upskilling – Talent500 Blog

7 best career development websites

Posted on July 20, 2022 by satish

With so many career development websites, it is hard to decide which ones to trust. Good career websites are challenging to find, and this post will guide you towards making significant career advancements with resources you can trust.

Our experts evaluated dozens of websites and picked the ones that can help you with your next career move.

Talent500

If career development is on your mind, we can significantly accelerate your career growth! Talent500 is a platform that industry leaders at some of the largest enterprises and Fortune500 companies trust to hire top talent.

Working in such proximity to employers, HR managers and candidates gives us the advantage of creating unique resources to help candidates advance in their careers. We help candidates upskill through courses from some of the world’s most prestigious universities like Stanford, IITs, and MIT. Talent500 also utilizes AI to match candidates with ideal premium jobs. If you are ready to take a career-defined leap, join our platform and get immediate access to resources that will help you stay ahead in the job market!

Indeed

Apart from job postings, Indeed can help you advance in your career. There is a dedicated Career Advice section on the website with valuable resources to learn about recent trends in job markets, essential skills requirements, career advancement guides, and more. If we talk about new career opportunities, Indeed has unmatched dominance, with ten new job vacancies posted on the site every second on average. You can also search company profiles and read employer reviews before accepting a job offer.

Big Interview

If you aspire to have a career at some of the largest enterprises across the globe, you need to know how interviews are done. Extensive interviews can help you with exactly that by offering online interview tutorials. The platform was co-founded by career coach Pamela Skillings, who worked with Fortune500 companies like Citigroup, MasterCard International, and Morgan Stanley. Candidates get access to on-screen mock interviews to learn how it will feel when they face the interviewers. It is one of the best career development sites to learn how to tackle the different levels of an interview process without getting overwhelmed.

CareerAddict

CareerAddict has established itself as a reliable resource for everything related to career advancement and upskilling. It is on this list among the best career development sites because of the first-hand insights about careers and industry it offers directly from experts and professionals. The site has elaborate sections on CV writing, career tests, and a massive collection of video tutorials on various career growth topics. CareerAddict also provides career assessment services through its platform, CareerHunter. It can help candidates discover their strengths and weaknesses as a professional to be better at what they do.

Whether you want guidance about your next career move or are looking for resources to kickstart your job, you can rely on CareerAddict to serve you well.

Opportunity

Best career development websites are not essentially the ones that provide learning resources, upskilling courses, or career advice. Networking sites like Opportunity can also be an essential game-changer in your career growth. When you join Opportunity, you become part of a platform that uses AI and machine learning algorithms. This further helps you meet other people who can add value to your career progress. Unlike other networking websites, when you are on Opportunity, you spend less time searching and more time connecting to people who matter.

You can start with their free webinar to learn how to use the platform to get the most valuable connections from the beginning.

Ask a Manager

It is the best career development site for people working in a management position or someone who wants to join the management domain. Founded by the former chief of staff, Alison Green, Ask a Manager is a unique website that provides an up and close look into the working life of a multitasking manager. It provides resources on how candidates can be better managers and help their team grow and overcome challenges. When you are progressing in your role to a management position, this site can help.

CareerFoundry

Not just a catchy name, but CareerFoundry is simply one of the best career development websites for IT candidates. It uses specialized technology and online courses to help students and job seekers attain the skill sets that prepare them for career advancement in UI/UX design, web development, data analytics, and backend development. If you are a developer, you can significantly benefit by joining CareerFoundry. It provides you access to career specialists, education experts, tutors, and mentors to help you through your career advancement journey.

Conclusion

Career advancement must always be a planned decision rather than an impulse. You can get all the valuable career advice you need to progress through the above-listed career development websites. These are the best career development websites for interview preparation, job search, learning skills, and keeping updated with the latest industry trends.

5 Benefits of artificial intelligence in the workplace

Posted on April 11, 2022April 11, 2022 by temp

Artificial intelligence (AI) statistics from a recent survey show that 91% top businesses surveyed have an ongoing investment in AI. AI is now a part of our everyday lives, more than we may sometimes realize; AI solutions are changing almost every aspect of our lives, and this extends well into the workplace as well. In 2015, just 10% of organizations reported that they either already used AI technology or would be doing so in the near future. In 2019, that number rose to 37%, which means that more than one in three organizations are either using AI or had plans to (Gartner, 2019).

