Is A ‘Skill Gap’ A Buzzword!!

Off late, most of the hiring panel use the ‘Skill gap’ during an exchange of conversation. It has developed as the most popular term of the decade for recruiters or anyone in the recruitment cult. There are discussions and debates on skill gaps. This is led to assessments and evaluation resulting in training and coaching programs. This snippet walks you through some basics of this phrase with corroboration and developmental plan so that you can avoid being falling to the gap of skills.

Well, What Exactly Is The Definition Of This Buzzword Skill Gap!

Simply put, it is the gap between what a prospective employer expects a new applicant or a prospective employee to possess for a sure fitment of the role they have. There is a set expectation according to the job description, but one who appears with the application for the job might not be able to display and prove their skills in all angles encompassing aptitude, technical, or self-presentation.

The accountancy and consulting firm PwC estimates that around one-third of companies have identified a shortage of suitably-skilled employees as a barrier to growth. This is the skill gap. Graduates now have higher qualifications but fewer ‘workplace skills’: in a nutshell, they know more, but can do less which includes soft skills too.

Practically a manager might complain – I have a fantastic team, but none understands to be best at client handling skills. Another team lead would complain – I need good engineers who understand at least fundamental programming and have good learn-ability skills. Their expectation of compensation is too high, I cannot substantiate to pay so much for a pretty wide skill gap.

While the industry has open positions and with no second thought, all organizations complain about not finding best-fit candidates. This being the issue right from developed countries spreading to India, Japan, and European countries too. While India records only having 7% of engineering graduates and a little more than 7% of MBA graduates who are equipped enough to get jobs, and this is indeed more than a startling number. And more alarming is the gap getting widened.

So, what is the common skill gap that industry complains about, in the same ranking as below: 

• Skill gap such as inadequate technical knowledge in line with academics
• Lack of problem-solving skills and approach methodology to analytical thinking.
• Poor communication skills, stability factors, and incapability to adapt to a new learning environment.

What Do We Do About It!

The story of Crecers exactly starts with this analysis of the skill gap. The first step is addressing the self-skill gap and analyzing what are we good at and comparing it with that of the Job that is being offered. There are several methodologies incorporating various rounds of hiring where the assessment needs to be done for an individual starting from aptitude, technical, or self-presentation.

The second step is to address those shortages. – There is a systematic approach for filling the shortages, and we use individual profiling to work on those areas with critical feedback. Finally, we need to think about self-presentation as a potential candidate for getting hired. – Starting from your individual profiling i.e. your resume, skill sets mentioned and how is it being substantiated followed by a face to face discussion during which technical adeptness, soft skills such as communication and confidence display, personality traits such as attitude, stability, teamwork are all examined.

Beware, each employer has set expectations, you can’t do anything about what other people believe on a general level. But you can do something about how you demonstrate that you can do the job. The best way to get a job then is to acquire those skills which others either lack to have or exhibit and then demonstrate to potential employers that you have done so.