2020 has been globally a challenging year. In a few months, we have found ourselves tackling a pandemic that led to a global economic crisis. Within a short time frame, the world has been disrupted including the jobs of millions.
Throughout this pandemic, it became evident that digital skills are majorly needed for a successful economic recovery.
The Global Skills Initiative’s Outcome
On June 30, 2020, Microsoft launched the global skills initiative as a response to the economic crisis. Through this program, they will ease the access to digital skills. People who were hit mostly by the crisis will be the main focus. This includes underrepresented minorities, women and those with lower incomes .
With a partnership with Linkedin, they designed this initiative to help 25 million people worldwide acquire digital skills by the end of the year.
Three months later, Microsoft and Linkedin announced over 10 million new learners around the globe.
Commitment to Help Job Seekers
Unrestricted cash grants of $100K/year for three years
Last month, Microsoft also launched its community skills grant program. It is targeting Black- and African American-led nonprofits working to increase digital skills and economic opportunities.
Microsoft will assist those most impacted by the effects of the global pandemic. An unrestricted cash grants of $100K/year for three years will be offered to 50 nonprofits in the U.S. They are also collaborating with nonprofits such as Goodwill and Upwardly Global to share learning resources with their communities.
We used our Economic Graph to identify 10 jobs that are in-demand in today’s economy and well positioned to continue to grow in the future.
Linkedin has the possibility to digitally map over 11M job listings and 706M professionals. It also includes 55M companies, 90k schools and 36K skills using the LinkedIn Economic Graph.
With this data, they are able to spot trends such as emerging jobs, global hiring patterns and in-demand skills.
Ryan Roslansky, CEO of Linkedin said: “We used our Economic Graph to identify 10 jobs that are in-demand in today’s economy and well positioned to continue to grow in the future.”
They filtered jobs based on 3 criteria:
- obtainable without a 4 year degree.
- pay a livable wage.
- successfully reskilled for online.
” To help those looking for a new opportunity, we made LinkedIn Learning Paths aligned with these jobs available to everyone for free.” says Ryan.
Helping Job Seekers Land the Job
#OpenToWork
The new feature “Open to Work” was recently launched by Linkedin. It exploits the power of the LinkedIn community to support the significant unemployed population. To date, two million people have used the simple green profile photo frame. This led those members to receiving 20% more messages from their community and 40% more recruiter InMails.
Interview Prep
They are offering free interview prep tools. It comprises of a feature leveraging Microsoft-AI for real-time feedback on the interviewee’s answers. Feedback on filler words the interviewee may use, speech patterns and other tips to improve common answers.
More information about the Global Initiative and how to be part of it are on the announcements made by Ryan Rolanski, CEO of Linkedin and Brad Smith, president of Microsoft.