Businesses take up AI technology to increase employee and process efficiency, reduce operational costs, grow revenue, and improve customer experience. In recruiting, AI technology has made it possible to almost entirely automate the process, from finding right-fit candidates to onboarding, the role of AI is beneficial.

Here are the top five benefits of AI in the workplace.

Simplifies the recruitment process

96% of senior HR professionals believe AI has the potential to greatly enhance talent acquisition and retention. A recent study found that 46% of companies struggle with finding and attracting the right candidates for their open positions. Hiring skilled talent can be daunting, expensive, and sometimes, even frustrating. HR departments across industries are tasked with going through piles of job applications for vacancies across the organization. But given that 100% of candidate sourcing and matching can now be automated, this makes the candidate scanning process so much faster and easier. The bottom line is that AI speeds up the entire recruitment process by eliminating the need for manual tasks thereby making a recruiter more productive.

Increases productivity

61% of workers report that the adoption of AI within the workplace has led to a boost in productivity. One of the biggest benefits of AI technology in the workplace is the offloading of repetitive tasks to AI, which gives employees the time to focus on more important aspects of the job. A big way in which organizations have leveraged AI is in providing customer support. Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular to offer 24/7 customer support and as a way of streamlining objectives. These AI-powered bots are fast, accurate, and can provide timely customer support through ‘direct’ interactions with customers. While there might be specific concerns a customer might need addressed from a one-on-one support basis, there are also repeated and frequently asked questions about the company’s services and/or products. AI is exceptionally well-equipped to handle such repetitive tasks enabling employees to be more productive in areas they are needed in.

Empower employees to learn and up-skill

78% of employees say they are ready to learn new skills, but 38% claim they do not have enough time for training. The most critical way in which AI will change the training, learning, and development sector is to establish more optimized and effective training methods and techniques that can be incorporated across the organization. Stephen Walsh, a co-founder of Andres Pink, states that 93% of organizations wish to integrate learning into the routine workflow. This does seem the most efficient and seamless way to learn. However, a key factor to keep in mind is that every person has a different style of how they learn and process (new) information. The best thing about AI technology in learning and up-skilling is that it allows training programs to adapt to the needs of each employee.

Increases data and information security

Organizations, across the board, are increasingly investing in AI-based technology to identify security risks and implement data protection measures to safeguard their assets. 69% of enterprise executives believe AI will be necessary to respond to cyberattacks with the majority of telecom companies (80%) saying they are counting on AI to help identify threats and thwart attacks according to Capgemini. AI and machine learning are poised to help them enhance their security posture because AI technology makes it possible to learn about and analyze potential cyber threats in real-time. Based on this, they employ algorithms to build models of behaviors, and use these to make predictions about potential cyber attacks as new data emerges. Without a doubt, AI is helping companies improve their security defense by increasing the speed and accuracy of their cybersecurity response. AI software tools like Darktrace, SparkCognition, and Exabeam are helping firms to protect their data in digital workspaces and proactively identify security risks to minimize vulnerabilities.

Augmented workforce

A largely misunderstood concept, an ‘augmented workforce’ is a working environment wherein human employees and machines or intelligent virtual assistants work alongside each other to drive increased productivity. For instance, look at how Amazon makes use of advanced warehouse technologies – robotics, cognitive computing and flexible human workforce strategies – to drive efficiency and deliver improved productivity multi-fold.

Chatbots, messaging apps, and project management tools like PeopleDocor and Betterworks use AI to provide recommendations on how workflows can be made more efficient or effective. In a digital workplace, such tools are a requirement to help employees focus more on human-to-human interactions, and to invest their time in creative solutions.

To summarize, AI is integral to businesses today, regardless of sector. 72% of executives believe AI will offer significant business advantages in the coming years, while a LinkedIn study found that 76% of hiring managers believe AI will be at least somewhat important in the future.

Talent500 helps you automate hiring, onboarding, and managing global teams. With our pre-vetted extensive network of talent, you can find the right talent faster. Request a consultation today.

Helping your workforce upskill amid the automation revolution

Posted on April 1, 2022April 1, 2022 by temp

As we continue to innovate and find new ways to leverage technology, displacement of some kind is inevitable. On the subject of workplace automation, which has been trending for a few years now, the opinions of the masses and experts are divided. Some believe that the fourth industrial revolution will take away jobs, and it will, but there is data to suggest that not everything is as bleak as it might seem. Reports like the Future of Jobs published by the World Economic Forum state that while around 75 million jobs will be displaced, around 133 million new jobs will emerge as well.

