate with a good chance of success in this endeavor. It may be challenging for businesses to meet the need for easy access to qualified people who are open to learning new technologies and are capable of creative, innovative thinking.
Hiring from a limited pool of applicants
A mismatch may be unavoidable if the pool of available workers with certain skills and talents is always limited. This may be the case for companies catering to a narrow subset of the population, whose contributions are nevertheless essential to that market. Employers have a systemic challenge in encouraging people to pursue the credentials or some skills training program to build the capacity to accomplish those tasks and satisfy that demand.
