Work Forces

Joe E. Ross, President, CEO and co-founder of Reach University and the National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree, discusses Reach University's "apprenticeship degree" model that turns jobs into degrees rather than the traditional approach of obtaining a job post-graduation. The conversation explores Reach's approach to addressing the "hiding in plain sight" talent crisis by serving the 40-50 million Americans in the workforce without degrees who wish they had them. Ross outlines Reach's three ABCs framework: Affordability, Based in the workplace from day one to graduation, and Credit for learning at work. He shares compelling outcomes from Reach's growth from 67 candidates to over 3,000 across eight states, with 70% graduation rates for Pell-eligible students compared to the typical 40-50%. Ross also discusses the National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree's work with 50 institutions across a dozen states, and offers practical steps for listeners interested in getting involved with apprenticeship degrees.

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to the Work Forces Podcast. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with innovators who are shaping the future of work and learning.

Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin LeMoine: This podcast is an outgrowth of our Work Forces consulting practice. Through weekly discussions, we seek to share the trends and themes we see in our work and amplify impactful efforts happening in higher education, industry and workforce development all across the country. We are grateful to Lumina Foundation for its past support during the initial development and launch of this podcast, and invite future sponsors of this effort. Please check out our Work Forces podcast website to learn more. And so with that, let's dive in.

Julian Alssid: Welcome back today. We're diving deep into a topic that's central to our work, the evolution of higher education to better serve the modern workforce.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yes, we are Julian. We've talked a lot about the need for new models, especially those that bridge the gap between learning and earning. So many of our conversations have pointed to the power of apprenticeships and skills based pathways, including our past podcast discussions with Bob Lehrman and John Colborn on the evolution of apprenticeships and the opportunities they afford learners and employers alike.

Julian Alssid: That's right. Kaitlan and as we discussed with Bob and John, the apprenticeship movement has been gaining momentum in recent years. Just in August 2025 the Trump administration issued a talent strategy report that calls for the expansion of Federal Registered Apprenticeships, including promoting stronger connections to universities and colleges. Our guest today is at the forefront of this movement, pioneering a groundbreaking model that's reshaping what a degree can look like, the apprenticeship degree. In fact, the apprenticeship degree was called out in the Feds report as a key part of the new apprenticeship initiative. And so today, we'll be discussing this and more with Joe E Ross, President, CEO and co founder of Reach University and the National Center for the apprenticeship degree.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Before building Reach, Joe served as president of the statewide association for county school boards in California, and served for 10 years as a locally elected school board member. He previously served as general counsel to a venture studio in several technology startups, and as a deputy district attorney, he acted as sole counsel in numerous hearings and jury trials. Earlier in his career, he served eight years on active duty in the US Navy. The son of a US Postal Service labor custodian, Joe went on to earn degrees from Yale and Stanford Law School. And Joe, we're excited to welcome you to the podcast with us today. Thanks so much for joining us here.

Joe E. Ross: Kaitlin, Julian, it's such a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Julian Alssid: Yes, indeed, it is a pleasure to have you, and if you will, you know, we've said a little bit about your background, but we'd love to hear you tell us a little bit more, and the story of what led you to co found Reach.

Joe E. Ross: Yeah, sure. So first off, I must offer the disclaimer, I never imagined that I would be a college president growing up. That's not the thing that was on my bucket list, among many things, but I do think I, very early on, acquired a conviction that education is the way you build your own future, I think of it as the pen that you need to have in your hand to write your own future. As you mentioned, my biological father worked for the post office as a labor custodian (that means janitor), and my mom died kind of young, and he was injured in an accident. And I was raised starting at age four by my aunt and uncle, and I think in moving into that new household, in my little head, I must have noticed that these adults had careers and they had degrees and they had power over their lives. And I think in my little head, I thought, I want all three of those things, and I got it into my head that education was my way to those things. That's the only thing I can point to as an explanation for why I was such a nerd in school and so motivated in school, and also why later, after trying all sorts of other things with that pen to my hand, I was a Navy officer, I was a prosecutor, I was an ed tech entrepreneur, I always tacked back to education as where my passion was, and so about 15 years ago, I started running an after school program that sought to turn after school staff into teachers, and that was essentially a job embedded, apprenticeship based program, the first of its kind. And I saw this, this potential of combining work with higher ed. And so fast forward to the fall of 2020, Reach University launched as it's in its current form as an accredited nonprofit institution with a very simple mission, which is to turn jobs into degrees, as you said in the intro, as opposed the other way around. And that model is called the apprenticeship degree. Now.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So you know. Reach University has a unique B2B2C model, right where you partner directly with employers, but you have this dual customer approach of working with employers but also serving the needs of your learners. Can we dive in a little bit there? I mean, this is a complex model to build. How have you gone about it?

Joe E. Ross: Yeah, so it's, it's interesting, it's complex, but it also creates some simplicity as well. If you're running an apprenticeship degree, by definition, you are running a model that's based in the workplace from day one to the day of graduation. In fact, I'll back up. I probably should share for everybody what we mean by apprenticeship degree, and then that will lead lead to the answer. So an apprenticeship degree is defined by elements associated with apprenticeship going back centuries. This is not something that the Department of Labor defined 50 years ago or 10 years ago or this summer. It's something that goes back to a tradition that is very long standing, and apprenticeships had three defining elements that I think of as the ABCs that apply to an apprenticeship degree, a stands for Affordability for the learner, and in this day and age, that means without student debt, apprentices have been asked for their sweat, not for their debt, right? So at Reach University, we made this commitment the beginning, that no one would be would pay out of pocket. No learner would pay out of pocket more than $75 a month for full time enrollment in a full time work embedded degree program that's a for affordability. B stands for Based in the workplace from day one to the day of graduation or the day of completion. An apprenticeship degree starts with a paid job. It ends, or is designed to end, with a better paid job. And C stands for Credit for work, Credit for learning at work. Kind of has a double meaning. Learning at work means literally learning at work, but it also means learning put to work, theory, meaning practice. C also stands for Credential of value. This is not a compromise. It is still a Bachelor of Arts or a Master of Arts or an Associate of Arts. AA does not stand for Apprenticeship Arts Degree. It stands for Associate of Arts degree. So with that definition in mind, let me go back to B based in the workplace. The reason we think of this as a B2B2C model, as opposed to a, B2C model is because you can't run an apprenticeship or an apprenticeship degree without close engagement with employers and for the university. What that means, among many things, is that instead of coming to the university looking for graduates, the employer comes to the university at the front end, bringing the students, you work with employers, and then the employers engage their incumbent workforce, or they actually recruit new employees into jobs that come with degrees. And so what you end up seeing is a lot of partnership work with employers, which is kind of shoe leather and handshaking and presence on the ground, as opposed to buying Google AdWords and competing in the internet for advertising for consumers. And as a result of that, a B2B2C model is much more affordable to execute, and that savings gets passed on to the apprentices, to the learners, in the form of much lower tuition, much more affordability.

Julian Alssid: So Joe, your model, in a sense, is helping to solve labor shortages. And want to hear you talk about, like, who these who these learners are, and what kinds of jobs you're preparing them for. This notion that there's like, this talent, and you know the term like hiding in hiding in plain sight, yeah, is really what you're about, yeah.

Joe E. Ross: Well, we started five years ago with our teachers college, and we were focused on the teacher shortage. And by any estimate, there's many as 30 to 50,000 structural vacancies, to as much as 300,000 structural vacancies in teaching. And what we discovered is that in the very same buildings where principals were looking for teachers where there were classrooms without permanent staff, in those same buildings, there were a lot of human beings doing other jobs that didn't require degrees. They were working as classroom aides, as library aides, they were in the lunchroom, they were in the office, driving the bus. They were janitors, like my father and each of these individuals share, typically, the same story. At some point, they had to choose that job instead of a degree to take care of their family. For example, we did some research, because this was anecdotal, and this was something we were seeing on the ground, but we did some research. You know, if you look the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there's about 1.3 to 1.5 million classroom aids in this country, if there's only 50,000 teacher shortages, you only need a fraction of those aids, a fraction of those aides to get upskilled, earn a degree, to just end a teacher shortage. That type of ratio plays out in other high demand industries. If you look at nursing, there's a nursing shortage, but there's also a tremendous number of people working in hospitals as patient care assistants, or certified nursing assistants and many other roles who, if we actually treated those people as the talent we need and give them the opportunity to rise up, we would end these labor shortages and we create this upward mobility that we want this country to stand for. We bring it to life in places, particularly rural places that are education deserts. So that's basically the story here we have, on one hand, estimates suggest about 10 million high demand labor shortages in high demand industries, and on the other hand, there's 40 to 50 million people working in the workforce who do not have a degree, but surveys indicate they wish they did have a degree. And if we can actually move higher ed to think about that population, those 50 million people already in the workforce or about to enter the workforce, as the market for higher ed, as opposed to the 3 million graduating from high school every year, or maybe in addition to the 3 million who are graduating from high school every year, it's such a win, win. Higher ed has a new mission, 50 million people who were left out get brought back in, and we address labor shortages in high demand fields, particularly in rural, remote places where often the only answer is to do a grow your own effort, as opposed to recruiting effort.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Can you tell us a little bit, Joe about how this model works like a practical level. So you said, right? You know, people learners should be, you know, receiving credit for the work that they're doing on the job. But what does it look like to implement this?

Joe E. Ross: I think the apprenticeship degree is always met with this kind of, oh, this sounds too good to be true. Somebody can have a paid job. Half the learning in their degree program comes from that paid job. The other half comes from seminars held at night or on the weekends or asynchronous instruction. There's no student debt. There's a better paid job waiting at the end of it. Employers are feeling labor shortages, individuals are getting upward economic mobility, and people are kind of like, well, that's genius. Too good to be true. How do you do you do it? Just like you just asked, here are some things that need to go into the design approach. First, employers to higher education providers need to work really closely together to make sure that the degree design meets the needs of the employer. In many ways, the employer is the customer here. They should be actually, in many cases, paying for the program instead of the learner, right? So you have to work with the employers to design now and teaching that's fairly straightforward, because every state knows what teachers need to know, and it's pretty common across state borders what teachers need to know. Similarly, in other professions like a nursing or radiological technician or other allied health fields, the standards of what you need to know in those professions as well now, but you still need to work with employers to make sure that the program design works. And then from there, the employers are also your key partners. I said earlier in recruiting their incumbent workforce, or their new hires into these pathways with the promise that their jobs are not just job type jobs, but jobs that turn into degrees and then give you upward mobility after completion of a certain set period of time. In terms of the actual design of the model, part of what's required here is to rethink some practices that are often taken as rules or laws or regulations, but are just habits In higher education. And I'll give you one example. There's something called the Carnegie Unit that is about the ratio of seat time to homework time, essentially. And this is seen as a barrier to work embedded degree programs, because, oh my gosh, we had to have this much seat time, and then people have to, have to do this, this much homework, and then they have to work 40 hours a week. How do you fit it all in? And so one of the things that we did from the beginning said, Look, you can reimagine the Carnegie Unit as being a function of seat time and work time as opposed to seat time and homework time, right? So if you can combine seat time with assignments on the job, or sense making around what you're doing on the job instead of mindless, irrelevant problem sets or whatever the case may be busy work. But actually make work work, the work instead of busy work, the work. You can actually create an environment where for a learner, and this is the objective for a worker, one plus one in this case, equals one. It should feel like their job and their higher education pathway are the same thing. That's the key element of efficiency here that needs to go into the design. And then from there, there's things in a higher education credential that people think, Well, how could you do that in the workplace? For example, you need to know English or critical thinking or history or writing, or all these things that are referred to as general education? Well, it turns out you can carefully design the liberal arts component of almost any professional or occupational degree to be relevant to that occupation. We're designing a program right now in behavioral health, for example. And to get an associate or bachelor's degree, you need something that looks like writing and reading and literature for to be a degree, but you can choose something that's relevant. So we have a semester we're designing where there's two tracks of learning. One is psychology, one, two and three, which is with one faculty member, and then there's practice on the job. And the other track is literature, but it's going to be the literature of mental illness, right? And it's going to feel really integrated with the psychology track, and it's going to be relevant to the job. So that's the kind of curricular design work that I think the apprenticeship degree needs to entail. Because at the end of the day, these are working adults, and we know what working adults need, and we sometimes are really good at giving them what they need at the graduate level, but now we have to give them what they need at the undergraduate level to make sure the associate degree in the bachelor's degree truly is working better.

Julian Alssid: It's all about that context, really, and just baking it in all around. So then, given this integration and approach like, what are the metrics that you're using to track and what's your impact today?

Joe E. Ross: Yeah, we started with 67 candidates in our pilot cohort in the Louisiana and Arkansas Deltas. That was five years ago. We'll have well over 3,000 candidates across almost 500 school districts in eight states as of this fall. So the program is growing. That's one metric that's important. And in some places, school districts and parishes are reporting the sentiment that their teacher shortage seems to be going away, which is great news, and in part, that's because of programs like, like Reach University, and that's exciting to see when, when do you get to, like, actually solve a major social problem as a nonprofit leader in your life, it's always something on the horizon. We're actually seeing shortages go away, which is amazing. Notably, the population we're serving are overwhelmingly Pell eligible. And so Pell eligibility, I think, is a good proxy for economic need. And any given semester, roughly 70 to 75% of our enrollment is Pell eligible, 37 to 39 year old folks with families and full time jobs, and so they're eligible for Pell. And the typical graduation rate at the undergraduate level for someone who is Pell eligible is a shocking 40 to 50%. In our program. It's on track to be 70% for all our almost all of our cohorts. And I think actually, we have a tailwind in this case, because the number one reason that people who are Pell eligible drop out is economics. They need a job, but in an apprenticeship degree, they already have a job. So you've removed one of the major barriers to completion of a college degree when you pair the degree with a paid job from beginning to end. And so it's not surprising that we're seeing much better completion rates. We also look at retention, you know, the you know, retention is kind of along the way. The most challenging year for a Pell eligible first generation student is the first year of college. And so you really, you can't lose 30 or 40% in year one and have anything close to a 70% graduation rate, obviously, four years later, five years later, and and so we tracked that first year persistence really carefully, and we constantly, actually redesigned our first year to make sure that our first year candidates would had a better retention. We had some cohorts we didn't really like the numbers, like it was down to 70% for one cohort or 65% for another. And we redesigned our first year to integrate the general education courses and make them more working embedded. And so this first cohort is 91 to 92% retention. That's very, very good for a Pell eligible first year persistence. And then at the end of the program, we absolutely need to look at who, not only how many are completing, but how many of those who complete are actually getting the job that is waiting for them. Very often, if not in the same building, it's in the same employer network or the same community. But how many are actually getting that job, and then in a few years, in how many of them are seeing income gains? And if there's a measure of efficacy in the job, whether it's teaching or allied health, how are they doing as compared to peers who came through traditional pathways? And it's still early days for us, because we just graduated our first set of career graduated our first set of cohorts, but early data look very, very good in terms of both obtaining the job, getting the pay raise, and being rated by their employers as better than, at least equal or better than, in terms of performance folks who came through the traditional pathways.

Kaitlin LeMoine: These are some exciting initial outcomes. I know you said it's early days, but it must be exciting to be seeing these, you know, these types of success metrics, and I'm sure hearing success stories as well, right? Those, those anecdotes and qualitative feedback on on the program. So congratulations on that. I think you started to touch upon it a little bit with the redesign of your first year. I'm curious to know, like, what are some of the challenges you've experienced in these first five years of operation, and maybe give us an example or two on how you've addressed them, because it's certainly, as you said, maybe there's elements of this that simplify higher ed, but it's a really interesting model, and I feel like still relatively new overall in the higher ed landscape.

Joe E. Ross: When we first launched this undergraduate apprenticeship degree, we literally planned the semester right in time, right so we couldn't have any transfer students. We brought people in with no prior credit, and we kind of designed that first semester for them as they took it, and then the second semester was designed just in time, and we went through the whole program designing one term ahead of the first cohort. And then when we had upper division cohorts, we started accepting and transfers. Well, we learned a lesson the first year, because the first year, we actually tried to provide four or five work embedded courses at once to our first year students, which meant they had four or five different faculty at once. I don't know what we were thinking, but it's what we did. And of course, the feedback was, this is great, but this is really hard, right? That was the feedback generally from candidates and assignments were on the same time, and people were trying to remember the name of their faculty and their faculty and their peers and all that. And, at the end of that first year, we said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, there is a best practice here that it's already out there online higher education does one course at a time. This is a best practice for working adults. We already know that. And I went to the faculty and I said, look, we've got to do one course at a time. We can't do this five courses at once. And there was a little bit of concern because our faculty who, by the way, are job embedded too. So these were folks who are working in schools as principals, assistant superintendents, as master teachers. And they understood what I was saying, but they also were like, you know, I don't think we can get to know the candidates in five weeks if it's a five week course, or in 10 weeks, if it's 10 week course. And so what we decided to do, as we built the second year is designed a single subject, not a course, but a single subject semester. How do we integrate all the courses as one subject area, where one faculty member essentially would teach three or four, three courses back to back, but they were essentially the same type of course. So world history, us, history and social studies for teachers, integrated as one experience, but three courses on the transcript as an example. And so we did that for the second year and the third year and the fourth year, and retention and persistence and satisfaction and outcomes on licensure tests just moved up and to the right and then we finally, as I said earlier, got back to the first year, and we finally redesigned the first year. We're seeing great retention the first year as well. So I think we maybe should have known this before we started, but we essentially delivered to higher ed an AB test of what it looks like to have four or five courses at once, an apprenticeship degree, as opposed to one subject at a time. And the results are kind of overwhelming. Someone should write the paper on this and get tenure somewhere. But that's, that's, that's one of the big lessons we had at the gate.

Julian Alssid: Well, speaking of challenges, Joe, we know that you know your National Center for Apprenticeship Degrees is a thing that you've launched, and that it's working with traditional colleges and universities to adopt an apprenticeship model. Interested to hear about what you're doing there. And you know, we know that, you know you're getting to design this. You know, Reach University from scratch. What's it like? And what are the you know, what are the challenges you're facing with the traditional colleges and universities? And how are NCAD overcoming these challenges?

Joe E. Ross: So we launched NCAD about two years ago. NCAD stands for National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree. And in part, we launched it because we had a teacher's college. And everywhere I went, people would say, this is a great idea. Can you do this in my advanced manufacturing facility over here? That actually happened. I was visiting a school district in West Memphis, and the assistant superintendent said, you have to meet my husband. He runs this factory across the river in Memphis. I was like, okay, so I visit this factory, and they give me a hard hat, which was fun. And they're manufacturing switches for railroad tracks with all this very, very next level equipment. And they take me through the factory to the back, and there's a state of the art classroom where this employer was actually taking people out of high school and putting them through advanced math and engineering classes so they could run the equipment. And he says to me, I should be able to confer an associate degree for all the training I'm doing on the job, and it would make it easier for me to recruit people into this workplace, if I could do that. That story times 100 made it really clear that this idea of an apprenticeship degree was not just for teaching or even allied health, but that this is something that could be part of a larger workforce and human capital strategy across industries, across geographies, and we're a startup nonprofit, the idea that we could address all that demand seemed a little nutty, but we did believe that what we were doing could be something that, together with other innovators, could create a tipping point, and that the larger mission of changing higher education - bringing it into the workplace was something that we could pursue. And so we launched the Center for the Apprenticeship Degree. And your question, I think, touches on the built in challenge there, because essentially, what we're asking higher education to do is to disrupt itself, right? Like classic disruption is about a simpler product that's more relevant to a larger consumer base that's not consuming. So targets non-consumption, and it's supposed to be something much, much less expensive, right? All of those things are really, really hard for big established players to do. Now there's some big established players that have figured out how to do it. You all came from Southern New Hampshire University. Did disruptive things there, ASU does disruptive things Western Governors, but there's 4000 higher ed institutions in this country, and not all of them are going to just drop everything and create a affordable face in the workplace, degree that rewards credit for work. But what we did realize is that there are some who are doing and that this is a field that's emerging, and one of the things you have to attend to in system change is avoiding fragmentation of an emerging, fragile field. So the first thing out of three that NCAT is doing is attending to making sure we're bringing together the emerging field of higher ed institutions and innovative, forward thinking employers who are launching apprenticeship degrees to address talent needs or to get an edge on their competition, whatever their purpose is. And that has been really successful. We've worked with 50 different institutions across over a dozen states where this is beginning to emerge. The second thing we took on with the Center for the Apprenticeship Degrees is, because we're out there in the field, we're we've become aware of who is really doing amazing things in the field. And so when a system or a state or a college wants to launch a program like this, we're able to provide capacity building support. And we've been doing that in Massachusetts and Colorado and a few other states as well. And then finally, there's a need to kind of build an emerging knowledge base about this field. And so NCAD, the National Center the Apprenticeship Degree, is focused on that as well. The challenge here is, I go back to the ABCs I mentioned before. All three of them are really hard. Affordability is hard because since the 1970s most of higher ed has had the assumption of unlimited student debt without underwriting at least at the graduate level, and that's created kind of a lack of discipline around designing high quality things at an affordable price. So that's that's a big challenge. Being based in the workplace means partnering with employers and changing your recruitment, changing your design strategies. It's not that that's hard to do. It's just not in the muscle memory of a lot of places yet. And then C credit for learning at work means giving up some of the sort of ownership and the direct control over where learning happens, and letting the assessment of skills and capacities and knowledge happen in the workplace that's challenging as well. There's a book that came out a while back called Whatever It Is I'm Against It, by a former college president, and it points to how it's how hard it is, generally in higher ed to work through committees. Committees don't generally drive innovation, but that's it's actually more complex than that, a degree is something that has the fingerprints of dozens of departments. It's not just the school of education that gives you a teaching degree or the school of nursing that gives you a nursing degree. They need to provide general education, which means they have to negotiate with history and anthropology and sociology and all these places that are providing these other courses and making them work. Embedded is possible, but it's a big change. And so at NCAD, the best thing we can do is not tell people what to do, but to surface examples of other places that are similarly situated, that have actually done this. And in Alabama, the phrase that I first heard, I first heard, I first heard in Alabama from the director of apprenticeship in Alabama. The key here is R&D, which stands for rip off and duplicate, meaning like, if we can actually at NCAD, enable folks who are trying to innovate to know what others are doing and steal from them. That's the theory of change here. Because innovators and entrepreneurs, whether they're in academics or technology, do not want to be told what to do, but they're very happy to steal from steal from others. It's kind of the congenital approach of an entrepreneur. So at NCAD, we're trying to make it easy for people to steal from each other, steal from us, and steal from each other, so that this model, which is such a great model, can grow and expand and be more available.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So I would say, building off that point, Joe, you know, we always ask, What practical steps could you provide to our audience around becoming forces in developing apprenticeship degrees? I mean, we could take it from the perspective of, you know, a new employer partner or, like you're saying, a traditional, a more traditional college or university that's interested in pursuing this out of an approach.