So, what does this mean for the future displaced workforce? Simply put, it reiterates the need for reskilling or upskilling to best align with the changing times. Corporations and enterprises must take the lead here as machines will soon take over menial and administrative tasks. In 2018, machines did 29% of the work, and this number is slated to rise to 52% by 2025.

A McKinsey report published in 2021 corroborates this and goes on to state that 1 in 16 employees will need to find a new job by 2030. This is where a workforce proficient at non-routine analytical tasks, technical familiarity, and critical thinking will need to take the reins.

Preparing now seems to be the best way to get ahead of the revolution brought on by accelerated technology adoption. While 31% of organizations are worried about displacement within their workforce, and rightly so, be a part of the remainder that has done the needful to brave it while minimizing losses. To know how to do just that and build a workforce for the future, consider the following strategies.

Assess and conquer

Before putting in any money or effort into initiatives, it is important to form a baseline. Companies should take the time to figure out the digital literacy levels across all employees. These skills vary with employees and not all responsibilities require as much digital literacy as others. This is where assessment comes in handy, and it helps companies determine what they are willing to accept as a bare minimum going forward.

Once the early assessment stages are clear, conquering the shortcomings can begin. The road to creating a workforce that can align with the new division of labor is one built through a systematic approach. Without a baseline, it is possible that significant resources may go to waste. During the assessment stages, companies must also determine whether the goal is to upskill or reskill. These vary greatly from each other and are in no way synonymous as many may believe.

In order to reposition effectively, companies can either:

Upskill employees to be better at their existing jobs by advancing their practical knowledge to accommodate newer technologies or practices.
Reskill employees to develop newer, more relevant skills that will help them take on a new position within the organization.

Develop or borrow from an efficient digital training framework

To build a truly resilient workforce equipped to brave the storms brought on by the fourth industrial revolution, a proper training framework must be in place. These should categorize skills that are essential for work and those that are simply good to have. Based on existing models already in use across industries, here are a few skills that should be assessed and primed for development through such frameworks.

Basic digital tools
Occupation-specific tools
Data ethics
Problem-solving using technology
Data safety and security
Digital devices and their interactions
Data manipulation
Data analytics

A combination of these categories should form the roadmap as they target core areas for holistic development, be it reskilling or upskilling.

Invest in training and continuous learning across the board

Companies looking to uplift their workforce through training and learning must utilize all avenues available for it. Interactive experiences are now not only possible but so much more engaging than training programs of the past. Today, companies have options such as:

Online training courses
Certificate courses
Mobile learning
Personalized learning solutions

Each has its own merits and these can serve as incentives to better integrate learning and self-growth into the company culture. Remember, for any company, the goal should be to autotomize the learning experience, without making it a mandate that gets done because it has to. Digital experiences, especially from leading L&D companies, add value to both employee and company. As such, investing in the best is likely to deliver desired results that could very well lead to the success of the program.

Institute a mentorship program

The mentor-mentee relationship is one that has immense potential. Here, companies can either have an in-house program that drives growth and culture or opt to outsource for their mentorship needs. In either way, employees get hands-on training and learn to be practical. Mentors are a trove of knowledge and for many new to the digital landscape, a mentor’s experience could be the difference between a healthy transition and one brought on through need alone.

Digitize the experience

Much like other experiences employees enjoy today, where convenience is a given, training for industry 4.0 should offer no less. Building familiarity is much easier this way, and showcases the true potential of modern technology. What’s more, digitized learning can make people-led solutions a lot more feasible. Where online courses and seminars lack, personalized portals and digital labs excel – offering customizability and potential for hands-on innovation.

Developing a digital learning lab also benefits the company as it can be tuned to gather insights. By understanding how employees learn, what modes work best, and which formats are the go-to, enterprises can spend their training dollars in a more effective and meaningful way.

Whether the objective is to reskill or upskill, remember that either of the options is only a means to best utilize the company’s resources. It is not a substitute for hiring but can make the undertaking a lot more cost-effective. For many companies, hiring will continue to be a business-critical process. Technology companies could feature among these as they stand to benefit from a technically-proficient workforce. With remote working slowly becoming the standard, finding talent that suits the budget and can align with company objectives is easy, especially if you partner with Talent500.

