If you want to see a successful program of skills-based analysis connecting workers without college degrees to middle-skill careers, check out Skillful, a career guidance program currently underway in Colorado. This public-private venture from The Markle Foundation, LinkedIn, Microsoft and the state of Colorado takes mid-career workers without college degrees and puts them on the path to in-demand jobs in growth industries like advanced manufacturing, information technology and health care. Many jobs in these sectors are going unfilled and most of them do not require a college degree, just a well-written résumé highlighting training certificates and skills.
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Skillful uses the mid-career worker’s experience and puts it to work for them. A person’s education matters, but their work background and on-the-job training is what counts. The program’s career coaches use this information to identify areas where the worker can build their skills through training programs available to them in their state. More help is available from Skillful through résumé writing workshops and job interview counseling, which build the soft skills necessary for workers to place themselves back into the workforce. Skillful is also working with employers and offering a toolkit to enable them to perform more skills-based hiring. We at WorkingNation love this video from The Markle Foundation which explains Skillful’s mission in greater detail. The program’s success in Colorado is just the beginning and thanks to a large grant from Microsoft, the investment will enable Skillful to be scaled to more states. To find out more about Skillful, click here. For more on The Markle Foundation, click here. Join the Conversation: Take a look at the Skillful website and tell us what you think on our Facebook page.