Joe E. Ross: I think wherever you sit, whether you're an employer or an educator or a policymaker, I think the first step is to stop being part of a system that forces to choose, people to choose between a job and a degree. So ask, what can we do to convert jobs into degrees that then enable people to have the opportunity to be skilled up and to rise up in their workplace. So for employers, one of the one of the big opportunities here, I think, is to move from thinking of education as a benefit, which many employers already already do, to thinking about jobs that are designed to confer qualifications, certificates, and degrees by design. Because if your jobs are not dead end, but instead developmental, you attract a different kind of talent. And there's so many young people right now, including my own children, who are out of college, who judge the quality of a job by what they think they will learn and what people will see that they have learned in that job. So think about jobs as places where your workplace becomes kind of a college campus. I think that's the call to action for employers, for higher ed leaders. I think that getting around this idea that you can deliver quality but also be radically affordable. It's hard for some to imagine, but it's eminently doable, and part of the way you do that is letting your employers drive your enrollment strategy, which saves a ton of money. And number two, really looking for effective ways leveraging technology and and best practices to award credit for work. Everyone knows that doing is a way of learning. Learning by doing is the expression, right? But that doesn't have to water down the academic enterprise. You could do so much sense making with what people are doing on the job. That makes it still true higher education. And then finally, I'd say policymakers, we're strong advocates of policymakers at the federal, state, local level, looking for ways to bring forth predictable funding that has incentives for affordability and outcomes built in unlimited debt does not incent affordability and full time enrollment dollars don't necessarily incent outcomes. So I think the challenge here for policymakers is, how do you set up mechanisms that cause the market to answer the call? If I knew that if somebody completed X amount of credit and learning in x, in y, amount of time, I would be paid Z, amount of dollars upon proven completion. I take that deal every day because I know my program achieves those outcomes, and it's a better use of public dollars, as opposed to sort of stuffing the channels, which is what we've done over the last 50 years. Basically just make it easier for people to go in debt, make it easier for people to go, encourage everybody to go. That's gotten us into this, right? So I think policymakers have a real opportunity here, with the changes that we're seeing at the federal and state level to incentivize apprenticeship degrees, to deliver the kind of outcomes that I'm talking about. And I think actually we're going to see some movement here on this front I actually think there's a lot of conversation. It is a bipartisan issue. Everybody seems to love the idea of apprenticeship, and everybody loves the idea of an apprenticeship that leads to a degree. So I think there's a lot of hope to be had here on this front.

Julian Alssid: Yeah, no, it's so true. It is definitely. And I kind of was implying that in my little first comments, that this is, you know, there's been this growing movement, and it's totally bipartisan. And I think a lot of the challenge has been that, you know, it's perceived as really hard to do and come and bureaucratic and cumbersome and and what's been so wonderful talking to you is how you know, clear eyed you are about this, how you break it down, you know. And obviously there's a lot of complexity, and I'm sure there's way more, many more challenges as of course, there always are. But that, you know, here you have this entrepreneurial pursuit that's getting things done. You have some strategies for the the legacy institutions and and, you know, at a time when there's really heightened interest and it's all over the place. Everyone's got issues. Employers can't find the talent they need. People don't want to go into debt forever and get nothing in return. And so I guess the perfect start winding down. Would love to hear from you about how our listeners can learn more and continue to follow your work.

Joe E. Ross: Well, great. I love the opportunity to invite people to visit our website and invite people to visit our social media channels. Reach.edu is where you can find Reach University. Join us there if you are interested in the National Center for the apprenticeship degree at ncad.org, N-C-A-D dot org, we have a podcast. It's called Apprenticeship 2.0. It comes out every two weeks, so tune in, and we'll actually tell people to tune into your podcast as well, because this is a great conversation for people to tune into, and the other ones have been as well. We're on LinkedIn. We post a lot of LinkedIn if you're truly interested in getting involved in this movement, if you email [email protected] someone, someone will get back to you and connect you to a way to get involved in launching and expanding the apprenticeship degree movement the United States.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Thank you for sharing all of those various avenues for people to get involved and learn more. And appreciate you joining us on show today.

Joe E. Ross: It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me and I look forward to to the continued conversation.

Kaitlin LeMoine: We hope you enjoyed today's conversation, and appreciate you tuning in to Work Forces. Thank you to our listeners and guests for their ongoing support and a special thanks to our producer, Dustin Ramsdell. If you're interested in sponsoring the podcast or want to check out more episodes, please visit workforces dot info, forward slash podcast. You can also find Work Forces wherever you regularly listen to your favorite podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like and share it with your colleagues and friends. And if you're interested in learning more about workforces consulting, please visit workforces dot info forward slash consulting for more details about our multi service practice.

Kaitlin LeMoine and Julian Alssid turn the microphone on themselves to kick off Season 5 of the Work Forces podcast. As they approach their 50th episode, the co-hosts reflect on their journey and the dramatic shifts they've witnessed at the intersection of work and learning. Kaitlin and Julian discuss the evolution of workforce development from a fringe topic to a central national priority, highlighting how this shift has been influenced by economic, political, and technological changes. They unpack the rise of a skills-based ecosystem, noting how the traditional "once and done" model of education has become obsolete in an era of rapid technological change, particularly with the widespread adoption of generative AI. Drawing on their consulting work and insights from past guests, the co-hosts emphasize the imperative of cross-sector collaboration and human-centered design in bridging the gap between education and industry. They stress that experiential learning is now the new currency of opportunity, and human connection remains the "secret sauce" for success. Kaitlin and Julian offer practical advice for leaders navigating this period of unprecedented change. They encourage listeners to embrace agility and partnership, keep their eye on the prize of helping individuals thrive, and anchor their work in human purpose to build a more equitable and prosperous future for all.

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to the workforces Podcast. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with innovators who are shaping the future of work and learning.

Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin LeMoine: This podcast is an outgrowth of our Work Forces consulting practice. Through weekly discussions, we seek to share the trends and themes we see in our work and amplify impactful efforts happening in higher education, industry, and workforce development all across the country. We are grateful to Lumina Foundation for its past support during the initial development and launch of this podcast, and invite future sponsors of this effort. Please check out our Work Forces podcast website to learn more. And so with that, let's dive in.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So Julian, we're at an exciting point here, kicking off Season Five. Can't believe it. We're rapidly coming up on 50 episodes and two years of hosting this podcast. Thanks to all of our guests and listeners who have supported this work so far, and we're excited to be in this new season, and it felt like a good moment to welcome everyone and take this moment to share our own perspectives. It feels like a good time to flip the mic back on ourselves and share a bit of our own thinking at this evolving and fast moving intersection of work and learning.

Julian Alssid: Yes, it indeed is a milestone moment for us, Kaitlin, as we embark on Season Five here, and it's been such a pleasure working with you, consulting with you, and podcasting with you. And also, I'm so grateful to our guests and our audience for making this possible. It's just as as we had hoped from the beginning, as this kind of grew out of our consulting, it really has just become kind of a natural corollary and feedback loop for us to keep learning and sharing and learning and sharing. So let's learn and share with one another today.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Absolutely well, the feeling is mutual. Thank you for your partnership over the last few years in this work and in our consulting efforts. And yeah, excited to dive in with this conversation today. So I guess to kick us off, Julian, you know, given your many years in this space and in the last few years of our work together, you know, how are you seeing the intersection of work and learning, changing and evolving. What are you paying attention to? What are you thinking about?

Julian Alssid: I keep going back to the same point when I really think back to my like, 35 years in the field. You know when I started this, and even when we met over a decade ago, this was still fringe work. It was people interested in workforce development were basically the people who were working on workforce development in one form or another, and it has gone from front to center, I think, driven mostly by economic imperative, you know, by rising skill demands and gaps between learners and employers and everyone trying to find a better way to come together. It's been enforced, and I think, fed further by policy. So for example, I mean, I guess I will say it's and have been saying this for a long time too. It's really been kind of an apple pie topic that cuts across the political spectrum, and so, you know, and we're and we're even seeing that with all the change going on now. The Biden administration, previous administration, made significant investments in workforce development, and that helped to accelerate and focus attention across industry and government and education. And just recently, the Trump administration released its new talent strategy report, which kind of lays out a plan for a more streamlined system. Now, of course, these approaches are very different, and I think along with that is this kind of great sense of uncertainty, like, well, where will these new policies drive us and so it's, it's kind of like we're all dressed up and not exactly sure where to go.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Right. Well, and everything's moving so quickly too, right? Like it's it's the policy, it's also the tech space. It's also how industries are shifting very, very quickly, and just trying to keep pace and kind of keep all of these different changes on our radar screens while still moving the work forward feels like a key challenge.

Julian Alssid: Yeah. So, yes, absolutely. I mean, and there's just so many pieces of this to unpack. I mean, what do you see as, like, what is, what is rising to the surface for you?

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah? I mean, I think that one of the things that strikes me that feels distinct from other points, I guess, in my work in this field over the many years is that I feel like there's so much happening for employers and industry, for educators, whether in K 12 or in higher ed, and for learners, kind of all at the same time. And maybe it's partially that, you know, the focus of my work has shifted to over the years, like from being very focused on implementing one program, or one initiative, or thinking about tactically, how to go about doing things, versus also now operating at a level of thinking about how does this broader landscape impact work with different types of clients, but it just feels like there's so much movement for employers as they think about how to hire and train and recruit the next generation of employees. Then there's the next generation of learners, and how we are educating those individuals, whether they're from some of our podcast conversations, right, like in middle school, or whether they're in higher ed or adult learners who are looking to advance further. And then for the actual people you know, for those learners, as they're looking for jobs and looking to advance. It just feels like there's so much movement, so much at stake, and it's like this moment of de siloing wherever possible, because we're all like, there's this recognition that employers can't do this work without educators. Educators can't do this work without employers, and we need this feedback loop in order to really try to all advance in this complex intersection of work and learning together, that's I feel like, really top of mind for me at this moment.

Julian Alssid: Yeah, it is. It is so complex. And I like to try to think about like, well, what are the kind of, what are the threads that run through it all? Kind of try to bring some clarity and and one that that keeps popping to mind for me is this whole idea of the the rise of a skills based ecosystem that, you know, I think that you know that there was so much talk for years about, you know, kind of the knowledge based economy and, and I do think we are, on some level, shifting to more of a skills based economy. And I was even just thinking back to like interviews we did. I remember Matt Siegelman from Burning Glass Institute talked about the study that Burning Glass had done back in, I think '22 that showed that at that point, the average job had seen 30% of its skills replaced in five years. And so this whole idea of kind of the one and done model of education becomes obsolete. And by the way, that 37% figure came before the widespread adoption of generative AI.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah. So what does it mean now? Right?

Julian Alssid: Yeah, exactly. Are we moving now? Right? It was bad enough then, and you could see the gaps, and you could see people employers complaining about not getting the skills, and people frustrated with their education, saying they're not getting what they need. And yes, but I think what we're seeing now is employers are increasingly prioritizing skills and competencies. Their still certainly their leadership has degrees, but it's definitely moving to the fore.

Kaitlin LeMoine: No, I think that's, I think that's right. I mean, I think one thing that stuck out to me from our past, from our episodes this past season, kind of building on that, you know, were a couple of different conversations just around this integration of, like, career advice, support, and transparency, kind of across this ecosystem and certainly being built more into the educational experience. Like you know, whether it was our conversation with Nisha Taylor, with NACE regarding both the career competencies and making the skills and competencies that learners are acquiring clear and transparent, like how to talk about those things with employers, how to make it ring true to employers. And then even thinking back to Scott Carlson and Ned Laff with their Hacking College book, and thinking about how do we really make the experiential learning more embedded through, like, a field of study type approach in the higher ed experience, right? Like, so it's like, I think what you're saying about this knowledge based economy and this becoming more front and center there, I think is more and more great work being done around, how do we bridge that gap and make the language we're using clear across employers and learning institutions, so that it's like this is what people know and can do, and learners know how to communicate it. And actually the transparency thread is has been woven into our consulting work as well. We support clients in researching and determining learning pathways that lead to career progression in order to make opportunities clearer for both learners and employees, who may themselves be at very different stages of their career journeys. So, you know, I guess really, so much of it's about being explicit, about naming the skills being acquired in a way that's useful for learners, especially at this moment with AI where it can be really challenging to make oneself distinct. And really, so much of it's about being able to communicate your knowledge, your experience and what you know and can do.

Julian Alssid: Exactly, and it's really leading so many of the institutions to adapt their curriculum and embrace this sort of new model of education that focuses on skills and practical applications. So how do you do that, while maintaining, you know, academic standards to the degree that you feel those. Are important, you know, we know those academic skills, or are the skills that carry people longest in their careers and and I think part of what also adds to this complexity is this proliferation of new tools to kind of inform and support the entire learning and advising and hiring cycle, right? So it's a blizzard of information and activity that all revolves around this kind of rise of a sort of skills based ecosystem and redefining the role of education.

Kaitlin LeMoine: No, I think that that's right. I mean, and it does make me think about, like, what does all of this mean for us? Like, in our consulting work too, right? Like, because, because, I think for all of us, I mean, every time we're on this podcast, right, there's this element of like, how can we be forces in this work? How do we apply this work to our own our own lives, our own efforts? It feels like it's like we're talking about these big picture challenges and and areas of opportunity and like, as as we're talking it's making me think, well, as we go about our own work, I think one of the things we're trying to do is both drive projects and initiatives forward in collaboration with our clients, while also being mindful and aware of this landscape and remaining kind of up to date on what's happening, what's current, right? And like, trying to decipher, okay, what do we need to pay immediate attention to, and what's like a thread to be monitoring, but like, we keep the work going, right, right? Like, that feels like a piece of the work that's just now inherent in everything we take on. As far as, like, one idea for, like, practical implementation of all this learning. It's just part of how we approach it now.

Julian Alssid: No, for sure, and it's interesting because I think it calls for sort of a level of discipline on our part, as well as our clients or partners, that didn't exist previously. It's just, again, trying to keep the focus on what we are trying to accomplish? So for example, and that just keeps bringing me back to like, what are the what are the things that matter, no matter how much is changing that you need to keep the handle on and and one that comes to mind for me, and I look back at last season and thinking about our consulting, as well as is the imperative of partnerships and the need for cross sector collaboration. And you know, the idea that no one partner can do this alone is way, way too complex.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Absolutely, and that's where so much of where consulting work takes place, as the external partner that helps develop and facilitate these partnerships to ensure stakeholder alignment and a continuous feedback loop that allows different partners to bring their unique vanity points and perspectives to the table, while also being mindful and aware of the broader landscape in which we're all operating and collaborating and working together can help to unearth where there might otherwise be hiccups, like you were thinking of it this way. Oh, I was thinking of it that way. How can we come together before we design a solution?

Julian Alssid: Exactly, I'm thinking about the work we're doing now with a community college in Massachusetts and its partners around manufacturing. It really is about what each partner brings to the table that's unique. In this case, the educators educate, the employers run businesses. There's a lot of nuance there in the perspectives, and how do you communicate them, and how do you get everyone on the same page so they can, right up front, have the basis for a solid partnership that's going to ultimately make a difference?

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, exactly. I mean, this is difficult and complicated work.

Julian Alssid: Yeah, and it's often why we're brought in as consultants. So given all of that, what can people do to be forces at this rapid time of change and transition?

Kaitlin LeMoine: And maybe this sounds too optimistic, but there's a part of me that's like, let's continue to drive good work forward, right? There's so many amazing programs, initiatives like that are really focused on helping learners succeed, meet their next milestone, their next goal, whether it's workforce development, a training program, you know, four year degree, whatever it is, right? Like, there's so many great initiatives moving like, I think at moments of, like, a lot of change in transition. It's almost like, don't stop, like, there's the need to slow down and reevaluate and be aware of what's going on. But also, there's just so much need that, like the work will continue in some way, shape or form. And I think, like I'd said earlier, the other thing is really to remain as much as possible, like remaining current, right on, on these shifts, maybe without it letting without any one new bit of information totally driving you in a totally new direction. Because I think it can feel like oh, wait a minute, this is the new the newest information on AI, what do we do with this? And it's like, well, how does that new information fit within the existing strategy you have in place? How can you learn from that information or incorporate it without maybe it upending? Like, you know, whatever your strategy or plan is, those are a couple things that stick out to me.

Julian Alssid: Yeah, it's. Funny as you say that, what popped in my mind is, you know, technology alone does not solve the workforce challenges totally, at least not yet. But in fact, I think for me, two points that kind of come to the fore in terms of what we can do to be forces in this time of change as well. One is the main one is just to kind of keep our eye on the prize, because it is, as you say, so easy to get caught up in the swirl or chase down rabbit holes and and at the core, you know, the intersection of work and learning is about helping individuals thrive and growing the economy. It's kind of this dual customer focus, as we like to say, and so I think therefore our clients, our customers, our audience and us all need to embrace agility and partnership. We really need to adopt this mindset of continuous learning and adaptability, because this things are changing, and they're gonna keep changing and changing. I mean, you know, we're like again, we've barely begun to factor in AI to what the impact on work, and if you look at the amount of money being invested, it's going to have an impact, no matter what the reports today are telling us.

Kaitlin LeMoine: The impacts are already happening, right?

Julian Alssid: They're already happening, but they're going to be way more massive than anyone will probably realizes or wants to admit. You know, I think back to the conversation we had even a couple of seasons ago with Pardis Madhavi, who's, you know, former university president who talked with us in Season Three about how leaders of institutions have to embrace a high tolerance for failure and a culture of nimbleness and, you know, in order to remain relevant, and I think that's something we all need to do. And then the other is just not to lose sight of the fact that this all has to be anchored, this work has to be anchored in human purpose. I mean, that's the secret sauce, right?

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, no, I think one of the things that sticks out now more than ever, and it's come up in a couple of our podcast conversations with, I think, with Matt Siegelman and Julia Freeland Fisher just around, like the human connection piece, right? Like so much of, I think what's happening now is re emphasizing the importance of human skills and like, how do we make sure those connections remain and that we continue to build skills like problem solving and critical thinking and communication, right, like not let go of those skills as as these other technological advancements, as you said, right, continue to push us in new in kind of unchartered directions.

Kaitlin LeMoine: It was on Jean Eddie this, this quote kept popping out at me as I went back to listen to our earlier podcasts in preparation for this discussion, is Jean Eddy from American Student Assistance said that the goal is to help students find a path that makes their hearts sing. And I think ultimately we've just got to keep that human focus.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yep, yep. I think that's right.

Julian Alssid: So with that said, you know, here we are ready to launch our next set of interviews, where we will certainly continue to unpack and delve into these and more topics as they emerge.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yep, we're kicking off Season Five, and we'll be diving in our next episode with new guests and a whole new season. So thank you, Julian, for taking the time to talk with me today.

Julian Alssid: This is great, Kaitlin, and we should definitely do this more often, and maybe even dive in a little. You know, people have said to us, our listeners have said they want to learn more about what we do and, you know, and our views. So there you go, there's a little bit of it, and we'll be back with more. This is a teaser, so look forward to continuing this conversation.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Indeed. Thank you all for listening. We'll be back soon.

Kaitlin LeMoine: We hope you enjoyed today's conversation, and appreciate you tuning in to Work Forces. Thank you to our listeners and guests for their ongoing support, and a special thanks to our producer, Dustin Ramsdell, if you're interested in sponsoring the podcast or want to check out more episodes, please visit workforces dot, info forward, slash podcast. You can also find Work Forces wherever you regularly listen to your favorite podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, and share it with your colleagues and friends. And if you're interested in learning more about Work Forces Consulting, please visit workforces dot info forward slash consulting for more details about our multi service practice.

Scott Carlson and Ned Laff, authors of "Hacking College," discuss how to craft a higher education experience that intentionally links student learning to future work and career success. They emphasize the necessity of a proactive and personalized approach to higher education, tapping into students' passions and hidden intellectualism. Carlson and Laff champion a field of study approach, empowering students to actively design their undergraduate degrees, unearth hidden job markets, and leverage faculty expertise. They underscore the significance of cultural and social capital, urging institutions to adapt and support this student-centric model. The conversation illuminates the ways that higher education administrators and faculty, and students themselves, can personalize the learning experience to ensure higher ed graduates are well-equipped to navigate diverse career opportunities.

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in.

Happy summer all. We're back with one more rewind episode featuring Scott Carlson and Ned Laff. And in this conversation, we dive deep into their new book Hacking College. Amongst many topics, we discuss a framework to approach college and the college experience with a personalized focus on future careers and long-term goals. We hope you enjoy this conversation and look forward to kicking off our next season in our next episode.

So Julian, I've noticed a real shift in our conversations lately, both with clients and on the podcast, we seem to be delving deeper into the complexities of the school-to-work transition, especially for young adults and for working adults.

Julian Alssid: It's true. Kaitlin, and it really highlights the increasing complexity of that transition. The job market is constantly evolving, and it can be tough for students to figure out where they fit in, especially with so many opportunities hidden from public view.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's a tall order for educators and institutions too. For example, faculty are being asked to wear many hats and skills like career advising can sometimes feel separate from their day to day roles and require new sets of tools and related training.

Julian Alssid: Right? It's not just about helping students find a job, but about guiding them through a process of self discovery, exploration and network building and helping them understand their own interests and strengths and how those connect to real world opportunities.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And that's where I think our guests today, Scott Carlson and Ned Laff, have some really valuable insights. They've literally written the book on this. It's called "Hacking College", and we're talking to them on the book's release date.

Julian Alssid: Yes, and congratulations, guys. The book offers a framework for faculty and staff to help students take a more proactive and personalized approach to their college experience with a real focus on future careers and life goals.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Though we'll ask Scott and Ned, to give their own background, Scott's a Senior Writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, where he's been writing about the trends shaping higher education for over 25 years. As his LinkedIn profile states, he writes about where education is headed, how it serves or doesn't serve students and the public, and how the sector can stay relevant and resilient.

Julian Alssid: And Ned has over 35 years of experience in higher ed, helping students design successful undergraduate experiences. He's held leadership roles at numerous colleges and universities focused on academic advising, curriculum development and student engagement.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Scott and Ned, welcome to Work Forces. Congratulations on the publication of this book, and we're excited to dive in with you today to learn more about Hacking College.

Ned Laff: Thank you so much.

Scott Carlson: Thanks for having us on.

Julian Alssid: So to get the conversation started, love to hear a bit more about your respective backgrounds and how you came together to write this book.

Scott Carlson: Well, as Kaitlin had said, I was at The Chronicle for about 25 years. I've you know, in the years leading up to the pandemic, I was writing a lot about inequality and the path from college to work. I wrote a couple of Chronicle reports about the future of work and how students wind up getting jobs. And in writing some of this, these reports, and writing some of these stories, the follow up stories in The Chronicle, I had been getting a lot of notes from one Ned Laff who had been contacting me and had been working in this area for some time. And this is, in fact, how we got to know each other and got to meet each other, because Ned was just writing me over and over again about, oh, there's a better way. There's a better way to do this. I'll let him take the story from there.

