As hard skills are rendered obsolete at a quicker pace, Canadian employers are taking a deeper look at their canAdidates' character and values-based qualities.
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), more than one-third of the skills considered important in today's work force will have changed in the next five years. The WEF also found that 65 per cent of children entering primary school today would ultimately work a job type that doesn't currently exist.
As employers adjust to the increasing pace of innovation, the focus of their recruiting efforts has moved away from more measurable hard skills, such as prior work experience, and toward more characterbased soft skills, including professional maturity, problem solving ability, time management and adaptability.
After studying the employer assessments of 122 graduate students who completed work terms across Canada, researchers at the Universities of Guelph and Toronto recently found that employers had a greater appreciation for skills that aren't as easy to demonstrate in a job application.
The study, recently published in Emerald Insight's Education + Training journal, found that professional maturity was the leading factor employers considered when evaluating the employability of graduate students, followed by problem solving, continuous learning and then academic achievement.
"What's interesting here is that when I did control for years of experience, comparing high- versus low-experience candidates, it didn't necessarily alter [their level of employability]," said Nita Chhinzer, an associate professor in the Department of Management at the University of Guelph, and one of the study's authors.
"That indicates that just because someone has more years of experience doesn't mean they've modified their behaviour in acceptable ways for the workplace."
Further devaluing the more traditional résumé points is the high proportion of Canadians with advanced degrees.
In fact, Canada is the most highly educated Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development country, and the OECD country with the highest level of adult-education attainment.
Today, one in five Canadian university students are registered in graduate-level programs, according to Statistics Canada. As a result, earning an additional degree doesn't provide Canadians with the same increase in employability as it does others.
In fact, Canada is the most highly educated Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development country, and the OECD country with the highest level of adult-education attainment.
Today, one in five Canadian university students are registered in graduate-level programs, according to Statistics Canada. As a result, earning an additional degree doesn't provide Canadians with the same increase in employability as it does others.
With hard skills more readily rendered obsolete and advanced degrees becoming less of a differentiator, employers in Prof. Chhinzer's study placed greater value on skills that can't be measured in years or diplomas. While the study is specific to graduate students, Prof. Chhinzer adds that it is representative of trends taking place in the wider job market.
"We have much more dynamic jobs because of the extreme levels of change in the economy and the place of work, so we expect our employees to be more fluid as well," she said.
"Job descriptions are also becoming increasingly fluid - the roles and tasks might be expected to change over time - so what employers are looking for is person-organization fit, rather than person-job fit."
"Job descriptions are also becoming increasingly fluid - the roles and tasks might be expected to change over time - so what employers are looking for is person-organization fit, rather than person-job fit."
A recent Bersin by Deloitte study analyzed the hiring priorities of more than 1,200 talent and business leaders around the world, and concluded that the top employers put the same value on a candidate's work ethic, values and potential as they do their skills and past experiences.
Researchers measured and ranked participating organizations and placed them into groups based on overall performance. They found that "89 per cent of high-performing organizations used [character] values as a basis for hiring, compared with 35 per cent for the low-performing teams," said Robin Erickson, Bersin by Deloitte's vice-president of talent acquisition, engagement and retention research.
Ms. Erickson adds that highperforming organizations enjoy 18 per cent higher revenue and 30 per cent greater profitability compared with low-performing teams, and typically take a more holistic approach to hiring.
"We found that organizations with a high-performing talentacquisition function were looking for more than just skills and experience," she said. "Our study found that [skills and experience] are just as important as ethics, values and potential, but for years, most people thought that the only things that mattered were their skills and experiences."
Prior work experience and education can still go a long way in helping job candidates land an interview, Ms. Erickson adds, but some employers say their value ends there.
"Candidates still need the hard skills - work, school, volunteering, extracurricular - to get their foot in the door, but these won't get them the job," explained Amanda Lynn, the vice-president of people at Labatt Breweries of Canada.
