How a Skills-Based Learning Model Could Revolutionize Higher

While it feels in many ways like the world has started to spin again, some of the changes and trends that the global pandemic helped accelerate may be here to stay for good.One such trend that’s particularly interesting for us at LinkedIn is the rise in demand for skills-based learning — where professionals can “upskill” or even “re-skill” online to become a more attractive candidate — and how educators across the board are adjusting to the shift.At LinkedIn, our mission is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. We see this shift towards skills-based learning as a crucial part of fulfilling that mission.In recent interviews, LinkedIn Co-Founder and VP of Product Management Allen Blue and LinkedIn Chief Economist Karin Kimbrough discussed the factors influencing this change, what it could mean for educators, employees, and employers as well, and why skills-based learning matters so much for the future of the workforce.Syncing Educators and Professional Goals


If the focus is on acquiring the right skills for people to Phone Number List pursue a career or even change in mid-stream, how can they go about acquiring these skills? Allen sees an opportunity for learning institutions and business to work together. “We imagine a world where we can identify a skills gap and put the employer and educator directly in touch with each other,” he says.For educators, this type of collaboration could mean re-imagining a traditional degree path. “Educators should begin to represent the types of skills that folks are walking away from their programs with,” Allen advises. “It will be a competitive advantage for schools to talk about the kind of skills they’ve prepared their students with, on a more granular level than they have in the past.” For example, instead of, “This course will grant you an MBA in Hospitality,” it might be, “This course will grant you an MBA in Hospitality, which certifies that you are trained in these five specific skill areas.”





Education and employment can come together on the other side of the equation, too. A business could use a training class and assessment to qualify candidates and better ensure the skill sets are a good fit. For example, Allen points out, “I could post a job and say, ‘I want to hire new customer service reps, but I’m not going to hire solely on previous experience and skills.’ I would ask them to complete learning paths on LinkedIn and take an assessment, and if you pass the assessment, you get an interview.”It’s easy to see how the scenario above offers advantages for employees and employers alike. Employees can gain new access to opportunities and consideration for positions that they might lack the traditional pedigree to land an interview for. And employers can be sure they’re hiring folks who can do the job.To make this type of hiring possible, however, “We need solutions [for training and assessment] that are flexible. We need to include the lifelong learning approach, too,” Karin says. What’s more, “Proof of having these skills needs to be portable and transparent,” available for employees to take with them as they change roles.