Ned Laff: Yeah, I have the work that I had been doing in higher ed. It's hard to call it something like advising. It's, it's in this middle, middle ground. I got into this when I was a grad student at the University of Illinois in Urbana, where I was working in a program called Individual Plans of Study, where students could design their own academic major, provided it couldn't be done in any of the colleges at the University of Illinois Urbana. And what we began to find out working is that students would be coming in and we would help them figure out how they could do essentially, the heart of an individual plan of study, but underneath the rubric of a major. And that started to raise questions in my mind about what is the nature of a college curriculum from the eyes of a student. What is the relationship of a college curriculum to the world of work? If there is this giant thing called the hidden job market, which is not advertised in career services, you don't see it on, you don't see it on. Indeed. You don't see it anywhere. And what does this mean in terms of student engagement, and how students can tap what they're genuinely interested in, what we call hidden intellectualism, and how they actually better engage learning and and the university they're at. And I would send Scott these. I'm like, probably about 100 emails a week, just nagging them. I got something here. I got something here. Just give me five minutes, though.

Kaitlin LeMoine: You share about this in this, in the book, a little bit. We'd love to hear about how the book title came to be. And can you share a bit about the major challenges you hope to tackle when writing this book?

Scott Carlson: Well, I think when I was writing some of that stuff for the Chronicle about the path from college to work, I was sort of following along the kind of narrative that everyone else sort of follows. And it's, you know, it's sort of about skills. What do you do with liberal arts education? How do you get students to land internships and all of that. And you know, really, one of the points that we that we make in hacking college is that a lot of that just sort of comes about by luck. For a lot of students, they just sort of happen to run into the right person who shows them how to play the game, or they come from a lot of social and cultural capital that sort of paves the way to where they want to go. And part of what we're trying to do with hacking college is to describe, kind of, the principles of how people wind up creating valuable undergraduate degrees. We're kind of looking at the whole issue of what is the empty college degree. You know, the empty college degree being sort of this degree that is a quote, unquote useful major, and then a bunch of other stuff in the degree that doesn't really knit together. And a lot of students graduate with that kind of degree. You know, we think this is like a huge part of what drives the national conversation about underemployment and of the value of college right now, and that emptiness being sort of the main problem there. And so with Hacking College, we're trying to tackle this, this question like, how do you actually get to something that's valuable? The term hacking comes from the notion that colleges sort of set up a bunch of rules around, you know, how do you get through? How do you, what do you major in? How do you, how do you fill up the rest of the undergraduate degree? And we're using the metaphor of hacking we're talking about like, how do you, how do you use these different structures that you find in college and then knit them together in a conscious way? How do you, how do you create opportunities and create a program that plays off the strengths that you already bring to college? This is a big part of the hacking metaphor there, coming out of the work of Bruce Schneier, who talks about how hacking is across society. People hack the tax code. People hack regulations, government regulations. People hack their lives in all sorts of ways. And of course, the wealthy hack college in hiring expensive college consultants, in, you know, in lining up opportunities for their children in all sorts of ways. How can we do this for students who don't bring these kinds of resources to the undergraduate experience?

Julian Alssid: So Ned, you so in the book, I think you used the term earlier, you described approaching this undergraduate experience as a field of study.

Ned Laff: Yes.

Julian Alssid: What does that mean? What exactly do you mean? And how does approaching college with that lens impact their learner experience?

Ned Laff: The interesting thing about using field of study is, I asked students once, can you tell me the difference between your college faculty and your high school faculty, and they couldn't and it was a wonderful experience, because what it meant was basically 90% of what faculty have to offer, what a university has to offer, is invisible. So when you look at faculty, faculty are field of study specialists. They aren't just, I'm a professor of English or I'm a professor of biology, they are I'm a professor of environmental biology, and I'm looking at the migration patterns of whales. And that is looking at it is defining a problem which we call in the book wicked problems, which demand a multi disciplinary approach. And how you approach those wicked problems depends on how you define it. So it's not unusual to hear students come out and say, I just graduated with my degree. I'm at Northwestern University. I actually heard this the other day at the gym. I'm at Northwestern University. I'm graduating, and I have no idea what I'm doing with my degree. I don't know how it adds up, because no one had ever asked them a question like this. I'm going to go into accounting. I have no idea what. Talking about, can you explain that to me? And as soon as you ask for that explanation, whole bunches of things open up. And among those things that open up are all this possibility in what Scott and I call the hidden job market. So the other part of field of study is that it brings an outward looking perspective into how students think inwardly about the college. When they begin to do this, what they realize is there's three basic components to an undergraduate education. When you look at most colleges, right, Gen Ed, the major, and what are you going to do with the rest of the hours, which is almost a third or more of your hours? Sometimes it could add up to 50 hours, because some courses in the gen ed count for the major. Well, when you look at a degree audit, it's except for the basic required courses. It's blank spaces to be filled in. How you fill that in is either going to lead to a profound field, the study for you, where you're using the that thing that you're interested in, your hidden, what we call hidden intellectualism, to guide the way you start looking at the learning opportunities on campus and filling these pieces in so they integrate and they fit together. So Gen Ed links with elective courses, which link with how you select what you want to take from this thing called the major department, and how you begin to identify faculty by their fields of specialty. So for instance, take psychology. There's developmental psychologists, there's social psychologists, there are psychologists that focus on Labor and Industrial Relations. There are cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, all of those, if, depending on how you're going to look at the problem you want to study, all of those represent a different way of organizing the learning opportunities on campus. How you organize those learning opportunities that starts building out a field of study. But the other thing that's important in doing this is finding out who is doing that thing you want to do, because all of a sudden you walk out into the world, right? And this world, by the way, could be faculty doing their research and they're discovering things that, wow, if I was to do it all over again, I would be doing this for my course selection instead of that, because this is what I'm encountering right now, and students can bring that information back into how they begin to design what their curriculum or their course of study is, and that's the difference. It's an active design process, not from an advisor or a faculty member talking about degree requirements, but from a student designing the pieces of their curriculum.

Julian Alssid: Just going back for a minute. I mean, this makes all the great sense and and I think anyone you know, so many of us can hearken back to that faculty or administrator that kind of helped us help the lights go off. But I guess I do wonder, and I don't know, maybe I'll love this one to you, Scott, this requires a bit of a mind shift for a lot of faculty. I mean, I don't think you know, they signed on to be the Career Counselor, the social networking expert, along with the, you know, the content expert and expert instructor. So A, what's your view about that? And B, how are we going to get from here to where you guys think we need to go?

Scott Carlson: I mean, I think what you're asking is sort of what I'm picking up from what you're asking is, you know, an implement, an implementation sort of factor here, like, how does this actually happen on a college campus, right? And so kind of part, you know, what we envision, you know, we wrote Hacking College in this very conversational style that allows anyone to read it and anyone to sort of adopt the practices there. Because, you know, on one hand, people you know, they sort of asked us, do you want after this, this book came out of a story that I wrote for The Chronicle called the crusade against terrible advising, right? And after the article came out, you know, Johns Hopkins Press and others had asked, Do you want to turn this into a book? Do you want to write a book about advising? And we really didn't want to write a book about advising. We wanted to write about these structures that cause students to fall off the path. And in writing the book, we wanted to write it in this accessible style, because we sort of felt that everyone on a campus should be able to read this and then work with the students that they, in particular, have in their orbit. That's how you're going to sort of increase, increase the touches that that students have with people on campus, right? We can't just sort of lay this all on advisors, or lay this all on faculty advisors, and in part of the part of implementing this, part of what we're getting at is that what the colleges can do is they can, they can sort of adopt this as a mind frame at the colleges where everyone is sort of speaking this field of study, language and instructing students how to how to go about this, how to talk to people, how to find these contacts that are going to help instruct them in how to design their undergraduate degree. Now, these can be faculty members, but we're hopeful that when the students do encounter the faculty members, when they are working with them. They're working with the faculty members that share this kind of passion, or this hidden intellectualism, or this area of interest, this place where they're going to have a head start on the conversation, because they're already into what the faculty are talking about. And those faculty members, members then will be motivated to work with those students, because those students are in the area that they're interested in. I mean, a big part of the social capital that we talk about in hacking college comes through cultural capital. You know, the conversation about social capital is everywhere in higher ed right now. It's about who you know, right? But a big point that we're making in hacking college is that what drives the social capital is the cultural capital. It's the stuff that you're bringing as a person to the other person in making this link across interests, hidden intellectualism, obsessions, that kind of thing. So this is, I think, a big key to sort of making these relationships work.

Ned Laff: And another part of it is this is very much the student is agent. So there's a student in doing this, they're creating networks. So it's not like I'm I am dependent on a faculty member. There could be three or four faculty members. There could be somebody in student affairs that they talk to, they go out on what we call this research, investigative inquiry, and start talking to people in the areas that they're interested in, and they're bringing information back there. Then they can sit, perhaps with somebody in an advising office and say, Here, I've got all this information. Now, how do I put the how do these pieces start to come together so that I can graduate under the requirements of a major, right? But design the pieces so it gets me to where I want to go. So it's very much a process of students building out their social capital, building out their cultural capital, learning how to network with people on campus and off campus, right? These are all the skills that everyone says people need, right? But they're doing this to design their undergraduate field of study. So in the process of doing their undergraduate education, all these mystical skills of oral communication and teamwork and stuff, they're all coming together, because what's driving it is the students' hidden intellectualism and their vocational purpose.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, I mean, I really appreciated in the in the book, when you know you had a line, it's not where you go to college, but how you do college that matters. That really stuck out to me. And I think, you know, as as we're thinking about the the social and cultural capital, and you know, one point in the book, you raise this concept of the hidden jobs, and you take it in a slightly different direction than I think we sometimes hear it talked about like it's not just about what's posted on LinkedIn as a job opportunity or not, but really that other definition around like pulling back the curtain of the world of work and helping learners really get an understanding of what are all the different job opportunities and career paths available in what might be. I mean, you, I love the scenario of working in a museum, right, like, but would love to, would love just to hear you talk a little bit more about that and what that, you know, what going down that path, through those hidden jobs, can really unearth for learners.

Ned Laff: You know, this is where students, all of a sudden, everything changes for them. I sent this one to Scott recently because I didn't know this existed. There is a national Egg Board. I mean, isn't that cool? It's it's a national organization, and what they deal with is eggs, the eggs you eat. So that means, when you think about it, they have to have a director, they have to have communications, they have to have organizational structure. There's all these things out here. You will never see the National Egg Board listed in a career services office. But that doesn't mean a student can't access it. So what happens is, everything is fair game. And part of the issue that we need to start thinking about is, we right it. Universities tend to define here's where the jobs are. Instead of listening to students and helping them realize, Oh, you want to do something like spoken word, and you want to help students. You want to help kids, in general, use that in order to build out their self esteem, get on their feet and start moving forward. Well, what major is that called, right? But when you start looking at it, you know, we have Google, type in Google, and all of a sudden, up comes all this information. And will people talk to you? Sometimes you have to tell students that they have to put a time limit on it, because once you get people talking to you about what they love to do, they'll go on and on and on, and that opens up possibilities, plus they didn't help the student network to other people doing similar types of things. So now what happens is the model is sort of like a good dissertation advisor who asks you that question and then says, here's how you go find the answer. Now, go come back and tell me what you're coming back with. And so that's how the process works. So it's faculty, it could be staff, it could be anything you hear on the radio, anything you see on TV, anything you read in a newspaper, a billboard that you see you're in yoga class and hear a conversation. All of that is fair game in this process, and it changes the whole nature of the job market and for students, when all of a sudden they say, oh my god, I just ran into somebody who's doing what I love, right? We tend, we tend to say, follow your passion. That's the line out there, right? But really it's following that hidden intellectualism and vocational purpose. The passion is just the emotive expression of, Oh, my God, this is real.

Scott Carlson: One thing I would say is that you know this process that allows students to go out and discover these worlds that are important to them, you know, the Egg Board, or whatever. You know these the world of skiing, the world of anime. You know, it's not just good for the student in discovering something that's out there. I think it's also good. We also think that it's good for the institution. Yes, have you ever heard of the concept of the desire path? You see desire paths when you walk through a city and there's a, sort of a grassy place along a sidewalk, and then you see this sort of like dirt path that goes through the sidewalk to Earth, through the grass to another sidewalk on the other side. It's the people sort of making, this is the shortcut. This is how I want to get there. It's the way that people hack the urban urban infrastructure, in a sense, right? But it also shows others where they can cut across the grass to get to a place faster, right? And eventually, over time, in a lot of instances, the cities will just pave that part because that's where this that's where the people are going. Let's create it. Let's create an actual path there, right? And that's kind of what we're saying. Can happen with the colleges too. The students go out and they discover these worlds, and they're like, oh, I can use this to go to open up the world of eggs through the Egg Board, or I can go into anime, or I can go into museums, or what, what have you. And then the institution starts to discover, oh, these students are leading the way. They are blazing the path. It gives us an opportunity for other students to follow them. And then we can, we can institutionalize that path. We can create a way for students to get there easier,

Ned Laff: And it also challenges, it also challenges our traditional way of thinking about things. I have an academic minute that I wrote it was the answer to the Dead Poets Society. Of course, you can study Shakespeare and go to medical school, more than likely you're going to end up being a much more empathetic doctor. But what students begin to discover when they start looking at the 5000 different ways you can actually get into medical school, it allows them to balance out their life. So I've had students who never had that semester of chemistry, physics, math and biology in the same semester because they discovered, wait, this is what's required to get into medical school. But there's other stuff. There is this whole thing of. How does culture affect health care? How do social social factors affect health care? Why is understanding language important? Because language involves not just speaking to somebody. It involves a culture of eating, a culture of behaving, a culture of everything all of there's so many different paths to get into medical school. Why do so many students only hear about one? Right? Because I remember reading an article that was in The Chronicle that people who are trying to defend history were saying, Wow, we have a couple of history majors who are interested in medical school, but they never ask this question. They never lay this out. How does understanding how to do historical research help you take a better patient history, and asking that question changes everything for a student, and allows them to plan things in a way that best fits all the all the gymnastics that are in their life.

Kaitlin LeMoine: I appreciated the use of the term translation chasm in your book, and I think you know whether that's talking about from a more liberal arts major to a more technical job, or, as you're saying, right? What does it look like to think about maybe something, maybe a graduate school opportunity where it's like, Wait, does this relate? And how and what really are those tangible skills, those cross functional skills, just interdisciplinary skills that kind of follow you wherever you go. I think you know is, is invaluable from a learner perspective, especially, you know, as we recognize that people tend to have more than one job, more than one career at this point, right? So like taking that skill and being able to apply it over and over again, and think about, wait a minute, how do these skills translate to this next opportunity, or to this maybe peripheral or tangential opera that might seem peripheral, peripheral, but actually maybe isn't.

Scott Carlson: Yeah, and I think, I think that's an interesting point about the translation chasm there, because I think a lot of the students go in thinking like, well, major equals job, right? And so what do you do with history? What do you do with dance? What do you do with you know, art, right? Like, become an artist, become a dancer. You know, like, there's all sorts of ways to think about it under this framing. There's different ways to think about what your pathway can be. But you make a good point. One of the things that we write about in hacking College is the notion that you only gather those skills, and you only really sort of understand their meaning and their applicability if you know why you're sitting in the courses, if you know why you're there, if you know what it's leading to, or how you're sort of applying it, right it's skills. I think the conversation about skills in higher education right now is just so much about like, well, we're going to open these kids' heads, and then we're going to dump the skills in, and they're going to be great, and then somebody will hire them for those skills. Eventually we're going to go to skills based hiring, quote, unquote, right? And, you know, we just think that the whole scene is a lot more complicated than that, and requires a lot more human engagement, yeah, than all of that. It's just not this turnkey, like, let's give people skills and then go from there, right? You know.

Ned Laff: Skills are always contextually based

Kaitlin LeMoine: And the coaching that underlies what you're talking about.

Ned Laff: Yes, and interestingly, I'm taking something from my background. It's a metaphorical step to take the skills that you've learned in one contextual setting, and then begin to apply them in another to see how they apply into other contextual studies. You're seeing these analogic connections. And this is, this is the other power of the field of study approach.

Julian Alssid: Yeah, well, it's and it's interesting. We, like Kaitlin, and we talked quite a lot about, you know, that? I mean, it's really about ensuring that each of us has this kind of, you know, good understanding of what we bring to the table, both intellectually interest tech and in the end, the good jobs now, the more we can see from what's emerging here with tech and AI and such as is like, you know, it's like, kind of these jobs require the higher order thinking a good liberal arts program teaches, and the ability to apply yourself. So in a way, what you're talking about is a very organic way of just using this infrastructure that we have to move more in that direction.

Ned Laff: Right and building off Gerry Graff's work on "Clueless in Academe", this idea of hidden intellectualism is important when I work with students or when I'm talking to a group of students, I always ask them this question, have you ever gone to a movie with your friend? Yes, and they all say yes. And then I ask them, but did you see the same movie? And then there's a certain line right. There's a certain area where they could say yes, they saw the same movie. But then when they start to get into that interpretive mood that that's not the same movie that everyone's seen. Well, this is the same thing that happens when a student is in a class, when they have clarified their hidden intellectualism, they know they're looking at the contextual nature of the skills and then shaping that through the lens of their hidden intellectualism into the field of study, the problem that they're going after.

Scott Carlson: Julian, I, you know, I would just say too that, like this is one of the things that it's one of the points of Hacking College, but it's also one of the things that we worry about a little bit. You know, Hacking College is, on one hand, really critical of a lot of the structures within, you know, the average four year institution or university, and what they're doing wrong with advising, and what's happening with, you know, the tracks that they're setting up, and how they're shoving students into boxes and all of that. But you know what you're talking about in terms of what we're talking about here, in terms of, how do students actually acquire skills? How do people actually learn to grow into the roles that they eventually occupy. You know, that's really, it's really individualistic and really hard work. You know, it's hard work on the part of the institution, too. And we do worry that, you know, that the national conversation that seeks to simplify this process, that is about like setting up pathways or putting up tracks, or, like, saying it's all about skills based hiring, or it's all about, like, you know, setting up these, these very, you know, rote pathways. You know, we just worry that that's not really going to get us where we want to go as a nation, in terms of a working nation, you know, there has to be this balance between offering people opportunities that are clear and may have clear pathways to them, but also, you know, giving people the opportunity to be entrepreneurial and to express the skills that are already within them and the desires that they have and the worlds that they want to enter.

Julian Alssid: Okay, so just riffing off of that. Scott, one of the questions we like, always like to ask on each of our episodes is, you know, what can our what steps can our audience take to become forces, in this case, in hacking college? And you know, our audience is more the people who are trying to run these institutions and teach students and interested to hear your take on that, you guys.

Scott Carlson: I, I'll start, and then I'll let Ned take it from there. But like one of the one of the things that Ned and I have thought about writing for The Chronicle as a follow up to hacking College, is as a story that says it's right in front of you. The answers are right in front of you, because there are so many times when we've gone to colleges and the institutions just are not even doing the basic work of getting off of campus, talking to the various constituents that are off campus, really engaging the students on what they really, really want there, that there are sort of unfilled internship positions out there, that you know, that the college is lined up, but no one's bothered to like connect the students to it. I think some of the work that has to be done right now is really low hanging fruit, and it is really just about getting people out of the out of the confined space of the campus, and getting them off campus and to discover what's out there, and to start to build these partnerships that are really fun. I think the other piece of it too is to try to engage the student around what we're talking about in the book, in terms of playing off of their playing off of what drives them. I mean, we're in a position right now where, you know, we've been talking about this for a couple of weeks, where we just have no idea where the world is going. This is where we end hacking college that you know, Zach Stein, he's this educational futurist that we quote in the last chapter says, you know, we just, even the elders, have no idea where the country is going, where education is going, what form it will take. So maybe we need a little less control around that, and we need to start to embrace this hacking concept that allows us to open it up a little bit more and maybe experiment a little bit more. That's what's coming. I think for higher education.

Ned Laff: There's something very deliberate also in what we did with Hacking College, we focused on, Hi, here's a school that anyone can get into. Here's a community college that anyone can get into. These are not Ivy League colleges. They're not the high end flagship institutions, and all of a sudden they become hidden dream schools, because what students begin to see is that these, all these schools, have a wealth of learning opportunities on their campuses if they can see it well, the flip side is for college administrators to be able to see exactly the same thing when students begin to see when they begin to look at faculty as field of study specialists, the whole nature of the college changes. Everything changes. Well, if we can get faculty and administrators and staff to see the same thing, then what you begin to realize is, gosh, go wander into some of the offices or some of the labs on a community college, and all of a sudden you're going to see some of the craziest stuff going on, right? So there's this wealth out there. So here's all this wealth, and here's this thing of what our college is going to do to try to attract students or to show students that there's value and it's right in front of you. Change this is interesting, right? Change the conversations, right? So the last time I looked, and trust me, I look at this all the time, there is no budget line in change the kinds of conversations right. Change the conversations the students see themselves differently. They see the campus differently. They see all the opportunities around their campus differently. All of a sudden it's a wealth of opportunities. The other thing that's interesting is this, people will always ask me, why will these people that we send students out to talk to? We make them make these phone calls, this research, investigative interview? Why would people talk to them, and I tell them straight up, because they're all frustrated parents whose kids never listen to them, and they've got so much to share, and they really want to share it. And so the hack is, I'm not going through an HR gate. I'm going around the gate. I've taken a desired path. I'm connecting, I'm matching my interest with somebody else's interest, which then brings passion to passion, and all sorts of stuff begins to blow up. It's great.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So I feel like we could have, we could have a full day's worth of conversation about this book, and I, and I hate to take us to the last question of our conversation today, but, but I will so you know, we've really enjoyed this conversation and really appreciate so many of you know so many of the topics that you raised and in this book. As we close out today, how can our listeners learn more and continue to follow the work that you're doing? And Scott, you know, you mentioned the follow up piece you might be writing, and how can our listeners kind of remain in the loop?

Scott Carlson: I mean, I think, first of all, you know, just for me, I'll continue to write for The Chronicle. I have a column called The Edge, where we'll be hitting these topics on a regular basis, and we'll be out there on social media. I mean, social media is kind of a disaster these days, but I am on LinkedIn, so I'll be posting on that. And, you know, we'll just continue to have this. We're just going to continue to push this. I think, given the way that people are talking about college right now. We want to change that conversation. And we want to change the conversation around, what does it mean to be connected to the workforce? Yeah, that's been part of it.

