Companies can expand their pool of candidates, particularly in-house candidates, by looking for "skill adjacencies," which are skills and talents that can easily cross over. Some HR departments are using machine learning to determine skill adjacencies and others are loosening job qualifications.
There are ways to stand out to a recruiter or hiring manager, including being creative in your cover letter, sending a video message, attending an online event, or passing along a favor. "I got a simple email from a job seeker who heard me speak at a virtual event recently and had come across an interesting article built on a topic I'd spoken about. That article was exactly what I needed for a presentation I was building," says Ro Kalonaros of Omnicom.
5 Ways to Hire Like It’s 2021 We dug deep to learn what job seekers want from an employer for 2021. While there are more candidates seeking work, there's also more competition among businesses for the most qualified people. Get the leading edge with this free guide.
Just like software has shifted from physical installations to cloud-based subscriptions, think about how career development programs can become more agile, fluid and helpful this year, writes Julie Winkle Giulioni. "Send a clear message about the importance of career development by making it a standing agenda item during every team meeting," she writes.
The Census Bureau will release data next week that shows 7.8% of Americans hold more than one job. "These new statistics tell us that multiple jobholding is more important in the U.S. economy than realized," the bureau said.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell urges a "societywide commitment" to get Americans back to work and achieve maximum employment. Powell has reiterated a need for aggressive fiscal support and says the Fed won't depart from low interest rates and large-scale asset purchases for the foreseeable future, noting there is little chance the central bank will "even think about withdrawing policy support."
Forty-four percent of US workers aren't aware of their company's back-to-office plans, up from 37% in September, according to a survey by The Conference Board. Employers are hesitating to commit to return dates because of the vaccine rollout and COVID-19 variants, but Labor Day is emerging as a popular goal among many companies to coincide with the start of the next school year.
With a polar vortex freezing much of the US, this piece does a great job of explaining the science behind this weather phenomenon. "The polar vortex does influence winter weather, but it is more like a domino: when it is knocked over, it can start a chain of events that later result in wild weather," write researchers Zachary Lawrence and Amy Butler.
