Employers Slow to Value Self-Taught Skills
Canadian employers are slow to embrace the recent surge in self-taught job skills, according to a new report. As unconventional learning methods become more common, companies reportedly face pressure to better distinguish genuine expertise from embellished resumes.
- A recent poll shows a significant generational gap in acquiring new skills, with 60% of Gen Z workers reporting they are self-taught online, compared to 34% of millennials, 19% of Gen X, and 12% of baby boomers. - While over half of hiring managers (51%) and job seekers (52%) believe skills learned on informal online platforms are credible, a majority of hiring managers (61%) still give preference to candidates with a formal education. - To gain confidence in a candidate's self-taught abilities, 86% of hiring managers find it more effective to see a demonstration of how the skills have been or would be applied rather than just reading about them on a resume. - When evaluating candidates with self-taught skills, employers place the most value on references who can attest to their work (46%), followed by demonstrated industry knowledge (42%), and the completion of a work sample (34%). - In response to the rise of self-taught candidates, 23% of companies have already updated their hiring processes to better recognize and verify these skills, and another 41% are planning to make such changes. - The trend of self-learning is also being influenced by advancements in artificial intelligence, with two-thirds of job seekers (67%) stating that AI makes them more inclined to seek out additional training. - There is a notable gender difference in the trend of upskilling, with men being more likely than women to include self-taught skills on their resumes (34% vs. 27%).