Ned Laff: So I'm on LinkedIn. Contact us. You know, we will gladly sit down, set up a time. We could do a Zoom talk. There's whole bunches of different ways to do this, and this is important for people in universities to understand you can take what already exists that you're already using, reshape the insides of it, and all of a sudden a master in college class becomes a class in mastering how to hack the college right same amount of time you already have it scheduled. You're not increasing any revenue. But the important thing is the effects on the students will be different. And so it's easy to do. It's like anyone who would like to continue the conversations just, just contact well.

Julian Alssid: And I'm sure people will definitely want to continue the conversation. We're so excited to have been at the front end of this dialogue you're starting, I hope others will read the book I'm about 52% of the way through, judging by my bookmark here to the left. But thank you both so so much for joining us today. Good luck with this, and you know, we too look forward to being part of this conversation.

Scott Carlson: Thank you both.

Ned Laff: Thanks so much.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Thank you. That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our sponsor, Lumina Foundation. We're also grateful to our wonderful producer, Dustin Ramsdell. You can listen to future episodes at workforces dot info or on Apple, Amazon and Spotify, please subscribe, like and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends.

Shawn VanDerziel, President and CEO of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), kicks off a special three-part series exploring the crucial intersection of higher education and industry. Drawing on his extensive experience in HR and recruitment, VanDerziel discusses how the evolving economy is reshaping entry-level hiring practices and the growing importance of skills-based recruitment. He highlights the challenges facing both employers and higher education institutions, including the "language gap" that prevents students from effectively articulating their skills to employers. VanDerziel also examines how AI is transforming both recruitment strategies and career services, drawing employers back to campus recruiting while offering new opportunities for understaffed career offices. The conversation offers practical strategies for helping students translate their academic experiences into workplace-relevant skills, ultimately strengthening the vital bridge between post-secondary education and meaningful employment.

Transcript

Kaitlin LeMoine: Hi all, hope you all are doing well. As we plan for our next podcast season, we're posting a few Work Forces Rewinds featuring some of the insightful conversations you may have missed from this past season. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did. While we'll be back with new episodes in the coming weeks, we want to pause to express our appreciation for you, our listeners. Julian and I are so grateful for your feedback, your likes and shares and overall engagement with the Work Forces podcast. Your encouragement and perspectives continue to shape the conversations we hold on the podcast and inform how we approach our consulting efforts as well. We hope you enjoy these Rewind episodes and we'll be back to kick off our next season soon. So here we go.

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in. Julian. We've spent a lot of time on this podcast exploring the connections between higher ed and industry. Among many topics, we've discussed experiential learning, skills based education, business, higher ed partnerships and the impact of AI. We've examined how colleges are continuing to adapt to workforce needs and how innovative collaborations are aligning academic programs with evolving career opportunities.

Julian Alssid: That's right Kaitlin, and we're excited to share that we've partnered with the National Association of Colleges and Employers, or NACE, for a special three part mini series focused on a really critical piece of the higher ed-industry connection.

Kaitlin LeMoine: For our listeners who may be less familiar, NACE is the leading professional organization for career services and university relations and recruiting professionals. As described on their website, NACE empowers and connects the community of professionals who support, develop, and employ the college educated workforce.

Julian Alssid: This series will examine the work happening at the crucial intersection of learning and work in three parts. First, we'll discuss the broader landscape surrounding college career services and recruiting. Then we'll explore NACE's latest research, including projections for the class of 2025, and finally, we'll look at how leading colleges and employers are putting these insights into practice. To kick off today's conversation, we're honored to be joined by Shawn VanDerziel, President and CEO of NACE.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Shawn, thanks so much for joining us today. We're excited to have you on this podcast.

Shawn VanDerziel: Well, thanks for inviting us. I'm excited to be here with you all.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So, Shawn, as we jump in today, can you please give us some background on yourself and what led you to NACE.

Shawn VanDerziel: Sure I've had a windy road to my current position. I'm going to start back way back into college and move quickly through my career, so you can see the perspective by which I approach my work. I graduated from a large state school with my undergraduate and had no idea what I was going to do with my degree, and I had an opportunity to move to Chicago afterwards, which was a great move for me. And I found my first position working in college admissions, student enrollment, which was a natural for me, because in college, I was one of those overly involved students. I was a first generation student, so I didn't have the same resources as as many others may have had, and and wasn't quite sure how to approach my job search, etc, but I knew some things from my college experience, such as like giving campus tours, working with the admissions office, leading student groups, and I found my way into admissions. It was a great way to start my career. Worked my way up, and I got really burned out, and but what can I do? I was so tired of traveling all the time, being up until 10 o'clock at night, going to college fairs at high schools, all of those things. And so I thought, how can I transition these skills into something else? And I thought about recruiting, recruiting employees. So I was recruiting students. Why couldn't I recruit employees? And I found an organization that was really interested in me because of my connection to college students. They were very interested in connecting with college students to their employment opportunities. It was the first time that an outsourced service. Well, I should say, Fortune 500 company, utilized a outsourced service to fully take over the recruitment function. And so I worked for a company called Norrell Corporation, which was a billion dollar staffing company at the time, and we took over Bank of America's recruiting function for their Midwest region because they were expanding banks. So they were opening over 100 banks throughout the Chicagoland area in a period of about a year and a half. And I started as the recruitment manager, hiring all of these folks who are going to work in these banks, particularly through their management trainee programs and for tellers. And they wanted college students to be involved with that. So I was back on college campuses, looking for those students. Well again, I got really burned out, and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is the i being an outsourced service is a no joke kind of job. And I thought again, like, how can I transition this? And I already had the recruitment experience. I had always wanted to work at a museum, and finally, I had the skill to actually do something in a museum, and that was to work in a human resources office within a museum which is very niche, but I found a job and that I could apply for, and I actually got the job. And so I spent almost 25 years at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, which is one of the world's largest natural history museums, and I worked my way up from a human resources rep doing recruitment and employee relations to becoming the Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief of Staff. And I oversaw lots of different departments over time, including our IT department, our education department, marketing for a short while, and also oversaw our Board of Trustees and the functions related to that. While I was at The Field Museum, I built a really large internship program that included over 200 interns every summer. And that experience led me to NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers as a volunteer, I became a volunteer leader and eventually the Chair of the Board of NACE. Over a decade ago, when the executive director of NACE was about to retire, I became a part of the search process, and was lucky enough to actually be offered the job at the end of that executive search process. So five years ago, I started as this President and CEO of NACE, and am so delighted to be representing this organization to the world.

Julian Alssid: Always so great to hear peoples' origin stories. And so tell us a bit more about NACE. So give us an overview, if you will, Shawn and and then the role that nice really plays at the sort of intersection of higher ed and industry.

Shawn VanDerziel: Yeah, simply put, that's exactly what we do. We bridge post secondary education to employment. We're all about outcomes and equitable outcomes for all students who pursue post secondary education. What that means on a day to day basis is that we are a membership association that represents folks who work on college campuses, mostly in the career services offices. So we represent every type of college and university, small, large, private, public, community college, four year, you name it, that's about two thirds of our members. One third of our members are the employers who go into college campuses and recruit college students for employment opportunities, for full time internships, co ops, apprenticeships, you name it, the full gambit of opportunities. We represent close to 3,000 organizations, and over 17,000 almost 18,000 individuals are a part of the association.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Wow. Yeah. So this is, this is an extensive operation you have going on, and I would imagine, thank you. Thank you for the background you provided, because it just feels like, wow, you're drawing on, I'm sure, all the different skills and experiences gathered over the years, especially both on the college recruitment side and then on the employer recruitment side as well. It's quite striking.

Shawn VanDerziel: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. And one of the things that on important work, really important work. And we're not insular, so meaning, like we just don't do things for our members. We do things for the public at large, so that they understand what's happening with the outcomes of students. So at the center of everything that we do is research. We're a knowledge based organization, so we're able to study the employment market from a variety of perspectives. We can see what's happening at college campuses to prepare students for employment opportunities. We can talk with students about what they're looking for in their jobs and how they're being prepared for jobs in their careers, and we talk to the employers about what they're looking for and how those other two pieces need to evolve to meet the growing and demanding needs of the workplace of the future.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Amazing. So with all that being said, given the rapidly shifting environment that we're currently operating in this very dynamic space, we'd love to dive into a couple of different areas that you just that you mentioned, and that NACE raised recently as part of a recent more environmental scan. I believe you posted about it on LinkedIn not too long ago. So one question we have is, first, how do you see the current economy and economic outlook reshaping how employers are hiring entry level talent, and how, with a different lens how colleges are preparing those learners for success as well.

Shawn VanDerziel: What we know right now is that the employment market is contracting so there are fewer opportunities for college graduates to join the workforce as compared to, let's say, two or three years ago, and that is from general full time employment all the way through to internships. With that we also know that employers are continually telling us that there's a gap between what college students offer and what they're looking to hire. So they have, they have made a bunch of shifts in their hiring and how they hire, which is no different than the general employment landscape. So we keep hearing about skills based hiring. Well, this has caused employers, particularly with early talent to really focus on that skills based hiring. So what they're saying is, is that in the old days, they would look at students who had a particular major, and they would look to see what their grade point average is as a starting place for the hiring process, and today, they're telling us for some jobs, we will do that, particularly highly technical jobs that require technical skills. So if you're going to be an engineer, Well, you certainly don't want someone working on your airplane who didn't get good grades, right? So you want to know that they're the top of their class because they have the knowledge to do the job. So they might still be screened by GPA. But if I'm looking for someone who's going into a management trainee program of some sort, that's more of a generalist or etc, I might think a little bit more broadly. I don't necessarily have to have someone who has the highest GPA. What I want is someone who has the skills and competencies to do the job. So how am I then going to find that person? Well, I have to substitute something in there to screen that person by we know from talking to employers that work experiences in general are very important to them. So anytime a student can demonstrate work experiences, and they can list what they actually gained in skill or competency in that work is super important, and they look for internship experience, either internship experience with them as their that student's employer, or they look for industry experience. So did the person have an internship in something that's closely aligned? And those are the students that they're saying they probably have the skills to do the job. They're also, of course, doing things like keyword searches and and using AI as part of part of the recruitment process. But they're really trying to dig down to find students who are going to succeed long term, and that's also one of the reasons that they invest so much money, particularly large companies, into internship programs, because we know that internship programs are the number one return on investment for employers from a recruitment perspective, the cost value is there for them. They know that they can convert at least 50% of those interns into being full time employees. They know that when they hire that student who starts as an intern, they're going to be with the company, more likely a year later and more likely five years later. We know that we've got that that data data to back it up, so the return on investment is really there. So we're finding more and more interest from employers and and partnering with schools to make sure their internship programs are solid. We're also finding that they are returning to campus, so they've been doing hiring on the web for quite some time. They've been focusing on it virtually, but they're also finding a need to get back in person so that they can weed through some of the talent a little bit more quickly.

Julian Alssid: That's so interesting that they're they're coming back.

Shawn VanDerziel: Yeah, absolutely. And AI has a lot to do with that, and we certainly can talk more about AI and how that's impacting everything, but there's an impersonalization that's happening, and there really is a business case for for getting back on campus and finding that talent.

Julian Alssid: Yeah, so before we go into AI, which definitely we want to hear more about, it's all the rage, as you may have heard, interested to talk a little bit more about the skills based practices, because there's been some written about how... The Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Center on Workforce wrote a piece a few months ago, which, of course, could be ancient history at this point, that companies were not picking up so much on on skills based practices. And so I'm interested to hear your take on that. You know, I get it with respect to the jobs where they're they are looking for skills. But how is it? Are they integrating this more broadly into their organizations? Are you seeing that?

Shawn VanDerziel: Yeah, it's a really interesting question. So employers in our surveying do say that they, the majority of them, are doing some type of skills based hiring. Where they are doing it is either through keyword searches as an example, in screening the resumes through automated systems or the the other bulk is through behavioral based interviewing questions. So when a student actually lands an interview, being able to talk through with them what they have actually accomplished, and what they have the ability to be able to do based upon the skills and competencies that they've gained. And so by providing those concrete examples, they're able to kind of dig through that. But it also goes back to what I was mentioning just a few minutes ago, which is around they're kind of substituting when they say skills based hiring, what we say academically doesn't necessarily match what employers are doing logistically. There's always this gap between industry and higher ed and the language. And this is a really good example. And so when, from an academic perspective, we think of skill, we think, well, gosh, you're looking for someone who has great verbal speaking skills, right? You can do public speaking. Okay, great. So then, how do you screen for that? Well, what are those employers going to do to find that they're not going to put a test in place to have every candidate come through and do some kind of speech, right? That's not what they're going to do to get to that skill. What they're going to do is they're going to look on that resume and say, oh, gosh, did this student have an internship? And in that internship, did they use their verbal communication skills? Did they designate that on there? So if that skill is not listed, the employer isn't going to find it as a starting place, and then they're not going to be able to dig deeper on it when they get them into an interview. So this comes full circle to what's happening on campuses and preparing students to be career ready, and bridging that employment because we have an onus in higher education with these students to help them to articulate their skills and their competencies in a way that an employer can translate it and employers speak a totally different language. They want the shortcut. They want to get to the candidate in the fastest way possible. So they are going to put any mechanism in place to do that. And so it behooves us to help those graduates to be able to articulate it in every which way, all of the experiences that they have, right? So it doesn't even have they can come from unexpected ways. It could come from student activities. It could come from work study. It could come from a whole variety of places that a student may have obtained skills and competencies throughout their college career.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, it's really interesting to hear you talk about the language gap that exists Shawn and kind and the difference between, you know, maybe how, on the academic side, we describe a skill, and then the shortcut language that employers might use, I feel like that's, that's an area that we've I feel like has, you know, it's been around for for so long now, and it feels like there's just, there's more and more great work happening around how to close that gap. And you know, I think that if we're going to turn to the conversation of AI, it seems like there's some really interesting work there that might be able to support some of the closing of those gaps. But then there's also some new challenges that emerge as well. So would love to transition over to talk a little bit more about AI and how what you're seeing from the perspective of both use on the employer side with respect to recruitment and hiring, and also when we think about career services and preparing learners for really bridging that gap between post secondary and employer. Where is AI, you know, used well, where is it less effective? And you know, where do we still have work to do?

Shawn VanDerziel: I'll start with the employers. So as I mentioned earlier, employers are using it for screening, most definitely, and they've been doing that for a long time, using various AI technologies to help them screen resumes. But an interesting thing is happening right now, which is because of the explosion of AI, there are some employers that are seeing an explosion of resumes hitting them, and because of these bots that are out there, and there are fake candidates that are hitting employers by the hundreds of thousands. And there are job seekers who are literally sending out thousands of resumes at a time. And so when that happens, an employer is put at a disadvantage, because now they have for one opening, or let's call it, two openings, they have 10,000 candidates. So there's a real challenge there for them to screen all of those resumes and to really find the top candidates to come out of that and to really give the right people the right chance, right and so it's a tough predicament to be in, and that's one of the reasons employers are actually thinking about going back to campus, in larger numbers coming up here because they started to deploy a strategy over the last few years of virtual recruiting, which was successful for them, where they were more agnostic about the campus by which they were recruiting from. And now, because of the influx of AI, they are rethinking this, and they're saying, hey, I need to get to candidates differently. I need to know that they're legit candidates. I need to be able to talk to some people and and so I may actually go back and do target schools again, and go on to select school campuses, which then, of course, creates more competition among the schools. So it's this vicious circle that ends up happening, but again, those employers are looking to get to the candidates in the most efficient and effective way possible. On the college side, AI has great promise, particularly for those understaffed career services offices, which are the majority of career service offices on campuses these days. If we're about career outcomes, we need to be investing in career services. But unfortunately, the investment hasn't been made on most campuses. AI can play a really pivotal role in helping to expand the services that a college can offer. It's not going to solve the issues, but more students can be reached, maybe more efficiently. So bots can be deployed to answer basic questions, the staff can direct the learners to resources that are can help them write their resumes, figure out other types of industries or jobs that the student may have the skills to do, to do career exploration, the list goes on and on, and then the career services staff can really dive deep with students in quality work, in one on one work, doing really meaningful work, and helping to set that student up for career success, around the articulation of skills, around targeting of certain employers, thinking broadly about the application of what they've learned, and so it could make a difference long term. But of course, we're at the beginning of it all.

Kaitlin LeMoine: It's interesting to hear you talk about how the use of AI in the in career services offices can actually get career services professionals back to like, maybe like, the core of their work, and what's the most important to their work. And it's interesting. Julian, I feel like we're we've heard some of that about like, well, what are the benefits? What are the benefits of AI? And this is a great example of one space where it's like, maybe it means that the professionals themselves can get back to like what is most critical, and then some of the other, perhaps time consuming, but maybe less impactful work can be automated or supported in other ways. I find that really interesting. And then just the one other thing I wanted to mention is, I think it's, it's really interesting to hear like, it's like, there's progress there, and then it's interesting to hear on the employer side, almost a return to previous practice. And what is that, you know, what does it look like to adjust their like hiring practices now, with this new reality of, you know, kind of endless numbers of resumes and trying to determine what's real and what's not, and how to really assess the skills and abilities of applicants. Really, some really interesting tensions there.

Shawn VanDerziel: That's right. One of the things that we're not finding, though, is that students are getting the AI experiences they need to prepare them. So that's yet another dimension that we need higher education working on with students, but we also need the employers. We found in one of our research pieces last year that very few students, less than 10% actually were asked to use AI skills in their internship, which is so surprising, because you would think that companies who are saying there's a future with AI that this entry level group of folks coming into their company could help them to explore it. Could help to experiment with it. Could bring these new skills to them, yet the students themselves didn't use the technology when they were in their internship, so I hope to see that change as well.

Julian Alssid: Yeah, so we really are at the beginning, and as you said, Shawn, of so much of this, and I guess for our audience, which kind of represents both sides of this, as well as the providers, the companies that are also trying to support this work, what are some practical steps that educators, employers and folks who want to work with, you know them, can take to really design the kind of nimble and adaptable, you know, skills focused education and some of the kind of, you know, exemplar recruitment practices you're talking about

Shawn VanDerziel: As you mentioned, there are some really practical things that can be done that are super simple, and that's thinking about a learner holistically when they come into a college or university, and all of the touch points that they have and all of the experiences that They might go through from the curriculum in the classroom, the projects that they do in the classroom, the student activities, the work study, the part time jobs, the list goes on and on that these are all learning experiences that we know add value to the college graduate experience and why college graduates are so valuable to the future of work. However, these learners aren't able to articulate all of those experiences to translate them to the work world. That's a problem. So they don't give themselves credit for that student activity that they just participated in, that classroom project that they did, where they were the leader of their group, where they analyzed all kinds of data to get to an answer or something, where they did a classroom presentation and had to articulate the results of it, where they then and had to work in a team and collaborate with a team of folks that were difficult to work with because they came from all over, all different disciplines, etc, etc, right? So, like, that's one example where skills and competencies were built, yet students aren't taking credit for it, and the reasons that they're not taking credit for it, for what how that applies to the work world, is that we're not helping them to make that connection, that it is real world, what they just did. And so that's a simple example of just taking the step with these learners to help them to understand how what they just did applies to the world of work. It may seem elementary, but it's needed, and it's going to make a huge difference in these students lives. And then ta da, the employers see it, right, and then they hear it, they're more quick, able to quickly identify that these students actually do have the skills and the competencies to do the job that they're looking to fill.

Julian Alssid: You're getting right at that very basic translation language problem we've been talking about.

Shawn VanDerziel: That's exactly right.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Thanks so much for joining us in today's conversation. Shawn, this has been really fascinating, and really appreciate you taking on a couple of really big, big questions with lots of nuance embedded in them. So as we close out today's conversation, how can our listeners learn more about you, about NACE, and continue to follow your great work?

Shawn VanDerziel: Yeah, there are a number of ways. The first thing I would suggest is that you follow us on LinkedIn. So look up National Association of Colleges and Employers, and we post regularly, like every day, multiple times a day, statistics, interesting tidbits related to all of this work that everyone can join in on. So even just to be a lurker, that is a great place to hear what's happening in this college to career pipeline. I would also invite you to if you belong to a university or college, to see if you already have a membership with NACE, and if there's a possibility of you being added to the membership role so you're regularly kept up to date. But certainly go to our website at naceweb.org. And we have a ton of stuff there for free, for everybody, again, for the general public to be able to understand what's happening in this world, because we see that as our job to strengthen employment outcomes for all learners well.

Julian Alssid: Thank you so much for joining us, Shawn and and we look forward to continuing with this conversation with your colleagues and taking deeper and deeper. Really appreciate you taking this on.

Shawn VanDerziel: It's been so great having this conversation with you all, and happy to come back anytime.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Great. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our sponsor, Lumina Foundation. We're also grateful to our wonderful producer, Dustin Ramsdell. You can listen to future episodes at workforces dot info or on Apple, Amazon and Spotify. Please subscribe, like and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends.

Jean Eddy, President & CEO of American Student Assistance (ASA), discusses how middle and high school students can develop career awareness and gain meaningful workplace experiences before college. Drawing on research showing middle school as the optimal window for career exploration, Eddy details ASA's digital platform approach, which reaches 15 million students through engaging, mobile-based tools that help them discover interests and connect to potential career paths. She emphasizes the critical "testing and trying" phase where students need hands-on experiences, highlighting ASA's grant-making initiatives that fund intermediary organizations bridging gaps between schools and employers. The conversation explores scaling these efforts through policy engagement and community buy-in, with Eddy advocating for making career exploration an integral part of education rather than a disconnected add-on for teachers while offering practical collaboration strategies for all stakeholders to help students find paths that "make their hearts sing."

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in. We've spent much of our time on this podcast exploring learning and career pathways, especially for college students and adults, and while those conversations are important, we also know that it helps learners when they begin a process of career exploration much earlier on in their academic journeys. By the time someone gets to college, it can often be too late for foundational career exploration. We need to help K-12 learners develop an awareness and curiosity of various career options, get them age appropriate experience and help them link their academic interests to the world of work.

Julian Alssid: That's right, Kaitlin, and it's something we both know firsthand. We both started our careers in innovative high schools, where we each designed project based and experiential learning opportunities intentionally integrated with internships and real world experiences. We so, you know, we understand the complexities of this work, particularly figuring out the right level of exposure to workplace skills and experiences for young people, you know, how do we best help them explore, gain experience, build social capital and discover their likes and dislikes?

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yes, it is about developing the skills and awareness learners need to navigate the world of work and thinking about practical implementation. It's about working with employers who can meaningfully support this process, and about providing educators with the time and creative space to make these integrated learning experiences happen.

Julian Alssid: This is a complex topic to unpack, and that's why we're so pleased to have Jean Eddie with us today as President & CEO of American student assistance, or ASA, she's leading the charge in changing how kids learn about careers and prepare for their futures. Jean is an accomplished leader with over 30 years of experience in higher ed, and has held leadership positions at Rhode Island School of Design, Brandeis University, and Northeastern University. She's a nationally recognized speaker and subject matter expert, cited frequently in major publications and a contributor to forbes.com Jean is deeply committed to student success and is the author of crisis proofing today's learners, and co host of The One Question Podcast with Michael Horn, who was a recent guest on Work Forces. Jean, we're looking forward to discussing ASA's innovative approaches to career readiness for middle and high school students, and how you're reaching them in new and novel ways. Welcome to Work Forces.