"Soft skills are a candidate's competitive advantage."
Labatt Breweries of Canada, which has been recognized as one of Canada's top 100 employers and top employers for young people, hired more than 500 applicants this past year, including 50 paid interns and 50 new graduates. The company also sees 78 per cent of its interns return to higherlevel positions.
"Technology has enabled us to move even faster, and we need people that can adapt, stay focused and be nimble," Ms. Lynn said. "We hire people that suit our culture first and then we teach them the rest."
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/GAM/20180205/RBCASOFTSKILLS
Feb. 14, 2018 "I want to be VR content producer": Today I found this article by Jared Lindzon in the Globe and Mail.
Job: Virtual-reality content producer
The role: Like other visual storytellers, the role of a VR-content producer is to create an experience that has an emotional resonance with audiences, only with the additional tools, challenges and opportunities that come with a new medium. As a result the role may similarly involve planning, scripting, location scouting, equipment preparation, talent booking, shooting and post-production.
Since content is captured from all 360 degrees surrounding the camera, however, cameras need to be modified, other equipment needs to be hidden, content often needs to be shot from a single stationary camera rather than from multiple angles and the post-production process is far more complex.
"A lot of the traditional rules and tricks of photography and cinema don't apply in 360-degree video, because you don't have closeups, you don't have fast cutaways or these other cinematic tricks we've had for 100 years," explained Ryan Jackson, the founder, president and creative director of Edmonton-based VR-content production company, Full Circle Visuals.
Two of the biggest early adopters of the medium, according to Mr. Jackson, are the real estate industry and the education and training industry, followed by the news and entertainment industries.
Salary: As an industry largely comprising independent freelancers, there's technically no limit to how much those working in the field stand to earn, nor is there any guarantee of earning an income of any kind.
The industry is so new that many standards surrounding salary expectation are yet to be set. Instead, Mr. Jackson looks at VR-content producers as filmmakers and photographers with more specialized skills. As a result he believes salaries should be relatively consistent to what they earn, only with a slight premium.
"If I needed to hire a full-time shooter tomorrow, I would be expected to start them at $60,000 [per year]," he said. "That being said, the top-end talent is worth $100,000 a year."
Education: College and university film production programs across the country have begun incorporating virtual reality into their curriculums, but there is currently no formal specialty or degree in the field. As a result, the industry values on-the-job experience as well as past experience in other forms of storytelling and visual media.
"If you want to get into this business you can't just run out and buy a camera and hit record; you need to know the fundamentals," said Mr. Jackson. "Regular video production skills, storytelling, editing, audio production would all be key."
Mr. Jackson adds that a high degree of technical competency is a valued trait in the field, as both hardware and software tools in the industry are always changing.
Job Prospects: Virtual-reality technology is yet to mature into a mass-market content platform, but its declining cost is making it more accessible by the day. As a result job prospects are currently more limited, but many believe the growing popularity of the technology could lead to significant demand for VR content producers in the future.
"There's so much potential for where it can go," said Mr. Jackson. "A kid born today, by the time they get into school, VR will be a part of their curriculum."
Challenges: The two biggest challenges for VR content producers are its cost and complexity. Freelancers in the field are typically responsible for purchasing and managing their own equipment.
"Everything gets accessible over time, but right now and for the foreseeable future you have to know and own a lot of tools on the front end and the back end," said Mr. Jackson.
Why they do it: VR content producers enjoy innovating in a relatively new field, helping to establish standards and conventions that could have a lasting impact as the technology matures. "One of the things that excites me is that it's new, and being a pioneer is exciting," added Mr. Jackson.
Misconceptions: As an industry that is closely related to traditional filmmaking Mr. Jackson says some are under the misconception that shooting in 360-degrees is similar or even easier than shooting traditional video content.
"People think for some reason that VR video is actually easier [to shoot], but there's actually so much more that can go wrong, and so much more that can make the video bad," he said.
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