With access to over 200,000 pre-vetted professionals, harnessing the power of global teams is within reach. Our AI-powered tools promise a smooth hiring experience, for both ends, and can serve as an efficient solution for scaling goals. Schedule a consultation today and be part of the global remote revolution that’s leveraging talent in the best way possible.

Reskilling and upskilling: A strategic response to continuously changing skill demands

Posted on March 1, 2022March 1, 2022 by poosarladileep

Rapid digitization is forcing companies to take a long, hard look at the skills of their employees and invest heavily in reskilling them to maintain their position in the market. In its recent ‘Talent Trends’ report, PwC clearly outlined that “Developing a workforce with the digital and transferable skills you need — and the ability to adapt quickly in a world of constant change —does not happen organically or by accident.”

As an employer, the onus is on you to make employees partner in the upskilling and reskilling process, and get the most out of the investment you make in hiring the right talent. McKinsey has a warning for businesses, as they believe that 14% of the workforce worldwide will be forced to change jobs with the rise of artificial intelligence, automation, and other technological advancements in the coming years. The economies are already changing in response to digital innovation and the workforce has to adapt quickly in response. To remain a winner against such market forces, you have to invest in employee skill expansion.

Job requirements are changing at a faster pace

This rapid pace of change in job descriptions points towards the growing demand for upskilling. The importance of reskilling is highlighted in a new report on workforce upskilling by the World Economic Forum. The survey states that one in four adults reported a need for reskilling or upskilling to match the skills they need for their current job. Many legacy businesses fail to understand the fact that skill requirements are transforming at an unprecedented rate.

A Gartner report evaluating the skill requirement change pace showed that 33% of the skills listed in a typical job description in 2017 are no longer a requirement in 2021.

That’s a depletion of one-third of the skills within four years!

And, it’s not just for any specific position or role.

The same Gartner report highlighted that today, employers ask for 10% more skills than in previous years. Due to higher expectations and now-redundant skills, employers are looking for candidates with vastly different skill sets. This makes reskilling workforces more valuable.

The talent and skills gap is growing wider by the day

Another consequence of Covid was that it forced a large workforce to learn skills on the fly. Companies met this challenge with a varying degree of success, highlighting the need for an effective and efficient reskilling program at the workplace. As the adoption of technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence continues to grow, equipping your workforce with the required skills to take up new responsibilities is a decision favorable to business growth. This is also mandatory to maintain the core competencies of a business.

Covid has accelerated the shift towards a global workforce. Most companies are shifting entirely or parts of their business online that require their employees to have different skill sets. According to McKinsey, 87% of CEOs report noticing skill gaps in their employees when the services are moved online. If this mismatch between skills and requirements is too large, companies have to think about reskilling the workers to better meet the requirements of the roles.

The good news is that many companies are already making it their top priority. As per an L&D study, 59% of the professionals’ rate upskilling and reskilling employees as the priority of their business goal for the coming year. As building new skills in employees is much more efficient than hiring a new workforce, it also positively impacts the employee-employer relationship.

Reskilling the workforce is a collaborative effort

Today, employees wield more power as the labor market has tightened laws. As an employer, it is your responsibility to make them feel that they have major control over their professional development. It doesn’t mean that you make them entirely responsible for reskilling efforts, but rather involve them in the upskilling and reskilling process so they do not feel like just a cog in a machine.

Start by explaining the tangible advantages of reskilling training to the employees. Let them know how their role requirements continue to change, and how reskilling is in their best interest. Also emphasize that employees will have a say in how their training will progress.

Reskilling can also boost employee retention as shown by an IBM research. According to the study, employees are 42% more likely to remain at the same company if they receive training that helped them perform their role at a higher level.

Make upskilling and reskilling your employees a priority for 2022 and beyond. It will play a pivotal role in ensuring your business growth and maintaining competency.

Talent500 can help bridge the skill gap and hire pre-vetted and location-independent professionals. To know more, request a consultation online.

Upskilling for SaaS: 5 Skills required for building a career in the industry

Posted on February 7, 2022February 7, 2022 by temp

SaaS (software as a service) is here to stay. It is abundantly clear that it is the future for many industrial models, even going as far as to branch out into the XaaS (Everything as a service) model. For developers and IT professionals, this means an entire world of opportunities, but not without upskilling.

Currently, the SaaS industry is worth north of $145 billion, with an annual growth of 18%. Additionally, its adoption rate is worth noting too, as research found that 99% of companies will employ at least 1 SaaS solution by the end of 2021.