Jean Eddy: So happy to be here, looking forward to the conversation.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yes, so are we Jean. It's such a pleasure to be with you today. So as we dive into today's conversation, can you please tell us more about your background and what led you to ASA?

Jean Eddy: What is interesting is I met a colleague this morning for breakfast, quite early, and I worked with that person at one of the colleges that you mentioned. We were talking about the fact that we worked with a lot of young people who are on a college campus, and they really didn't know why they were there. And my colleague was basically saying that he oftentimes felt as though he was taking care of young people who were really not they couldn't find their own way. And I would have to say it reminded me of my own journey. I was in high school, and no one approached me about what was next. Never talked about it, never got prepared for it, etc. And if it weren't for the fact that I ended up, after leaving high school, going to a community college, I was lucky, you know, I met people who were interested in me and wanted to kind of show me some way or some path. Who knows where I'd be right now. But I guess, you know, I ended up in higher education because I was so taken with my own experience at a community college. And I worked in higher ed, as you said, for a number of years, but I worked with a lot of young people who really didn't know why they were in college, and I would say that some of them really should have taken another path, and instead, went on to college, spent an awful lot of money that they didn't need to spend, and then ended up with quite a bit of debt that they had to repay somehow, some way. So fast forward now to ASA. I became involved with ASA because ASA is a federal guarantor, and as a person who worked in higher ed I was on the board of ASA for a number of years. And why, why I was interested in ASA is because of the fact. They were really committed to helping young people. It was a very personal relationship, which with a lot of guarantors. It was not but at ASA, it was. And I stayed committed because I was so interested in how they interacted with students. When I was asked to become the CEO here, which was eight years ago now, we were talking about how we could think about working with young people before a problem arose. What we were doing was basically trying to put a band aid on something at the end of the day, rather than getting in front of the problem to see what we could do about that. So we did an awful lot of research and found out that the best time to really talk about careers was in middle school, and that seems kind of young, you know, sixth grade, seventh grade, but what we found was is that kids who are in that age bracket are really open to exploration. They aren't hardwired that they want to do this or they want to do that, and furthermore, their friends haven't made such a huge impact on them that they don't they were willing to go and find their own way. So we then did research about, how do we interact with these young people? What's the best way to do that? And we tried a number of things, but at the end of the day, what we found was we needed to kids meet kids where they are, and that's on a mobile device that's on their cell phone. So like it or not, 97% of the kids who are between 13 and 18 year old, 18 years old, have a cell phone. And so we created mobile, friendly programs that would allow young people to, first off, go out and have fun. Because to me, learning is all about fun. Let's start with that. It doesn't need to be something that's imposed and sometimes treacherous. It's rather what can be fun. So the first thing we developed was something that allowed a young person to have fun, but to basically do puzzles and games, which actually came up with kind of an indicator of things that somebody was good at, but moreover what they liked to do. And then we showed them all kinds of ways to be able to get to that in a successful career. And it's not to say at someone who's in the sixth or seventh grade is saying I'm going to be an X, but rather, I'm interested in these things. And let's see all the possibilities for if you're interested in this, what is possible. And then we went on to build more programs that allowed kids to test and try, which is really key here, testing and trying, having them figure out, maybe I like this, but is there some aspect of it that I really can't do or I don't want to do? And so when we develop these programs, testing and trying, really came in in high school, and the reason for that is by the time students leave high school. We want them to have a plan. And so it's not that again, that they have a road that's absolutely mapped out, but rather, this is the this is the path I can take to see what might come of this, to see what might come with what I love to do with what I'm good at. And can I be able to relate this to that job, that career, that pathway?

Julian Alssid: Great to hear the bit about your journey and and the genesis of ASA. So. So now, what are the Could you give us an overview where you are now at ASA with the types of initiatives that you're focused on, and what are the key problems that you know you're looking to, the key challenges or problems you're looking to solve.

Jean Eddy: So, you know, the initiatives that we are working on currently, you know, I mentioned the digital we have four digital programs which really bring students from the discovery phase right on through the testing and trying, you know, getting a mentor, getting an apprenticeship, understanding how to be able to get ready for to dress for success, all those kinds of things. There are many, many things kids can do there. We have about 15 million kids on our platforms at any given time. They're between 13 and 18 years old. But in addition to that, we also work with schools, school districts and states who are interested in infusing this kind of a career exploration into their into their curriculum. The biggest one I always talk about is Delaware. Delaware is the nice sized state you can get your arms around it. So we worked with a couple of other funders to basically put career exploration into middle schools in Delaware, so every kid in Delaware has an opportunity to do this kind of career exploration. But I think the biggest challenge we have is the next step is the testing and trying. Because I would have to say, I. So we need employers to be able to help us do that. But any employer will tell you, and I've talked with many, they don't have the infrastructure to be able to provide that, and sometimes they are. They are quite hesitant to get into this, because, again, they don't have the staff, they don't have the know how, and they cannot figure out how to connect with the school district with a system. So a lot of our initiatives are now working with intermediaries places who basically go in and they take care of the things that need to happen at the high school and things that need to happen with the employer, and we do a lot of funding in those respects. My favorite is the caps network. They are national, and they basically give they work with employers and they work with schools to be able to have kids have first hand experiences in how a career could actually map out in a given field. They are beyond impressive. I could talk about them all day, but there are many of them. There are also states who get involved in this, and I will pick on Rhode Island native Rhode Islander, we've worked with skills for Rhode Island for a number of years. They are great intermediaries in basically bringing employers and schools together to provide apprenticeships and internships for young people to test and try. So I think that that is, that is, I'm going to say next big Frontier, we need more opportunities to connect employers and schools in a way that makes sense, and it actually it works for everybody.

Kaitlin LeMoine: That last point, you just ended on Jean right? I feel like that's where the rubber meets the road. And all of this work is like, how to make these, these relationships happen? What are you I know, you know you mentioned the intermediary work. What are some of the best practices, or like strategies that you know that are working well to bridge those gaps? Because I think that for so many you know whether, whether it's actually higher ed institutions, K 12 institutions, employers. It's about like, how do we bridge those worlds and in a scalable way?

Jean Eddy: So, I think that there are a few things, getting the word out is incredibly important, thought leadership and getting people to understand or or be able to see the kinds of opportunities that are available. But moreover, the funding that is available. There are a lot of programs out there right now, and we participate in some of these funds, which basically back financially, back opportunities for employers and schools to be able to come together and do this kind of work. And one thing I didn't mention before is the amount of grant making we do, and the grant making we do has everything to do with those kinds of opportunities. Historically, we've given up between $10 and $20 million a year, and it is to fund those kind of opportunities where they have not existed before, or to grow networks that you know have started off but have not how to reach across the country, because what we're trying to do is impact kids everywhere. You know, not only in the places that I think, with the northeast, we have so many colleges and universities, we are so focused on kind of these connections, but there are parts of the country where that's not the case, and particularly in the middle of the country. You know, it's really up to us to do a better job in connecting those intermediaries who work in those places to provide opportunities for young people who otherwise are thinking, Okay, what do I do next? You know, what are my opportunities? And they're not as I would not say that there's not a rich as rich of an offering as there could be, because kids just don't know.

Julian Alssid: So I get the scaling with, you know, your the digital stuff, and how that you know you've been able to reach so many young people directly, I guess my big question is, with the work, with the intermediaries, or the sort of the partnerships, how does that scale? And how do you ensure that it can live beyond the life of your grants? Like, how does this get baked in to what communities do, what educators do, what employers do, and then, how do you scale that?

Jean Eddy: You know, we worked with the state of Massachusetts, and we funded a program that basically put pathways into high schools. It was one of Governor Baker's big initiatives and part of his legacy, I would have to say, the idea in doing some of these things. And we did it in Delaware as well. We did it in Rhode Island. As you start to fund these programs, you do it with the hope that you're working with policy makers who are going to encourage the state legislature to put it in the budget and have it move forward. And that has happened in every single one of these cases, I would have to say you have to have buy in, not only from the intermediary and the school and the employer, but you also need buy in with policy makers, because if they don't believe this. Yes, and they don't see, I'm going to say a road map for a state prospering. It's not going to go anyplace. But again, in the state of Massachusetts, we have an enormous shortage in the trades, construction, tech, skill trades, and we worked with the workforce council here to try and develop programs that would allow us to be able to, I'm going to say, start the pipeline for the jobs that we cannot fill and and that, I think, is really it's a problem that we have across the country. We have so many unfilled jobs right now, and I do believe that half the reason why we have that is because young people are not aware of those jobs, and we're not doing the best, the best work we could possibly do, in making sure they know it, but moreover, that they could try those things and find that they could fall in love with something that they didn't even know was existing.

Julian Alssid: Interestingly, we have been working in Massachusetts on the very topic, actually, with the community college and focused on manufacturing. And it's incredible the opportunities that are going wanting because kids and their families know nothing about these roles and the paths associated.

Jean Eddy: You know, just this morning, I was listening, I think it was on NPR, they were talking about the fact that there are wait lists for kids in technical high schools, and that they are trying to now impose a lottery system to let young people in, just that is such a telling update on on what is happening in this state. But moreover, in this country, we should be thinking about, how do we integrate the aspects of those vocational high schools into all of our high schools to give kids an opportunity. And I'm not saying that there aren't high schools who do that, because there are, but it usually requires either a principal or a super superintendent who has that drive and that feeling in their gut that this is what has to happen, and then they make it happen. We need more of that.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, and that combination of both of the leadership, and then, as you mentioned earlier, Gene, the financial backing as well, right to, like, especially for some of the more technical programs that require a lot of equipment and, like, lab space, right? I mean, like, the infrastructure required in some cases is is more significant than others. But like, that's another huge factor in this whole effort. One thing that I find really fascinating about the different digital solutions that ASA has built is it seems like it's a pretty low lift for schools to implement and for learners to engage with I'm curious, how do what's the split? I guess, that you see across like learners who engage with these tools on their own as individual users, versus who are introduced through a classroom like experience like, how do learners come to these materials? Maybe individually? How do they find that?

Jean Eddy: So I would say, by and large, young people come to us directly. We have, obviously, connections with teachers, with superintendents, etc. And many will use our products as a way to have a hybrid experience. As far as career exploration is concerned, they are using it for that purpose. So they're basically saying, Go out to asa.org, look at this, look at that, etc. But by and large, most of it is coming from kids who come directly to us. And I think I when we first started talking, I talked about the fact that I wanted kids to have fun. So what we basically do, I'm going to say, we invade the time that young people are using their phones, which is on average, five hours a day, which is frightening to me, frankly. But we approach them and it's something that they can take it or leave it. So we go through Tiktok, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. We throw out these things. Invite kids to come in. They either do it or they don't. Most of the time, we find they do it. We have a high level of engagement, but it's got everything to do with that. They're seeing it as this is curious, this is fun, and then suddenly we're opening up another world to them, and then kids stay and so we have four platforms, and it's amazing to me that they keep going. And of course, again, it's all about fun. So I think that that is really the key to this, and what is really, really important, particularly with with young people in this, in this generation of young people, they want agency. They want to be able to say, I chose this. This is what I want to do without some someone imposing it on them. So I think that we've got to, you know, we're meeting them where they are. They have choice, and they're having fun.

Kaitlin LeMoine: I really I appreciated your earlier insight about the research around this work, and like at what at what ages young people are most open to this exploration. Because it, I think it sometimes can feel like, the closer you get to the end of high school, it's like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? Right in the creative kind of space to explore, it gets maybe a little bit more narrowed, and maybe, as you mentioned, influenced by peers. So I think it, I really love the the process of going from like this discovery phase, right, really, like a design process, and a lot of ways of thinking about like, just this, this discovery earlier on, and then narrowing as one goes through this journey.

Jean Eddy: When we first started investigating this, and the research that we did, and I met a number of wonderful faculty members at University of Virginia, New York, university, et cetera, having these conversations. And I was actually surprised people always talk about the fact that a toddler has this immense capacity to be able to take in information and process it. But likewise, kids who are in the 13-12, 13-14, years old, their brains are working pretty much the same way. So to be able to offer up all of this information, they're ready for it. They're ready to take it in which, you know, I absolutely love and one of the things we also found out, and one of the things that kind of pushed us to move earlier, is the fact that the stress level young of young people, particularly in high school. We monitor it. We've researched it. From the time they were freshmen in high school to their senior year, the level of stress goes up exponentially, so that now it's a case of, what am I going to do? How am I going to do it? Where am I going to find it? Etc, rather than okay, let's take a step back and really think about, what are the kinds of things that, you know, and I always use this phrase that makes your heart sing. You got to do this a long time. So what is it?

Julian Alssid: Yeah, it's funny, when you talk about the stress levels going up, it's kind of like, you know, they're building muscle early on. And you know, it's these muscles that that, if you're going to be successful and happy and make your heart sing, you're going to have to figure out who you are and what do you like, and how does it fit, and how do you apply your skills, and how does it tie your academics, et cetera, et cetera.

Jean Eddy: Yeah, and it's a lot. It's a lot to ask a young person. It's really a lot. And all we're trying to do is help them kind of find a pathway to some of that, but it's not going to all magically appear at one point in time, which is why we have to start so early.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Well, and I think especially in a moment where you know, the job and career landscape seems to be like shifting beneath our feet, right? Like it's, I think, all to have digital tools that can help support those conversations, maybe kind of a little bit more agnostic to exactly what's happening at the you know, this present moment in time regarding AI, right? And the impact there. Like to be able to take a step back and just say, like, wait a minute, let's think about your interests, your passions, like transferable skills, right? Like that feels like a very productive place to start and to have that those digital solutions as a grounding tool in for that learner and for educators, I would imagine, would be very helpful as well.

Jean Eddy: Yeah, and it's just one step in the process. It certainly can't be the whole thing. And I would have to say, I applaud the role that teachers play in this. What I'm trying to figure out is, how can we integrate some of the things that we've learned into the system without overburdening overburdening teachers, because they have too much to do now I know that, and how are they supposed to change the curriculum, get things in there about career exploration rather than being an add on. You know, in some places again, have had to use policy makers, employers and entire communities to make this change. One of our grantees is out in Cajon Valley, right outside of San Francisco, and that Superintendent of Schools basically fervently believes in everything I've just been talking about, and their entire school system, from kindergarten right on through high school, embraces the thought of career exploration and how you connect courses that you take in high school to how you could use them in a career. I remember when I first heard about cajon Valley and the world of work, my immediate response was, these are our people. How do we find them? How do we connect with them? And we did. And then we started, you know, granting them funds so that they could add on to different school districts, which they've done. So it is possible, and it is it is strong. A movement.

Julian Alssid: So that's a perfect segue to a question that we ask all of our guests, gene which is so our audience really represents the various stakeholders that need to be a part of this, from the employers to the educators, hire secondary policy makers, etc, even ed tech people who need to be a part of this. So what practical steps can our audience take to become forces in initiating or supporting efforts to provide earlier opportunities for career exploration and exposure?

Jean Eddy: One of the things we do when we do more and more and more of it, this is that we host meetings at major conferences across the country to be able to pull in those constituencies, to have conversations, we have to start conversations with everybody sitting in the room. So it's a case of, you know, employers, it's policy makers, it's educators, all of those people have to come together and we have to start a conversation. I would also say parents need to become involved in this as well. They need to be raising their hands in their school districts, talking to their representatives, talking to school committees about the things that really need to happen to give the young people the absolute best experience they can have. So that is certainly a start. But I would also say that we need to do a better job in getting the word out, as far as bringing people, everybody into opportunities where they can see this live. So I'll give you an example. There is a program out there called school links. It's in high schools across the country. That program right now, and you know, we are partnering with them. They have 160,000 employers on there, on their site. They're in school systems. They have employers there, and it gives them an opportunity to be able to go out and connect in relevant ways. We need to be doing more of that, and there are opportunities to do that. We ourselves are partnering with Jobs For the Future to basically create a site that kids can go to, employers can go to, teachers can go to policy makers can go to that will allow people to see available training programs, how you pay for it, how a major in college or a training program that you've been in can relate to a job. It allows employers to go in to see young people who have the credentials, but more over the interest in some of the jobs they offer. These kinds of things are going to bring everybody in. It's going to pull everybody in I should say, for those people who care about it, and I would say most of us care about it.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Right, this is, this is an initiative, right, that I think, as we think about like learners, who then become part of our workers and broader society, everyone cares as we wind down our conversation today, Jean, this has been such an insightful conversation. We've learned a great deal. How can our listeners learn more and continue to follow your work?

Jean Eddy: Certainly go to asa.org there's an awful lot of information on that. And I am not, I am not plugging my book for any other reason than to say that it's an opportunity to see the thinking behind what we do. But moreover, some of the things we are doing in ways that people could get involved. You know, crisis proofing, today's learners, is the is the name of the book. And any proceeds for the book just go back into funding the things that we do for kids. So it's it's and I would also say it's an easy read. It doesn't sound like a textbook. It doesn't read like a textbook. It's a fairly easy read.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Great. Well, thank you so much for for sharing more about ASA, the initiatives that are top of mind for you, some of the initiatives that are have been a bit more long standing. We really appreciate your time today and look forward to continuing to follow your efforts.

Jean Eddy: It's been my pleasure.

Julian Alssid: Thank you so much, Jean.

Jean Eddy: Thank you.

Kaitlin LeMoine: That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our sponsor, Lumina Foundation. We are also grateful to our wonderful producer, Dustin Ramsdell. You can listen to future episodes at workforces, dot info or on Apple, Amazon and Spotify. Please subscribe, like and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends.

Holly Zanville, research professor at the George Washington University Institute of Public Policy and founder of the Learn and Work Ecosystem Library, discusses her approach to organizing information about the rapidly evolving skills-based learning landscape. Drawing from her extensive background across education, state systems, and philanthropy, Zanville explains how she created a specialized digital hub that curates resources about key ecosystem components. She explores the growing tension between degree-centric and skills-based approaches in higher education, highlighting how institutions are navigating the "both-and" reality of offering traditional degrees alongside competency-based programs. Zanville shares insights from her collaboration with the Society for Human Resource Management's new Center for Skills First Future, which aims to transform hiring practices for 100,000 employers over the next decade. The conversation examines how employers across five leading industry sectors are implementing skills-based hiring practices, while addressing the critical need for better information sharing and standardized language across the fragmented learn-and-work ecosystem. Zanville emphasizes the importance of collaboration and community engagement in building resources that serve learners, educators, employers, and policymakers navigating this complex landscape.

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in.

Julian Alssid: Kaitlin feels like every day the way we help people advance their learning and careers becomes more and more complex.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Indeed it does, Julian. From employers rethinking hiring practices with skills based approaches to educators, redesigning learning models with AI and experiential learning, our podcast guests have highlighted many new models and cutting edge innovations, and we see these efforts impacting our consulting projects as well.

Julian Alssid: Absolutely, and keeping track of this dynamic and ever changing environment is no small feat. It requires a deep understanding of what's working, what's not, and how all these interconnected pieces fit together.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Which brings us to our guest today. We're so excited to be speaking with a leader who is doing just that, making sense of this intricate and ever changing ecosystem.

Julian Alssid: We are thrilled to be joined by Holly Zanville. Holly is a research professor at the George Washington University Institute of Public Policy and codirector of the Program on Skills, Credentials and Workforce Policy. She's also the founder and lead of the Learn & Work Ecosystem Library. Previously, Holly co-led the national initiative Credential As You Go and served as a strategy director at Lumina Foundation. Her background includes leadership positions at state higher education systems and boards in Oregon, Washington, and WICHE, as well as academic roles at community colleges and non-traditional university programs.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So without further ado, Holly, welcome to Work Forces. We're looking forward to learning more about your work.

Holly Zanville: I am so glad to be joining you today.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Well, thank you for being with us. So as we get going, Holly, can you please tell us? I mean, Julian talked a little bit about your background, but we'd love to hear more from you about your background and what led you to founding the Learn & Work Ecosystem Library.

Holly Zanville: Great. So as you already heard, my background is pretty wide ranging. I've worked in K 12, community colleges, universities, non traditional programs, coordinating boards and systems in states and in philanthropy, as the strategy director at Lumina Foundation and all those jobs really, I realized recently carry one thread, and that kind of reminds me of what I've always really cared about, and that is my long-standing interest in both information, the quality information and systems, believing that if we're going to make improvements in all of our systems, in education and workforce, we're going to have to seed these relationships and work in collaboratives. And so a lot of my work over the years has really focused on acting like a system and making improvements in systems and sharing information and collaborating. So that's a little bit of my background and what brings me, I think, to really the topic of the Learner and Work Ecosystem Library. And, you know the why. Where did this idea even come from for a library? And actually, it started with my work at Lumina Foundation, when several of the national foundations were starting to pay attention to changes in credentialing that were going on, and especially noting that 40 million some Americans who come under that title that we don't like called some college and no credential. So they had some background in college work, but they never received any credential. And we were really increasingly concerned about what we could do to help with these kinds of issues. So at that time, and this was about 2017, 2018 about 40 of the foundations, mostly national foundations actually came to a meeting to compare notes. How could we really better learn about what investments we were all making on these issues of importance, particularly around micro credentialing, was just coming to the fore around that time so that we could maybe leverage our monies to make them go farther, because we could all see what was coming in the tea leaves. So the outcome of that meeting was actually a call to action, and folks were saying, well, could we develop a map? Could we try to map out the key initiatives, the big footprint initiatives that were being funded mostly by the foundations at that time to improve our information about them, and once we maybe could get the map, maybe we could collaborate more effectively as a group of foundations. So being a person who likes system work and challenging work and mapping, et cetera, I raised my hand to work on this. And so a small number of us from a few of the foundations actually designed what a map of key initiatives might look like, and we put on the map who was working on initiatives, because who's doing the work is really important for us to know. And then we classified them into some key categories. There were actually, over a period of years, three versions of the map, and I think this speaks to how quickly changes were going on in the innovation space of the nation, and Lumina posted it at its website. There's still remnants of it at the website. And one of the things we could all see was that there were important philanthropic investments in all these areas. They were growing, because we could see the number of actual things on the map growing every year, and that there were many collaborations that were going on we were picking up among states, employers, higher ed institutions. And that one really interesting thing to us was that managing a lot of these big scale initiatives were coming from intermediaries, the third party groups that we all know that play such an important role in helping, particularly with collaborations. So this was a really interesting area I became extremely interested in, and my read of the system that we were all looking at the map was that it was going to keep growing in importance and confusion and be marked by lack of information. And so I really wanted to expand the mapping effort then so we could take this a little further. That really was not a priority of the foundation at that time. They wanted more direct funding of the innovative initiatives. And so that was when I left philanthropy to go, after 15 years, to become a research professor at George Washington University. And I kind of took it on as a personal mission to here's my I'm going to bring in FedEx as an example. So I decided it would be good to come up with a bitter airplane that could deliver needed information. And it would, but it would be a specialty airplane. It'd be like a FedEx airport with special airplanes that we'd be carrying specialized information about the learn and work ecosystem. So I started, I reached out to lots of experts around the US. I think many of them have probably been on your podcast, and we designed the special collection and called it a library, the learn and work ecosystem library. It's really a hub. It's like an airport, as it were, where we collect, we curate, we coordinate digital content about key components of the ecosystem. We think there are maybe 12 of them. And if you go to our library, you'll see what the 12 are. There are key topic reports for more in depth coverage of what some of the leading topics are going on in the ecosystem. We included those initiatives and special projects that are working to improve the ecosystem, like we did on the original map, that mostly are, I think 80% of them are probably funded by foundations. So the foundations are playing a big role, and have been in, in fueling the innovation agenda, I think, for the US. We also identified the organizations doing the work and several other features. So we opened for business our little airport in late 2022. We've been growing really quickly. Now we're using AI to help users who come to us to find information using more natural language queries, and we've been adding just two features, and then I'll stop. I'll stop here. We've entered into partnerships with other organizations. If it was FedEx, we found that people have a lot of baggage, and they need to have a place to put their information, and they don't really put it. It's easier for them to put it at a place like the library, where we can host it, and then all their members and other groups can come and see that information there, rather than putting it in a siloed website among all these different collaborators, and furthermore, we're working with a lot of organizations to test the usability of the other library. Does this really meet information needs? Because we're so early, we need to keep testing the waters about that. So we've grown from a few 100 artifacts at launch to over 1500 now we have a glossary of nearly 600 terms that are used throughout the learn and work ecosystem, and we've made that available free to organizations that want to put the glossary at their website, so that as visitors come to their website but they don't know what some of these terms mean, like, what does a micro credential mean, or what is badging and what's up skilling and re skilling, what are skills versus skills based hiring, we have all that captured, and they can put our our glossary, if they like, there and or folks can just be advised to come to our library where we have terms.