Besides adoption, there’s better scope for professionals to earn higher incomes too. In India, SaaS firms reported paying salaries that were 30% higher than the traditional IT companies that offer services. Naturally, this is good news for developers but at the same time, it is a wake-up call for those that chose to be non-believers.

The good news is that, it isn’t too late to get on board. In order to upskill for the SaaS market, developers must focus on skills above and beyond the technical aspects. It will be a combination of product engineering, marketing, management, and even sales to some extent.

To know what it will take to upskill for the SaaS industry, take a look at the following pointers.

Problem-solving capabilities

Considering that any SaaS developer worth their salt must be proficient in cloud computing, being able to solve problems is also a prerequisite. Firstly, in order to succeed and provide value, critical thinking is essential as this industry isn’t like the traditional IT space. Due to cloud computing, processes are usually on shorter deadlines and may require hotfixes that go live at the earliest.

As such, engineers in this field have the required training to be problem solvers. As most developers will be working in teams, solving major issues in a collaborative format will demand ample technical prowess. From process management to design and even security, this skill is of utmost importance. A good starting point would be to familiarize yourself with the various cloud architectures. Being proficient at the commonly used platforms via specialized courses will give you a leg up when it comes to problem-solving. The more adept and knowledgeable you are in working with a given cloud platform, higher will be your contribution to the team.

SaaS security

With how popular the SaaS model is, it is important that developers pay close attention to security. In fact, data security and its protection are top concerns for most professionals working in this industry and for good reason. Considering that services rely on the cloud, vulnerabilities jeopardize critical and sensitive data of everyone in the system. Naturally, oversights here are usually catastrophic, resulting in costly damages.

In fact, data published in late 2019 found companies claiming that their employees were a weak spot in their security. So, to avoid being a liability and to ensure that good cybersecurity habits translate over into your work, effort must be made to understand SaaS security. Cybersecurity awareness training is the first step here and is crucial to making it second nature going forward.

Compliance skills

Sharing similarities with security, compliance is another field that professionals will have to get accustomed to, and learn to work with. Since SaaS positions the offering directly to the enterprise or the end-user, there are data privacy and information security standards that must be adhered to. These may be industry-specific standards, completely fleshed out with a proper framework, or other standards of equal specificity. In any case, it falls onto the developers to know how to work within these norms and ensure that there’s no exposure to non-compliance when working with a vendor.

Data management

For many developers, data management was just another field that didn’t pique their interest enough to follow full-time. However, with the shift in the landscape to XaaS models, data management can no longer be ignored simply because data is everywhere. Take IoT, for instance, which has several data points requiring a skilled developer to know how to best leverage them for optimal function.

This includes its storage, accessibility, implementation and auditing. In some cases, data analytics and integration may also factor into the mix. So, to ensure that you’re up to speed and can handle what will likely get thrown your way, getting well-versed in languages like Hadoop and MYSQL, alongside others, may be a good starting point.

Content personalization and digital marketing

It would be wrong to assume that upskilling for the SaaS industry means honing your technical skill alone. While you will be required to be proficient in popular programming languages and platforms like Python, JAVA, PHP, Linux, and others, employers need more. The job now demands a greater level of innovation as SaaS solutions become part of every mode of operation. For instance, IT specialists are now required to create solutions that work within the organization, automating menial tasks to increase efficiency across employees from different departments.

So, the task here is for the IT specialist to come with a customized solution that works within the given infrastructure. Besides being able to customize on demand, the SaaS model has a hand in almost every digital service offered. As such, being aware of the key fundamentals of e-commerce, digital marketing, and design may be necessary. Only by understanding key problem areas for such industries will you be able to innovate sophisticated solutions that solve real problems.

As the SaaS industry continues to evolve, teams that employ such specialists will, as well. It won’t be long before the lines between developer and administrator are so blurred that it becomes indistinguishable to tell the two apart.

After all, this pace of change is why many get into the IT space to begin with. So, embrace it and reap the fruits of upskilling to be part of an industry that is changing how the world interacts with software. To integrate yourself into teams that will be tomorrow’s changemakers, sign up for Talent500.

Join the elite global talent network and feature among the professionals destined to make it big. The platform provides you with tools to embark on a #limitlesslearning journey and continue to climb new heights as a professional. Sign up today to leverage opportunities to work with tech leaders across the globe.