Julian Alssid: Given your work now at the intersection, or should I say, the learning and learning and work airport, perhaps we'd like to talk first about the education side of the equation. And we know that one of the themes that has been taking on greater and greater prominence, and we've talked a lot about it on our podcast, is a focus on skills and competencies. And so we're interested to hear your take on how educational organizations and institutions are shifting their efforts to focus more on skills and competencies. And if you could give us an example or two that we should follow.

Holly Zanville: So the library and or the airport where education is takes up a lot of space at the airport, as it should, because the preparation of folks for jobs is a very large effort that we all care so much about and is so important to our economy. So but, but to go back to something we've been witnessing for several years now, this growing dilemma for higher education, the big question, should we remain degree centric and continue our literally 200 plus your focus on college degrees as maybe the best preparation for good jobs in the US, or move to shorter term credentials of value. And I'm purposely portraying this dilemma as an either or, but we know that there's growing recognition that the answer really has to be both and. So the and the reason is that higher ed has to be closely aligned to workforce demands by both employer demands and student demands, and there are significant needs and some different needs by industry sectors. So we can't have the same answer for everybody. So degrees and licenses are essential for professional jobs in medicine, nursing, law, architecture, engineering, and a much longer list than that, but there are a growing number of other types of credentials, shorter term credentials, like certificates, badges, micro credentials, energy certifications, that they do have value in many areas of the workforce, and they're often used in which is a good thing, I think, a combination with traditional degrees like associate degrees, baccalaureate and The various graduate level degrees and the impacts of AI are changing and coming on strong, because it's really impacting job getting and job keeping in major ways. So we don't think higher ed, I don't think anyone thinks higher ed can throw away the traditional degrees they offer, but I think there's growing agreement that higher ed needs to update their offerings and expand their offerings to meet changing workforce demands through shorter term credential options. So within this dilemma, along comes the competency based education push for the last, oh, I don't know, more than a decade. And then comes the skills agenda, coming on really strong, with employers who are asking candidates for jobs, but they're also asking their own employees, do you have the right skills for the jobs we have open, show us what you know and can do. And the emphasis is really increasingly on can do. So how are we going to know when somebody has the right competence skills? And I would say that higher ed tends to use the word competencies more to define the learning outcomes that occur in higher ed programs. And employers tend to use the skills word more, but they're coming together, and those words are graying, and now everyone is using the terms back and forth across those fences. If there are actual fence lines between higher ed and important, some of us think there are, but they're coming down, and movement is rapidly approaching. So to answer your question directly about competency based, many of the higher institutions have been shifting their focus toward competencies and actually skills to better align with workforce needs. And we're noting, which we think is really interesting, that educational institutions are adopting frameworks to do this, all kinds of credentialing systems and partnerships to understand what should the new array of credentials be? And we're seeing institutions that are doing both. They're doing both, and they have a portion of their programs that are competency based, are mostly competency based, but there are other programs at their institutions that are not so what's interesting is to have both curricular models on the same campus. But there are also some institutions, but the research data shows that there's relatively few, maybe only about 15 institutions that either are entirely or mostly comps based education. So even though the conversation is rich around competency-based education, the actual number of institutions that have really gone to the major full shift, pretty few, except we know that the ones that have made the shift are very well known. And I'm just, I have a short list of them here. You know Western Governors University Capella, University of Wisconsin Extended Campus, their flexible option, Walden, Charter, Oak College, Purdue Global. And then there's some that are mostly competency based, but not entirely: Southern New Hampshire, Texas, A & M University has several Northern Arizona University, Thomas Edison and Central New Mexico Community College, Austin Community College. I won't go through the whole list, but the point is that we're in the middle of a shift. Some people have already put the landing gear down on their plane, and I think they're saying, well, we've done the areas of programs that really are competency based, like, like nursing that is, or cybersecurity that are led by national organizations that are very strong on here are the competencies in this profession. But there are other ones, particularly the liberal arts, that are not being led as much to being set up as competency based programs. So the institutes have to make their piece, and we all have to put together a system which has a little bit of a lot of things, and this is creating, I think, a lack of information about who's got what and why is this important? So once you accept the fact that differences are good and there's a good reason why we have these differences, then you move to this question of, are we creating a system that is really confusing for employers to understand, for students to understand, for policymakers to understand, for faculty. Yes, we are. We're sorry. We're all sorry about that. But in fact, it's a more difficult learn and work ecosystem now than we've had in the past. And there are some organizations that are making it a little clearer, and on the competency based side, especially, Julian, you asked for an example. I think one of the best ones is the Competency-Based Education Network, or C-BEN. They've really been growing rapidly, working with institutions that really want to understand how to do compass based education and why to do it, and what happens on a campus where you've got both-ands, how are they, how they are navigating the choppy waters. So I would say that through the kinds of workshops, webinars, training opportunities, C-BEN provides, they're a really good example on the higher ed side for competency based education. And I've already named some of the institutions that are really on that side. So I think I'll stop there, because I think that's a lot of the background, least that I think about when I, when I think about the competency based side of things with higher risk.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Well and and I think what you've just talked us through there Holly shows right exactly the complexity that we're facing here, and that with this confusion, the need for a library is more and more essential. I just had one quick follow up regarding the library. Who is the primary target audience for the library? Is it professionals in the field? Is it learners themselves? Could it be both?

Holly Zanville: It's all, and in fact, when we have a slide, when we do slide presentations, it has 26 stakeholder groups, and when you go to the library, you can do a search by your stakeholder group, so you could be primarily a policymaker interested in content. You could be a credential provider interested in content. You could be an employer and workforce. You could be a workforce board. You could be more aligned with the data structures around that side of the shop. You could be more of a journalist trying to understand, where do I go to get information and examples for stories. So and students we're really hoping are using the library, particularly students that might want to get a job someday working in this with the think tanks, with the research and policy think tanks, the intermediaries that I talked about where, if you're in graduate school now, and you might be in education or political science or economics, you'll get some of this information, but you are not. I just would bet no one's going to be talking about the Learn & Work Ecosystem, and you're not going to be learning about the full array on the learning and the workforce side, and how it comes together and why we need to redesign so we think that the library is a place where students up and coming, and young professionals, young in their career, professionals and professionals who are at the foundations, professionals who are in these think tanks, could learn a lot about who's doing this work. I only know about some projects. I don't know about not that we capture all of them, but our aim was to capture all of them, and so we love to think that there's a huge number of different kinds of stakeholders that could benefit by better information about the very systems that we all have to live and work in

Kaitlin LeMoine: Absolutely. Well, and as you acknowledged earlier, right, like, is there this? I think you called it a line or a silo, right, between all these entities, but ultimately, having an ecosystem library that says, You know what, no matter who you are in this work, just as the type of information that's out there is, is essential. I think it has been essential for some time, but I feel like more so than ever now. The need is not going away.

Holly Zanville: A standard language, if you if, if in your state, your legislature says we're going to call these things micro credentials, but in another state, we're calling these digital badges, and the third state is going to call them certificates. That's fine. No one's going to make anybody come to one standard word, but we do need translators, and we need to understand the range of terms that are being used, roughly what they mean who's using them, so that we can talk among ourselves and trigger information well. So that's been another important aim of the library.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So if we, if we can shift for a moment to the employer side, not to say there's like you said, not to say there's sides here. But if we're looking at this from different vantage points, what, what are you seeing from the employer perspective on skills? I know you mentioned skills based hiring. But you know what and what prospective employees no one can do. What are you seeing in that space?

Holly Zanville: Well, on the employer side, and they often have their own language that we all need to understand. That skill based hiring plane has left the airport to continue that metaphor, and it's really gaining speed. So the skills agenda, it's a movement. It's a driver of change. It's reshaping how employers are evaluating talent and how individuals are preparing for job, and also how they're keeping their jobs and moving through their careers. And so I'll just mention four things that we're seeing on the ground that are really impacting employers in this space. So employers are clearly more focused on identifying individuals who can succeed in their job roles, regardless of how or where they gain their skills. And this practice, the good thing is, it can open doors to job seekers who may have been overlooked by traditional degree hiring practices. They may be in that 40 million who have some college with no credential, but they may have acquired skills through experience and through their college programs, etc, where they should have those doors open to them and employers will look at them for potential positions they have. We know that employers are using a range of tools now, like skills assessments, training programs, job simulations to evaluate the competencies that applicants say that they have on their college transcripts and in their portfolios, probably on their job applications. Because employers are not just going to accept what people say they're, you know, they're going to test them. And there's a lot of tools, increasingly, out there to see whether or not you have the skills that you indicate that you have. And then the other, the fourth one, which I think is really important for all of us to recognize, is that this is not just for the young adults coming out of, let's say educational programs or their first job, or two, employers are really promoting a lifelong learning approach, where their employees are going to be gaining new skills through industry certifications and on the job experience. And so it's like everyone is like redrawn and redrawing that line to follow through to whatever age you're putting it on. And then there's a group that's working on trying to talk about a 100 year economy versus, say, where you're going to work for 40 years. And my own view is you're probably going to be working for closer to 60 years, if you're lucky, and have good health and so that we we, but we don't provide a lot of good assistance and information to older adults who are going to stay in, in in jobs and maybe even transitioning among jobs. So there's this tremendous flux going on, and this is partly in the skills agenda. So I want to touch on a research, or body of research that I find really interesting, that comes out annually from Mercer, and they call it the Skills Snapshot Survey report. And the most recent survey that they originally just put out finds that the adoption of skills based talent practices is accelerating and organizations around the world. This is not just in the US, but worldwide, are embedding skills from hiring, including career development, to compensation promotion. So this is a pretty pervasive movement. It's not just about the original job getting there, this is not happening equally as we would expect among all industry sectors. So there's some really interesting data from Burning Glass and from McKinsey that have spotted five industry sectors that they say are leading the way in skills based practices. So this won't probably be a surprise to most folks, but the first on the list is information technology and software. The second on the list is healthcare, with evolving roles in telehealth, informatics, patient care health systems, all expanding their use of credentials to validate skills. The third one is in advanced manufacturing, where many of those employers in precision machining, robotics and automation, they're using industry certifications and competency based training to address their workforce shortages. A fourth on the list is finance and insurance, where increasing demand for digital literacy and analytical skills that are not actually taught at least until recently in traditional business degrees, is happening. And so the skills agenda is really important in finance and insurance. And the fifth one on the list is retail and hospitality, and especially for frontline roles, employers are using skills assessments and micro credentials to identify talent and support career advancement. So it's pretty interesting that, you know, some folks have gone first. We can learn from them, but we need information to come back to the airport thing. If we can get information and make it available, maybe people in retail and healthcare, they'll know about it, but others maybe will not understand all of this. And so that's the role the libraries to try to be a watchtower place to look out, try to pull information in and code it and put it in some insofar as to help people really understand this kind of changing movement around the skills movement.

Julian Alssid: So on that employer side, we understand that you're the library is working with the Society for Human Resource Management, or SHRM on their new Center for a Skills First Future. Can you speak a little bit to the fact that SHRM is now stepping into the middle of this pretty big deal. Can you tell us a little bit about your collaboration with SHRM?

Holly Zanville: Sure, and we're really excited about this, because this really makes it clear that employers are such an important driver of a lot of the reforms that are going on in our economy, affecting all of us. So they've, as you've just noted, the SHRM Foundation, with SHRM, has announced that it would launch this new Center for Skills First Futures, and they launched it literally just on June 2. So this is just, you know, a week and a half ago. And the purpose of the center is to modernize traditional hiring and the advancement systems that are tied within workforce over literally the next decade, and are sort of seeing this as it's going to take maybe 10 years to get significant work done, and they've got a large goal. They want to transform hiring and advancement practice for as many as 100,000 employers and 500,000 human resource professionals, managers and executives, who are very involved, of course, in hiring and setting the policies among employers and how did they come to this? Well, it came out of research that they had done that found that many companies were already turning to skills first strategies because they needed to, because of their talent needs. They were having shortages, etc. 90% of the employers that they were studying acknowledged the benefits of skills first hiring, but only 15% of them indicated they had actively implemented skills first hiring, and they weren't sure how to do it. They really needed help. So this data was really, I has really been driving the SHRM center, and I'll touch on the four pillars of the work at the center of which our library is really closely involved with one of them. So the first pillar, which is really interesting, is to evaluate an organization, a company's progress in adopting a skills first approach. And they have an interactive tool that's available now in their new center that they're calling it a Skills Action Plan. And that tool can assess where an employer is at in its development. You might be at the beginning level. You might be an intermediate. You might be advanced in using skills based hiring. Well, once they know which level you may be at, then SHRM plans to help to guide the company's learning through a training offering and this unique library of resources. So the second pillar is the resource library, and that's where our library has been so involved in this effort, because they built their library to provide research tools, employer examples, and glossary terms, etc, for those who are going to be implementing skills, first strategies across the whole employee's life cycle. And the cool thing for us is that the library, and I think for them too, is that it's being powered by the Learn & Work Ecosystem Library's tech architecture. So they provide their content to us, and then we enter into our database, and then they pull out information using the kind of special coding and stuff that we've been able to put on it to feed their library. And we're really excited that the library can play this role, and we're gonna, you know, we'll be learning a lot on both sides about how to do this. How does a library beget another library? So the third pillar is to go back to that training, one that I mentioned, once they know where you're at as a company, and they're offering a skills-first credential, and they're offering a training regimen opportunity. I think it's going to end in a certificate to train HR folks in skills based workforce strategies, depending on where they start. And that's why that first assessment, that tool to assess where you're at, is so important. And then the fourth pillar in their new center is a vendor database, and basically they're putting a lot of information about sourcing and assessment for upskilling and mobility, etc, for folks that want to have data around what they're doing. So we're just one of a group of partners that SHRM is working with to bring this major resource forward. And I think we're going to be seeing a lot about this in our literature going forward, as I think we're all going to be impacted by what SHRM is doing with their new center.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Well, that sounds very exciting, and as Julian said, I feel like it shows where the employer space is headed, right like this is a major milestone moment in that work. So thank you for sharing a bit about that and the way that the library is supporting that effort. So Holly, drawing from your past experiences, we always ask a question on our Work Forces podcast about becoming forces, or our audience is interested in how to become forces. So in this case, we're wondering, what practical steps can our podcast audience take to become forces in both using and sharing valuable resources to navigate the skills based future.

Holly Zanville: I love this question because when we built the library, we kind of wanted to build it as a Wiki model or a community engagement model, so we kind of feel like the community, all, all the folks we're talking about, should sort of own this library. So this is not Holly's library, even though I'm passionate about it, because to have the library be useful, everybody has to provide content. We hope that folks will visit the library and find resources that are useful, if not, tell us if, if, if, if visitors, people on this podcast, have information that they know of initiatives or glossary terms that they would like to see there, let us know. We'll put them in the library and they become part of the community engagement model, to become part of the Wiki model. So we're hoping that folks will really engage with the library, help make it better and use it and let us know if that airport is working, and are the flights? Are the flights coming out on time? And are they accurate? And are they all working so and if folks really want to follow us closely at the library, there's easy ways they even sign up for our e news, where they can even follow along some of the new features. I didn't cover all of them today, but you can follow along with what we are doing, and you can see our latest, greatest information. We're on LinkedIn, so we hope people will read some of our social media and follow us there. So we're excited that we're all in this together. And we, you know, going back to the very beginning of the podcast, we think collaboration is going to be the name of the game and sharing information, and we just have to figure out a way at sharing good information. So we want to have curated good information that helps advise us as we try to navigate what truly is and probably will continue to be for a while, a pretty messy, confusing ecosystem that we're all sharing.

Julian Alssid: So Holly, then I guess that means that anyone who is confused, doesn't know where to go, we're going to send them straight to the library.

Holly Zanville: That would be good.

Julian Alssid: No, no, it's great. It's a great resource. You've offered so much really excellent information about the state of play. And you know this is, this is definitely ongoing and unfolding before our eyes. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today, and you know we will continue to follow your work as well.

Holly Zanville: Come join us at the airport.

Kaitlin LeMoine: We will, we will. Thank you so much. That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces, we hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our sponsor, Lumina Foundation. We're also grateful to our wonderful producer, Dustin Ramsdell. You can listen to future episodes at workforces dot info or on Apple, Amazon and Spotify. Please Subscribe, Like and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends.

Steve Lee, CEO of SkillUp Coalition, discusses how his nonprofit technology platform connects nearly 3.5 million workers without college degrees to career training and job opportunities nationwide. Drawing from his diverse background spanning corporate law, educational technology, and philanthropy, Lee explains the coalition's "data-driven, heart-led" approach that ingests labor market data from partners and tests it with real workers to improve outcomes. He shares insights on navigating AI's impact on gateway jobs like customer service, emphasizing the shift toward skilled trades, advanced manufacturing, and green jobs as more automation-resistant career paths. Lee discusses the importance of balancing national reach with regional customization through 35 localized sites that reflect specific labor market demands, and explains how combining "air game" technology with "ground game" wraparound services creates more effective worker support. The conversation explores practical strategies for building mutually beneficial partnerships in workforce development, with Lee advocating for humility, value-addition, and collective impact as essential elements for scaling upskilling efforts and addressing intergenerational poverty.

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin Lemoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in. A central focus in our consulting practice and on this podcast is practically how to make meaningful connections between the various organizations and resources that exist to help people close gaps and advance their careers.

Julian Alssid: Absolutely, we've seen a surge of new tech products designed to bridge skills gaps, connecting individuals with training programs and with the employers who can hire them. And key to their success are solutions that are designed for and responsive to the needs of the end user.

Kaitlin LeMoine Precisely. And that's why today we're excited to dive into a conversation with a leader who is at the forefront of using technology to connect millions of workers to meaningful career opportunities. Our guest is Steve Lee, the CEO of Skill Up Coalition. Steve has a fascinating career journey that began as a corporate lawyer, then saw him found and successfully exit an educational software company and work at Bain & Company. He then transitioned to the social sector, including a significant role at the Robin Hood Foundation, before taking the helm at Skill Up.

Julian Alssid: Steve brings a blend of business acumen and a deep commitment to social good, and we're looking forward to speaking with him about how to upscale efforts in a world of rapid change, especially with the increasing influence of AI. Since launching Skill Up in 2020, Skill Up's nonprofit technology platform has already connected nearly 3.5 million workers without a college degree to career training and job supports nationwide, and the coalition now includes more than 150 partners. Impressive.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Truly. So Steve, welcome to Work Forces. We're so glad you could join us to share more about these impactful efforts.

Steve Lee: I am so honored and thrilled to be here. Thank you both very much for the current show. I will say my family, says I'm a dork and so, true story and so anyway, just thank you. It's a pleasure to be here and looking forward to the conversation.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Great. Well, as we get started, can you please tell us a bit more about your background and what led you to your work at Skill Up Coalition.

Steve Lee: So as you, as you alluded to. I was in a private sector for a good chunk of, let's say, the first half of my career, but I've always sort of been interested in having some impact on the social side. I had a really good conversation with a nonprofit leader when I was in the private sector, and she said something which I thought was really interesting. She said, Steve, I've been doing this work for 50 years, and I serve young people and adults. And she said to me that when I serve young people, there's a very good chance that 30 years later I'm gonna see the same person to serve their needs. And what that struck me is this idea of not only just poverty, but this idea of intergenerational poverty, where poverty goes to multiple generations. I'm like, damn, this is not good. This is not the country I want to live in. So what the heck can we do about it? And so that's one of the main reasons I joined philanthropy, is to think about a way, in a very small way, obviously, right where I could have some impact, if you will, in a small way, on this idea of improving what I think is one of the biggest scourges in this country is intergenerational poverty and the fact that half of 30 year olds in this country now are worse off than their parents were when they were 30. You know, inflation adjusted, that is a very bad step. All right, that's what, that's what that that's what drives me with the work I do. It's why I came to Skill Up. Because I feel like one of the ways is you can, one of the ways you can address that is, if you have stable wages for good work you have stable families, you have stable kids, and the kids can do better in life. Because every parent in the world, I don't care who you are, rich, poor, you know, Democrat, Republican, urban. It doesn't matter. Every parent wants to carry do better in life, every single parent. So when we're doing a very, very bad job of that. And so that's why I take this work that we do at scope is important, and why the ecosystem is important. So that's the reason.

Julian Alssid: It's really sobering when you see those stats about declining wealth, and we've got to fix this, because we've helped create this mess - our generation, the concentration of wealth. And I mean, we could go on, but tell us a little bit more about who Skill Up serves, who you're looking to serve in this kind of intergenerational approach and the range of initiatives that you've developed.

Steve Lee: We are, we're primarily designed to serve STARS, if you know that terminology, those are Skilled Through Alternative Routes, which is basically folks that don't have a college degree. We have a particular focus on the lower rung of that ladder, right? Those who are maybe on public benefits, those are the most marginalized in this country. And we serve youth all the way to dos, and on this journey, I think the most important thing for this journey for us is the fact that we are a coalition, so it's actually our official name. We're not, we're not Skill Up we're Skill Up Coalition. That's actually our IRS registered name, and that means a lot to us, because we're a small nonprofit, right? What the hell are we going to do by ourselves? Like nothing, like literally nothing, right? So we can only do something if we work together with some of our core partners. And if you go to our site, you can see some of our core partners. These are folks who are leaders in the field, and we do our best right to add value into that ecosystem. We can talk a little bit more about what value means, but the most important thing for us as an organization is to truly partner for mutual benefit. This is one of what our funders love to say, mutual benefit. It's actually pretty hard to do mutual benefit, to work with others to create collective effect. I can give you examples of that, but that is one of the most important things we can do.

Kaitlin LeMoine : Please say a little bit more about that when you say mutual benefit. Let's dive in there a little bit.

Steve Lee: Yeah. So let's talk about what I think is one of our key jams, right? One of the core value sets that we have, one of our core principles is to be data driven, heart led. I've always liked that term, because as a technology nonprofit, we are driven by data. Obviously, I'll talk about what that means. But everything we do, we hope, is for the benefit of workers, right? And we have workers at scale, and we've learned the time. And so one of the coolest ways that I think we work with partners is on the data side. And let me explain what that means. So we have become a platform for low wage workers, where people are coming to us to some degree with data sets, and what they want to do is they want to test those data sets with real workers to get their worker voice on whether this stuff works or not. So I'll give you some examples. There are some really interesting data sets on the employer side. Groups like American Opportunity Index, which is funded by Burning Glass in partnership with the Schultz Family Foundation. There's a Credential Value of Index, I think that's what it's called. Used to be called EQOS, which has sort of the signals of quality for training programs in America. What these programs, what these data sets have, is really, really good data, but they have no way to surface that data with real workers. And so what we're doing is we're ingesting those data sets, and then we're spitting those data sets into the arms of workers across America, using a skills platform as a vehicle to do that, and then we're learning to see what works for real workers. This is what I call heart led right? What's the worker voice? What are they telling us what works and what doesn't work? And then we're spitting that back into our partners to improve their data sets. So it all comes full circle, this idea of ingestion, spitting out data, learning from data, and going back to the original source as a full circle, that's like, really, really important, I think, in the broader ecosystem. And I think we're one of the few platforms that can actually do that right, because we have technology, we have good UX/UI, we have workers, we can send things out to, and then we can test a real scale, like 10s of 1000s, right? Within a week or two, to have statistically significant data that comes back to us that we can inform the field that's a real value, and that's what that's mutual benefit, like, we're helping our workers, right? And in theory, we're also helping the data sets. That doesn't happen all the time, like mutual benefits, actually pretty hard, but that's one example, Kwsaitlin and how we're thinking about mutual benefit, particularly around benefit, particularly around data, because I think that is probably one of our biggest jams, is the ingestion of data, plus the data driven heart led, right? The ability to access workers and get their workable voice.

Kaitlin LeMoine: That's a complex space in which you're sitting to build that mutual benefit with, as you said, right, like the end users, like the people you're looking to serve, as well as with your data partners.

Steve Lee: Correct.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Living in the middle of that space, I imagine, is exciting and also pretty complicated.

Steve Lee: You know what's interesting? What I've learned is, like, this is gonna get very wonky, but like, data is it's basically just like a bunch of fields. But what's tricky is that you have to match those fields like this is, like, wonky data stuff, and like, actually matching those fields to collect the right information to get out to the right is actually very tricky, right, because there are so many fields. So that's actually the hard work. But once you get there, it can be pretty powerful. In terms of stuff that you learn.

Julian Alssid: So Steve, just sticking with this one a little bit longer. Again.

Steve Lee: Sure.

Julian Alssid: This is the geeking out, because I think our listeners will be very interested. We want to talk about AI and the workforce. But of course, are you using AI in this effort to then sort of mine and collate and organize this data?

Steve Lee: Yeah, we're using AI, I think, so why call this idea of more stuff and better stuff? So this is like, like third grade English, right? And so what we can do with our, with our AI, is the data sets that we have, we can have more of the things that we want. And what I mean by that is that our main call to action for our users is, hey, what's the right career you have? What could work? What career do you want? What job do you want? And three, you probably need some kind of training to get the right credential to get the job. All right? So what training is available to you? So what AI can do is that it can surface up more opportunities that we wouldn't be able to surface up, but for the power of AI. So that's one, and second, we could be better at what we offer. One of the things that we pride ourselves as being high quality, and we curate all the opportunities. And the curation is done a lot by data sets, plus desk research. The desk research can be somewhat replaced by AI, right? So rather than having a human, or in conjunction with a human, you have AI to make that research better, and so you have better stuff that we show up as high quality content, as opposed to just having a human, plus data sets, plus you have more stuff, because there are some things that we're missing, because it's a big country or a small nonprofit, right? And so more stuff, better stuff is not what we're doing in terms of the things that we power. The other thing we're doing around AI is what I call horizontal integration. So as you guys know, the journey from a low wage worker starting to look for a job, to finding the job, can actually be more than just a few inches. It can be miles and miles and miles, right? It takes a long time. It takes months, sometimes years, right? And so if our users stick with us, what we can do with AI, no matter where they are in their journey, you can offer AI as a recommendation, no matter where you are. So your beginning part of the journey, AI will make some kind of recommendation to Julian saying, We think you should do A, B and C, but Kaitlin is further along in her journey and is about to interview for a job. We could offer a different AI experience. So can say, hey, you should think about doing this for an interview, things of that sort. And AI can do that almost like when you do a Google search. Now, you don't see this, you don't see the search results. You see Google AI, overview, right? That's the first thing you see. Similar concept for us, no matter where you are, you're going to get something around AI, and then hopefully that helps you drive to at&t organizations. So that's a horizontal integration, right? And the vertical is more stuff, better stuff.

Julian Alssid: Are the learners, workers, whatever you're calling the clients. Are they staying with you? I mean, you've, you've now, you know, you do have this growing data set.

Steve Lee: It's the trickiest wicket of a direct to consumer platform. You know, unless you're Meta or Google, it's hard for direct to consumer users to stick right. And we have the same issues as others. I always say about roughly half of our users drop off after sort of initial experience and then, but the other half stick around to some manner of form. And the first that's actually pretty good, right? As a direct to consumer, nonprofit, right? So we're actually proud with, like, the half that stick. But what our partners say sometimes, even if they come and they bounce, maybe there's value that you just don't know. They come, they browse a little bit, they leave after 30 seconds, you don't know, you don't know what value you've had. So our friend was like, okay, the fact they don't stick around for you. That's okay, because maybe they have some value just in the 30 seconds that spark an idea, and then they go someplace else. But maybe we sparked an idea. We just don't know that Julian.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Well, and we are living at such a, you know, complex moment with respect to the labor market and the shifts we're seeing there. And I'm curious, Steve, you know, to hear you speak a little bit to that as it pertains to the platform and other initiatives you're working on as well, because I can imagine, you know, part of what you're saying about whether people stick or not, I mean, it has to for sure. That has to do with all these other shifts that are happening in the broader landscape.

Steve Lee: You know, it's funny. One of the things that we think a lot, I think about a lot, is where, where's the puck going? I'm a big hockey fan of all things. And you know, as a kid. I used to follow Wayne Gretzky, and he had like, three eyes in the back of his head. He knew where the puck was going, right? And we're not that, but we try to prognosticate. And there are data sets that do this kind of stuff, right, and there's desk research. Yeah. And so to be very specific about it, in the world of AI, because that is where the puck is going. In fact, that's where the puck is. How do we have a platform that is going to serve the worker now and serve the worker two years from now and five years from now? The thing that's come up most recently, and it's fairly, fairly obvious, is the world of skills, trades, advanced manufacturing, uh, green jobs, things of that sort that have come to the fore recently, one, because there's been a lot of money that's been pumped into through the Biden administration, right? Rightfully so. But also, I think people are realizing that this might be sort of what I call the anti AI, right, as we think about, like, entry level jobs. And we've sort of, there's been research, some recent research through BGI and some others. Let's say, you know, college grads are not getting hired as much in the most recent cycle, in part, maybe because of AI, right? So we don't know what's going to be bounced right because of AI. I happen to think even though some of the jobs that Skill Up has now will be bounced because of AI, and if that's the case, then we shouldn't have those jobs anymore, right? Let's be honest. So we're trying to think about where the jobs are so we think skilled trades, advanced manufacturing, there's a piece of that. We have some pretty big efforts afoot right to do that across America, tied to some big federal federal grants with a couple of key partners, and tied to some community colleges that are doing, I think, really cutting edge work on some of the training aspects around getting people the right credential for some of these advanced manufacturing, green jobs, and I think some of the stuff will be important. Yeah, this is it takes a long time to get this to fruition. We're working on that now, as I want to call the anti AI, right? As we incorporate AI into our specific product experience.

Julian Alssid: As we're trying to hone in on the future and where the puck's going. What are you learning and what are some of the challenges you're facing?

Steve Lee: I think we're learning something. But what I just say, right, yeah, which I think, and this applies to Skill Up, because Skill Up's main jam is to help people get what we call gateway jobs. And the discipline knowledge that Opportunity@Work has created through their STARSs Tear the Paper Ceiling Campaign. The challenge with gateway jobs in the world of AI is, I think some of those gateway jobs ain't gonna be here. Like, I really don't right think about things like, like, a customer service rep. I'm going to use that as an example. That is, that is one of our gateway jobs, at least. I think it is right. You think that's gonna be around three years from now? I don't know. All right, let's say that's the level of scale. So I think what we're learning now is that some of those things ain't gonna be here anymore. The challenge is, if that's the case, what's the alternative? And the deeper challenge is, how do we get a non traditional, marginalized worker into this new future that might have been relatively easy as a customer service rep, right? You can get that without paying a lot of money for short-term training, or we would just get the job without a college degree. Maybe that's feasible, but the other stuff may require a two month credential at community college. It might right, it might cost you $2,000, so how do you get that especially working with marginalized populations? So what does that mean for us? Maybe we need to go up the food chain a little. Maybe work with less marginalized people, maybe that have the need to take a two month, $2,000 course. Maybe I'd rather not do that, because our jam is to serve the hardest to serve population. So I think these are things that are floating in my head. It is like supply, labor, supply, demand issues. It's very tricky, but part of why we exist is to be able to offer things that are of the moment, that are real, viable, and high quality. And I don't think I'm going to use customer service rep, I don't think it's going to be high quality. And if I don't think it'll exist right in three years. So that's a struggle that we work through Julian as best we can.

Julian Alssid: A great example.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, well, and I would imagine, too, the other piece of this, as you've said, right, this is a coalition effort. And I guess I'm wondering, how do you go about forming and reforming partnerships and coalitions to advance this work in a way that is, you know, kind of timely, and as you're saying, maybe moving where the puck is going, even if we're not all entirely clear exactly where that is. What are some considerations that you take into account as you go about that work?

Steve Lee: I think part of it is that what I hope we do is we go in with some humility. All right, into the conversation if you want partners, because we don't have all the answers, and sometimes we are not the right partner, so you should kick us out, and we should be humble enough to recognize that we shouldn't be part of that big kids table, right? That's true. And so, so. But if, if we think we should be, I think we hope to come in in this mindset of value add you. In some manner or form. So think about some of the things I find, like a market opportunity index, or what used to be called EQOS, right? We came in there thinking we can add some value because we have an asset that maybe you don't have, which is this ability to test with real users using electronic experience, but it's actually going to make your data sets better. So I suppose I always try to come in with humility, with value add, with mutual benefit. And I think the fourth thing is, is someone doing this already? We are not the only a career navigation platform, right? There are many, many, many, many right across the globe, as you guys know, some of them are friends, right? So the question is that that's already being done by somebody else, then it makes no sense for us to bring it right? No value add. I think that's actually really because we live in a world where we don't have enough time to compete. We just got to do our thing. You do your thing. Well, if you want us great, or if we add value, if not, they kick us out, right? And that's perfectly fair, with a mindset of humility, right? As opposed to being a little bit, you know, angry about it.

Julian Alssid: Don't get angry. So on the so on the topic of coalitions, a lot of our work involves, you know, navigating, building these kind of, these coalitions and I was, I was looking at your May newsletter or your LinkedIn announcement about your newsletter, and you talked a little bit about the data and the distinction between national and regional or local coalitions. And I know you kind of play in both spaces. Can you? Can you speak to that at all?

Steve Lee: Of course, regional is really important for us for very various reasons. One less important thing, this is where the funders sometimes might be right. Let's be honest, right? Sometimes you need money to do some stuff, right? There are a lot of regional funders, but that's not, that's not the most employing, yes, we have a national presence, right? True. If you're in North Dakota, where we don't have reasonable experience, you can take the value of Skill Up right in terms of things that might be virtual or remote things, great, but everything, as we know, I knew you all know this right, happens at the regional level. It's where the labor market goes, it's where the employers are, it's where the people and their families are. And so we have built, I want to say, 35 regional sites, and I think the value of those regional sites is that they're very bespoke to the region. So the things we offer, whether it's the right career, the right job or the right training, is all tied to labor market demand in that region. So when you go to Los Angeles, right, you're going to see a very different experience, right? If you go to my home state, home city of New York, versus some of our other 30, 30, plus users, right? And that's really, really valuable, because people in Los Angeles don't get don't give a crap about me, or vice versa. I don't give a crap about Los Angeles, right? I hate the Dodgers, right? And the Lakers. I just care about New York, although New York kind of sucks too, to be honest, when it comes to sports, but New York, New York is its own beast, right? And it's its own, its own employment, right? And all employers, and that's the experience that we offer that's rich and deep. The other thing it brings that is often difficult for us is a ground game. So we have a really good air game, aka technology, which we think we do, what we miss sometimes is the ground game with local on the ground organizations to do really meaningful work. And if we can better connect our users beyond just the air game into a ground game where they can get direct support for things like wraparound support service, things like that, that's really, really, really valuable air game plus ground game. And some of our partners are looking for that combination. You can't get that in North Dakota. I'm just making up North Dakota, right? You can't, because we don't, we don't, we don't have a ground game, right? And that's really powerful. So you get local assets important for the user, and if we can work it out, you get a ground game of support services that better enrich the experience for workers in that community.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, I love this notion of the air and ground, right? Because there's also the way that the learnings from the ground game could impact the air game too, right? And so having the ability to operate at both of those levels just makes so much good sense.

Steve Lee: Totally, totally agree.

Kaitlin LeMoine: There's like endless lessons that you're pulling from, from some of that regional work.

Steve Lee: Exactly.

Kaitlin LeMoine: To inform what you do, more broadly.

Steve Lee: Exactly.

Julian Alssid: I was just gonna say, I mean, you know, we need maximum flexibility, right? Because everything we're talking about is like, people, machines, national, local. It's like, it's a very fluid system. So we need all the tools to bring to the table.

Steve Lee: Indeed, indeed we do so.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Steve, drawing from your experiences and pulling on, I guess, all of the different threads we've been talking through today. What practical steps can our audience take to become forces in scaling up, upskilling, and workforce development efforts. What are some practical takeaways you might recommend for others looking to do this kind of work?

Steve Lee: Reach out, right? I'm easy to find. To find me on LinkedIn right, and let's try to work together, right, because you just never know, right? So I think that's my first advice, is reach out and because who knows, right, what great things can happen. The other thing I would say, and that this is more of my, like, my philanthropic experience when I was about managing here in New York City, is to do something this makes any sense you run a nonprofit in a particular region, approach, maybe approach things with this idea of like humility, value added, and mutual benefit, if that makes any sense, because I think people, people want to work together. This is also, if I'm being honest, it's where the stakeholders and the funders are going. In part, if you want to get the resources and nonprofit to do great work, more philanthropists are asking for joint mutual efforts beyond just your own effort. And so I think it behooves us as an ecosystem to think collectively together, just like philanthropy doing is, you know, recently they've done much more. And I like this about having, like this collective effort stuff. There's like an AI collective funder group. There's like a skills trades collective group. There's an impact collective group, right? When I used to do philanthropy, I didn't, I didn't give a crap about other other funders. I just wanted to be in my own sandbox, right, Robin Hood, right? But now people will think that's really good, right? Think the same as a tactical organization is if you can work together with others for some level of mutual benefit, even though it's hard because you have to give a little bit, I think money, it's a little easy to get money, if that makes any sense, right? That's a very tactical money, because people care about money, right?

Kaitlin LeMoine: Those are two pretty foundational - provide a lot of direction - in those two recommendations. So thank you for that.

Steve Lee: Thank you. Great question. I'm really, really, really honest about like, working together, like, and that's the thing that's really important. And some of the coolest partners we've had have just been through random conversations.

Julian Alssid: Well, that comes through loud and clear, Steve, and you know, it's been such a pleasure talking with you as always today. And you know, we look forward to continuing the conversation. Really appreciate you taking the time.

Steve Lee: It's my pleasure. Thank you both for all that you guys do, and I'll make a plug for you guys. I think you guys have been awesome. I think about one of the best podcasts out there in America for workforce so thank you guys for what you do.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Thank you so much.

Julian Alssid: Very nice of you.

Kaitlin LeMoine: That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces, we hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our sponsor, Lumina Foundation. We're also grateful to our wonderful producer, Dustin Ramsdell. You can listen to future episodes at Work Forces dot info or on Apple, Amazon and Spotify. Please Subscribe, Like and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends.

Niesha Taylor, Director of Career Readiness at the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), concludes our three-part series with Jessica Perez from LaGuardia Community College and Bryan Quick from Abbott, showcasing how institutions and employers are successfully implementing NACE's career readiness competencies. The conversation explores practical examples of breaking down silos between higher education and industry, from LaGuardia's digital badging program that has provided 700+ students with paid internships to Abbott's skills-based hiring approach achieving a 70% intern-to-full-time conversion rate. Taylor emphasizes the critical need for faculty professional development to help students articulate their classroom learning as career-relevant experience, while Perez and Quick describe how career readiness competencies create a common language across the education-to-employment bridge. The discussion offers actionable strategies for creating supportive environments where students can confidently showcase their skills and for employers to develop comprehensive frameworks that prioritize workforce readiness over traditional degree requirements.

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the third and final installment in our special mini series with the National Association of Colleges and Employers, or NACE. In our first episode, we spoke with NACE, President and CEO, Shawn VanDerziel, who provided a high level overview of the college career services and recruiting landscape. And then we dove deeper into the data in our second episode with Mary Gatta, who leads naces research efforts.

Julian Alssid: Now in this third episode, we'll explore how colleges and employers are optimizing academic programs, career services, and recruitment practices for our evolving economy. We're excited to be joined by Niesha Taylor NACE's, Director of Career Readiness, with a background as a former Dean for Academic Innovation and Career Success at the City University of New York's Gottman Community College and Senior Director for career pathways at the New York Jobs CEO Council, Niesha draws on her range of experiences bridging higher ed and industry in her role at NACE. In an exciting new twist for Work Forces, Nisha will join us today, along with a college and business leader who work actively with NACE to implement innovative models. Jessica Perez, Director of the Center for Career and Professional Development at LaGuardia Community College -- my former employer, too, Jessica, we'll have to talk about that -- and Bryan Quick, Director of Global University Relations at Abbott.

Jessica Perez: To give a bit more background, Jessica oversees the SOAR Experiential Learning Program, the Almezzi Foundation Career Fellows Program, CUNY Career Launch, Spring Forward and several other internship programs at LaGuardia. She's also an adjunct assistant professor at Lehman College and a Career Research & Development Consultant for Virginia Peninsula Community College. And Bryan is the head of Global Early Careers at Abbott, responsible for a worldwide team accountable for the design and delivery of the enterprise strategy to attract and recruit next generation talent. In his role, he oversees a global team dedicated to building strong partnerships with universities and managing early talent engagement programs. Jessica and Bryan are both involved with NACE, serving on various committees and in leadership committee roles. So welcome to you all. We're excited to have you with us for today's conversation.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Great. So as we jump in today, Niesha, we'll start with you. Can you please tell us more about your background and your role at NACE.

Niesha Taylor: I think the sort of critical first chunk of my time that makes sense to mention here is that I worked in higher education for many, many, many years, always with a focus on increasing access and really expanding economic mobility for the City University of New York students. I came out of K through 12 background, so I've always been thinking about that, that access point, and helping students become more successful and really get the most out of their college opportunities. In the last couple of positions I had, I worked on a variety of grants and initiatives that really worked to integrate career thinking into higher education. That actually started with Jessica Perez. I'll say she kicked off all of my thinking in this area. Gave me the sort of sort of background tools. That's the first time I heard of NACE and learned a little bit about the NACE career competencies, which I'm sure we'll talk a lot about in today's conversation. So really helping students see how they're learning and academic experience and beyond academic experience, were things that were really relevant to mention and put forward in connecting into their first career opportunities. So as that happened for me in higher education, I got deeper and deeper into the commitment to helping students really see that next step beyond college. In the role that I had at Guttman Community College, I kind of learned more and new ways of connecting career thinking into the classroom. Working with faculty quite a bit, which was really where I started to do a lot of faculty professional development to help them see how to bring the academic experience, sort of in connection, or bridging into the world of first jobs and first interviews for students. As I headed into the New York job CEO Council, my first step outside of higher education, it made me really understand how siloed higher education can be, and how much more we need to connect with employers and really help students see that bridge more clearly, take those steps more directly. And so that's really kind of what landed me at NACE is kind of building that firmer stance for students understanding how their learning connects into the first step into career. So NACE has developed itself in this area of career readiness, and again, that connects to this idea of understanding core competencies, those competencies that employers are looking for. I'd worked with those so much over the last stretch of years, and had started to work with NACE in building an assessment tool for those career competencies. And that kind of walked me towards the experience of starting, as you know, working with NACE full time and doing a lot of faculty professional development and really connecting into our employer partners to see how NACE competency development could really be developed across that bridge into employment. Yeah, I think that's kind of the sort of core story there and and really, the area that I oversee is really called Career Readiness and and connects down into the focus on those competencies and career learning in the classroom and beyond the classroom for students.

Julian Alssid: Can you talk a little bit more about, you know, kind of how then you're, you know, what are the tools and services that that NACE offers, and you talked a bit about your faculty development work and the competency work, obviously, and and then how are you working with both educators and the employers to break down these silos?

Niesha Taylor: What's interesting is that there's such a strong presence at NACE of career services professionals and leaders, and they have for many, many years, been focusing on those career competencies as a kind of foundation and a structure to integrate into various student experiences. So NACE really, has for many years worked with career services folks, and I think part of what's happening now is there's a broader awareness that this is a critical part of the college experience, and they're looking for ways to expand the professional knowledge and really tap into the professional knowledge of career services and stretch it across colleges. So what that looks like is always continuing to have deep and focused conversations with career services professionals, but help them advocate for expanding that focus across a college experience, so connecting it into academic affairs, teaching faculty about it, having program development that builds NACE competencies over time, so that it's not it really can't sit just with career services, especially because career services are typically very under resourced. They just cannot stretch. I mean, Jessica will tell you maybe some of the numbers of like, how many students her office is supposed to serve, and it is often true that there's not enough people in career services to have, like, a decent caseload of students. So NACE works a lot to help a college see how to start to integrate that career thinking across the experience, how leadership can get on board, how faculty can start to learn what's going on, and then how to build just an ethos of focus on career readiness from beginning to end of an academic experience. So that's really the higher ed side. And I think that numbers are something like 75% of the colleges we work with engage career readiness and the core career competencies, something like 30% do that really across the college. I think about 40% do it in a like department wide or stretched across a couple of departments. LaGuardia actually does a really beautiful job at it expanding, but it's, it's really rare that a college gets and really spreads it across the college experience, which is ideal for a student so NACE really brings in efforts to the college to help do that work, particularly to me, that's faculty professional development for the most part. But we also might work with, let's say, if it's focused in career services already, might expand it into advisement, for example, or take it over into student leadership work or things like that, to start to take those next steps, but it's a lot of professional development and support and community engagement to get that going. On the employer side, it's working with recruitment folks, and you'll hear this story from Bryan, more specifically, of understanding that so many colleges. Across the US are really building on this idea of of career readiness and how to engage that conversation as they're focusing and talking to students on college campuses, and then how to help them build their skills as they're coming into early, early career or internship programs at the college so that trying to sort of create the common language across higher education into employment, so that students can really leap, you know, and grow as they enter into those first layers of employment on the other side. And that work is newer to me, but really is exciting. It's, you know, you'll hear this story, but it's there are so many employers that I've spoken to are really grabbing this idea and being able to tell the story better for students as they're bridging over into employment as well. Great.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Well, thank you so much for explaining at a high level how you go about doing this work across higher ed institutions and with employers. And so we're excited to dive into a couple of examples. Jessica, I guess, and Niesha, let's let's start there. Can we talk a little bit about the relationship between NACE and LaGuardia Community College, and you know, how did the relationship develop, and what have been some successes you've experienced in your work together, and some challenges or things you're working on as well.

Jessica Perez: A little bit about my history when I started in higher education back in 2009 I think I'm aging myself now, but that's when I first was introduced to NACE being the Assistant Director of Career Services at Bronx Community College, which is also part of the City University of New York. And my involvement started it very simple as resources, right access to professional development, really being up to date with industry trends, that was really the goal of being involved with NACE and then let's fast forward to my role at LaGuardia Community College. When I first started at the college about maybe a few semesters in, we started this new initiative of co-curricular transcripts, and how could we document the student experience outside of the classroom, but with that twist of career readiness. So what we started, and that was when my work started with Niesha, was that we developed digital badges at the college in different areas, but I'll speak specifically what we did in career services. We have the Career Readiness Digital Badging program, which still exists to this day. We started very small with just federal work study students, providing professional development to those students so they have a real experience versus, right, not just being in a front desk answering phones. And then what we did was we aligned the job descriptions of the students for each department to the competencies, and I also aligned with the competencies of the college. So again, we're speaking one language when it comes to competencies, right? Because competencies, the word competencies, could be very foreign to our students, and from there, it has evolved to our current SOAR Experiential Learning Program, which is funded through the LaGuardia Foundation, and students are placed in entry level internship positions related to their major. So if they're interested in accounting, we will find them an entry level accounting position, and they will do a 12 week internship, and they get paid a $2,000 stipend, and they get awarded a digital badge. So actually, I just presented on Friday with some colleagues at City Tech, which is also part of CUNY, and we were talking about these microcredentials, and the value that students find. It motivates them to want to complete the internship, and they also build self confidence for our students. So again, right to answer the original question, that's what has allowed me to continue being involved with NACE and also in various leadership roles, because I'm very passionate about the work, especially for our first generation students that is mostly our population within CUNY, and helping them find value in their own career readiness and also leverage career connectedness across the college so because really, career is we all own it right? Career services, we lead the work, but we need our stakeholders and our partners, specifically faculty, to be successful in this work, and they have been my biggest stakeholders.

Julian Alssid: I'm interested to hear a little bit more about kind of the successes and challenges that you've experienced in this work.

Jessica Perez: Sure. So successes I just mentioned that, right? We want to, we have a really successful internship program. We've, we've provided at least 700 students with paid internships that have earned digital badges, which have led for them to either find a second internship, I get hired at a second internship on their own because of the career readiness competencies, or the student has been hired by the employer, or even found independently, right with our resources, another job which right a couple of years ago that was unheard of for community college students, that they're completing at least two internships before graduation. That's a major success. But again, that's all thanks to right? The framework that NACE has developed that we've been able to tweak and make our own at LaGuardia. Challenges, of course, is getting buy in from across the board, right? Especially when it came to the digital badges. Not everyone... They feel that it's extra work on the student or it's extra work on them, whether it's right, whether it's a staff or faculty member. So it's really having those conversations of what is the value, especially from the student perspective. They are finding the value in this. They are finding it helpful, and it's helping them align what they're learning in the classroom in their minds, right to what they're doing outside of the classroom. Because when they're meeting with an employer and Brian, you could probably speak to this, right, they don't know how to articulate what they're learning in the classroom as experience. They say, I have zero experience. Now let's talk about the different projects you've done, research projects, service learning activities, they're like, oh, wow, I actually have a lot of experience in this area. But again, it's our job as career services professionals or higher education educators, right in general, to educate, coach, and and help students articulate these skills that they actually have. So I would say that it's a strength, but also a challenge getting students to really be able to understand that they are proficient in these skills. It's just a matter of they. I had a sorry, I'm gonna go into a little rant, but a student of mine, and actually in one of the courses I teach, didn't feel confident that they actually have skills to put on their LinkedIn. But it's a coaching and saying, Hey, what have you done in the classroom, in this in this class? Oh, you've done two presentations. What does that mean? Oh, I have communication skills. Yes, you're able to present. And he's, he's done an excellent job in doing that. So again, it's about coaching and bringing that awareness to the students, to be able to share and not feel shy, to show off everything they've accomplished.

Niesha Taylor: If I could jump in here too. So I really learned about the challenges when I was first working with Jessica. We were working on a project that brought advisors together with faculty. We were doing, like an advisement team, and it was the first time I like Jessica, just like, brought her folks to be a part of those teams, and then where things went well, faculty members who had been kind of like, I would like, say, dismissive of career services under started to understand the depth of knowledge that those folks brought to the table. This happens over and over again. It's worth mentioning that, like in higher education, there are all of these hierarchies where the faculty feel that this is a side thing. It's an over there thing. And so the more we can really dispel those myths and really raise up the expertise of this group of folks that have a critical function at the colleges, I think we start to help to bring that conversation into the classroom and help because it shouldn't be that a student goes to that class that you just described, where they presented twice, but they never thought of what that real learning meant and how to bring it into the into the room. And I always use that idea of showing off Jessica, because I have met so many CUNY students who like I think there's a lot of sort of cultural barriers to that, that feeling of what you're supposed to do in an interview, which does feel like showing off or bragging. And so I had a faculty member I worked with who framed it nicely. She said she'll have her students practice talking about what they accomplished, and then she'll ask them to do it again with pride and try to put their shoulders back and say, like, what would this look like if you walk in and you just feel like I really do have an amazing set of skills here, and I'm going to tell you about it, so that articulation point is really critical. When we do faculty professional development at NACE we make sure not only that a faculty member understands how to point to those experiences that might work on a resume or in an interview, but that the student is handed the opportunity to talk about it, to say those things, to try to feel what it feels like, to show off a little and say how good you are at something, because we know that's what they're gonna have to do when they sit in that first interview.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Just as a follow up to this part of the conversation, I'm wondering regarding the career readiness, competencies, how are they continuously updated? I mean, maybe, I guess, you could say, how were they developed, but also just, how are they updated and kept current and I think you know, as you're talking about your work with Jessica, with students and work with faculty members, how do you ensure kind of, there's this process of continued refinement?

Niesha Taylor: Yeah, I mean, this is all all developed sort of before I walked in the door. But I've really learned a lot like how seriously they take every step of the research that brings them to the competency. So the initial set was, you know, it's always through our members. So we have members who are employers and members who are high in higher education, in career services, but in all different areas of higher education, talking about what really works, what really matters, and what is going to make that difference. So you'll hear a lot about now a skills based hiring, right? We have fewer and fewer folks being hired because they have, like, the highest GPA, and these skills tend to be things that that are looked for in a variety of ways by employers, like through an interview process, an assessment of some sort, et cetera. And so we're updating them based on feedback in the second so they were developed, and I think in 2015 and then there was an update in, I think 2020 where they went through and kind of looked through them and adjusted, and that all takes a good long time. This, you can sort of refer back to Mary Gatta and all the research, because we've tried to think about even adjusting them a bit. And it just every step. If we're going to take that step, it's going to take time, because it's such a serious process. I will say that, you know, if you look deeper at the at each competency, we have a definition and sample behaviors. And those sample behaviors were also confirmed through a really broad research project where we had a technical sort of partner who was able to push these skills out and really confirm that these are the skills that made sense to connect up. So for example, for critical thinking, which is can be a blanket term, can mean a million things. We had to kind of get specific about data analysis and decision making like, and what does that really look like in terms of expectation in the workplace, and then validate those behaviors. And so, you know, any adjustment or shift will again, take that much time and effort. And so I think, you know, obviously we saw a shift at about five years. And so there will be a process again, like, okay, when do we need to take a refreshed look at this? And that's when we are all engaged Task Force at NACE, the research team and a variety of processes for looking at those sub behaviors and things like that.

Jessica Perez: If I could maybe jump in as well from the career services side, what we do is speaking with our industry partners is extremely critical in maintaining right everything that we do up to date, and we use, you know, like cast as well, to stay up to date with what are the current trends, especially in the majors that we offer, we have developed advisory councils, which includes faculty and our employer partners. So they're a huge right voice in the work that we do, but also the faculty really engaging them in this work, which we started back in 2015 and has evolved over the years, like, for example, now we're working with the English department. They're creating assignments for the health sciences majors, a new major that we have, and really developing a reflection for students, which then is going to be followed by mock interviews with partner employers coming in. So I do my best to kind of integrate right the academic with also bringing in an industry professional. And that's how we keep our badges and anything that we do related to career readiness updated and right and up to par

Julian Alssid: Well, so speaking of the voice of the employers, Bryan, you've been very patiently listening to this great discussion of the education side. But of course, none of this is going to happen if we don't have employers on board and in sync. And so really interested to hear from you about the relationship with NACE, how it came about and about your work, and the sort of the successes and challenges in applying this approach to the recruitment side of the equation.

Bryan Taylor: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much, Julian and Kaitlin, and thanks for inviting me to provide that employer perspective. As you mentioned. You know, this is a really personal topic for me, because I grew up in a really small rural area in South Carolina as a young student, and I was a first generation college student, as Jessica was talking about, one of those first generation college students. My parents never went to college. One of them never even finished high school. So you know, I understood really early the importance of being able to decipher, you know, the code of how to be ready for a career whenever you, you know, you do go through a university experience and get a degree. You know, that's not the stopping or the stop point, it's, it's the starting point. So I've been very passionate, not only just in my work at Abbott, but also whenever I first got engaged with NACE, which was actually when I worked at the Walt Disney Company. Before working for Abbott, I got a very early start understanding the benefits of the NACE partnership in my work at Disney, prior to coming to Abbott. And having served on many committees with NACE, as well as currently, right now, actively serving on the board of directors for NACE, I can tell you firsthand that I've had the privilege of being able to witness this evolution of my relationship and Abbott's relationship with NACE. I think it started when, and maybe it was Niesha that mentioned this as a challenge that employers have is really connecting the dots and bridging those gaps between education and employment. And we recognized, I think early on, the value that naces research brings the resources and really even the community that you get through NACE that helps you shape your hiring practices as an employer. So over time, not only just in those committees that I've served on, but also through our relationship with NACE, we've been able to grow our programs through these initiatives, my team participates in a lot of NACE events. We partner with the community to align on a lot of these, these elements that go into our recruitment strategy and build workforce readiness. And as I mentioned right at the beginning, this is something that's been very passionate for me and my team, and I think one of our busy, biggest successes, in terms of a success story, has been to integrate into our hiring practices a framework of skills based hiring. And I'm not just going to throw that word out there, skills based hiring, because I think that's used a lot really specifically. What it meant was helping define for our team members in talent acquisition the differences between behaviors and skills and competencies and how they are all related together, how they build workforce readiness. And that's really helped us understand what we need to do when we not only just go out and interact with students and engage with students before they come on to internship opportunities or or full time opportunities with us. But what we do once they're here and once they're in in our in our industry and in our organization, how do we continue to develop those skills and develop those behaviors so that students are what we what we like to call workforce ready whenever they graduate from university. I think what this has helped us really do is not only just tap into a more diverse talent pool, but it's also helped us really move, I think, beyond those traditional degree requirements that I think a lot of industries and companies are used to having as a factor whenever you are interviewing students. Of course, you know, we still have challenges with that, like aligning to some of our recruiting teams and internal stakeholders. You know, we still have, we are 145 year old company. So you know, you're always going to have some of those, those challenges of an evolution, of changing some of the old behaviors, especially when it comes to how most of these teams have been used to going out and engaging students or recruiting students. But I will tell you that the partnership that we've had with NACE has really helped bridge those gaps and help help us evolve as an organization, I think we've used a lot of the NACE data and the dialog to help keep us moving forward.

Julian Alssid: And so are you seeing, then greater adoption, you know, from your colleagues?

Bryan Taylor: We are, we are. And you know, it's interesting too, because once you start seeing some of the best practices put in place in some of the return on investment from those best practices. For example, we'd have, we now have, it Abbott, about a 70% conversion rate of our interns to full time. So that's a key metric for us, right? You know, our programs exist at a intern and co-op program standpoint. To convert talent to full time. We want students to work for Abbott. Our CEO is very passionate about this. He has mentioned several times that Abbott is not a training ground for other companies. We are a starting point for people that want to get their career started here. So how do we do that? We do that by really making sure that our recruitment strategy. And our techniques and our development opportunities that we provide are tapped into those workforce readiness competencies that NACE has put out there. So we have built a lot of our internship programming and co-op programming around those eight competencies. We design a lot of development opportunities for our students to really continue, as I mentioned, to build on those skills that we look for when we're actually going out on campuses and having discussions or interviews with students. So not only are we we, you know, convincing the business that this is the right thing to do when we're out out recruiting, but it's also an important part of the experience that they play a key role in, right? So the managers and the assignment leaders that interact with these students when they're with us during internships and co ops also have to understand that it's it's part of their role to help develop those competencies too, as well to build those skills. It's not just about technical skills anymore. It's about, you know, everybody used to call them soft skills. We call them foundational skills, but it's also tied into the behavior piece too, as well. And, you know, those two things coupled together really build on the competencies for for NACE, and that's, that's the approach that we've been taking. It's not revolutionary, but we have had to have some change, you know, in terms of being able to adapt and and adopt this as a core part of our development strategy for for early talent at Abbott.

Niesha Taylor: One of the things, just to jump in, you know, part of what I've learned by talking to Bryan a little bit more and understanding how he's incorporated, you know, NACE competencies into his work, is really that he had to kind of build a lot of the curriculum. I'm calling it curriculum because, you know where I come from, but the kind of learning that happens in the early job experience, he's developed ways that he's really teaching those NACE competencies to the folks that are coming through the internship in the same way we think about teaching them in higher education. And so we've gone through a process of developing a curriculum. It's a kind of a first step of like, how do you expose students first to what are these competencies, very specifically and hopefully hands on? And we're looking at that higher ed curriculum, and now we're going to bring it over, and I've invited Bryan and a few of our other employer partners who've done this work already, to see if we can come up with a framework for employers that are sitting in that same area to not have to build from scratch, but to really help folks develop those skills that are going to help them succeed and grow in their careers, and hopefully stay right what the employers really want to have folks that are retained and growing, and so that's part of what the competencies can offer.

Bryan Taylor: And Niesha, I'll just add in there, you bring up an excellent point that, you know, I think a lot of employers are probably sitting on the sidelines of doing this type of work because they don't have that framework and they don't have that playbook, right? So, creating a playbook for employers to really just get some ideas on how they can do it and they can, they can adopt and adapt, you know, you know, elements of of that framework to make it work for their own organization. That was key for us, right? We didn't have to, you know, take a specific example and go word by word, or, you know, chapter by chapter, on how to, how to execute this type of curriculum in in a work for a workplace environment. We built our own and, you know, but, but we didn't start from scratch. You know, the partnership with NACE was really important in terms of, like, understanding what was going to be really successful for us, and how do we build it so that we accomplish the things that we wanted to do, which nyesha mentions, you know, we want to have students that stay with us and and stay long term over the years well.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I feel like this conversation is is leading us to we always kind of ask, given that the podcast is called Work Forces. We always ask a question about forces, and I feel like this conversation is leading us right there. So you know, as as as we're all, as you all think about these experiences working both within your organizations and then across organizations to make this work really come to life, or learners and and employees and interns. What steps can our listeners take to become forces in preparing workers and learners for successful career navigation? I know, Bryan, you just mentioned, right, this concept of this playbook. Jessica, you talked about really, you know, making it really clear to learners like this making it really transparent. These are the skills you have, right? Like this is what this what? How you can explain them. But we'd love to hear any other action items or steps you would recommend.

Jessica Perez: I would say, creating a supportive environment for your audience, right? So if you're in higher education, your career services, professional or faculty member. Where it's really creating that safe, supportive environment for students, also aligning the competencies to what already exists. So it's right. It's not about reinventing the wheel or creating new structures, but it's really about what are we doing, making an assessment of what we're doing, and just elevating and enhancing it for your students. So like, for example, right? Simple assignments that are already happening have been designed by our amazing faculty. It's then just aligning the career readiness competencies and then that safe environment for students, and it just a lot, right? It's like one happy community. And also for career services, is really involving industry professionals like Bryan that are passionate about this type of work, that really want our students to succeed. He's not saying that others don't, but really encouraging lifelong learning for these students and making those connections, helping them make those connections of what they're learning in the classroom and in their co curricular programs, and really being an advocate for career education, because right, we all went to college for a reason, and it was right for our careers. So it's really bringing that to the forefront, as this is the main goal of our students. How do we attach all these extra things that we do and package it really well in that safe environment for students.

Niesha Taylor: I'll add there Jessica, that I feel like sort of what, what's represented in this conversation is a bridge that doesn't always and off or often exist. Having worked in higher education for most of my career, and really how I was an advocate, right? Like, you know, starting with that work that I did with Jessica at LaGuardia, building up to the work I was doing at Guttman, I really was advocating for this, but I didn't understand how little I was engaging with employers until I went to the New York job CEO Council, and really was sitting in front of recruiters and employers for a stretch of time and hearing them. So I think one of the things is to really break down some barriers to employer engagement, to start to get very direct about that need. So that's one thing is to really just realize that higher education has siloed itself away from employers. It's the sort of critical endpoint is degree attainment instead of job attainment. And I think the more we advocate for looking at that as the critical step that needs to be offered, you know, as a result of the time and effort, especially for first generation, for young people of color, for the folks in New York that Jessica is serving, you cannot ignore the need for a job. As a result of higher education. Folks are sacrificing their time and energy and efforts there, and they need to have that return on investment. And then the other thing I would say is internal to organization, internal to higher education, there's a real sort of push away from what I think feels like the corporatization of higher education. And I think the reframe, and we've heard it very much in this conversation, from Bryan's really sort of personal focus, is this is not an issue of like bringing a corporate lens into the classroom for that the sake of takeover. It's really a focus around equity and access and really like economic mobility, fundamentally. And if you see it from that direction, I think you can start to loosen and open really the broader academic experience to making stronger and more real connections to our employer, partners, folks that really need to offer the jobs to those books that we're teaching. So I think that's, it's a reframe that's really necessary, and getting and getting folks on board in that way. So that's some of the advice I would offer is Think carefully about really what the endpoint is, and try to be a little bit more supportive of what students really want out of their education.

Bryan Taylor: Yeah, and I'll say, just from the employer side, I think a lot of us get into this role and into this line of work, because we are passionate about giving people more access, giving people more opportunity, right, and and that's aligned with what nace's mission is, too, is to increase access and opportunity for for students like Jessica, students at her school and and all across the country. And I think one of the biggest steps to doing that, if you're an employer, is you first got to understand what it means to be embracing skills based hiring practices, right? You know, I think, as I mentioned before, a lot of times, people utilize that terminology, but they may not fully understand that. Uh, there are things that, if you're if you're sitting here thinking, Well, I don't have a skills based hiring approach, do some research and figure out if that's actually true or not, because in some cases, you may have some practices in place, like you may have already started to look at your job descriptions as an employer and and really reframe those so that they're focused on skills. That's a skills based hiring, you know, tactic and approach, right? Very simple, but it is, it is an element that is an employer element of this, this whole discussion that we're having, you know, thinking about how you're training your assignment managers, as I mentioned before, they are key to this whole experience of, you know, develop, you know, development around workplace or workforce readiness. So, you know, all of us, I think, in this space, are are enthusiastic about working with the business and making sure that the managers are the right managers, and they're the ones that are trained to be able to deliver the right type of curriculum, from an industry perspective, to help develop students that is a skills based hiring approach. So those are two great examples right there that that I think oftentimes, some people on my on the industry side, might sit, sit here and say, I don't have a skills based hiring approach you do. So just, you know, thinking about it and being more intentional about it, and using your partners like NACE. And then finally, the last thing I'll say is, you know, I never thought of myself as a as a data guy, but there is so much data that can be leveraged to really be able to tell the right story to your business leaders, if they are ever, you know, wondering whether or not this is the right approach, or what the return on investment is for, for going down this path, use the data that is, you know, my number one recommendation I always give to my team and to any, any of our colleagues that I partner with across the NACE organization, is the data is key, and it will really tell you, Like, what's working, what's not working. And you know how this approach really has, has helped us not only just convert students into full time roles, but keep them long term. So those are just some of my recommendations. I mean, if you're an employer, you know, listening to this, just trust me that we've all been in the same place at some point in time where we're like, this is a heavy lift. Where do I get started? You know, those those small, simple things, I think can really get you, get you to start building up momentum, so that you get to a point where it just becomes practice for all of your recruiters,

Niesha Taylor: I think, understanding that we're talking about an ecosystem here, right, like you're getting all the way to that place of building talent and helping folks, you know, become economically mobile, like once they reach into the employer side. But it's really an ecosystem coming from higher education and the variety of ways you can get a degree or certificate and start to build out, and that's it's a whole ecosystem you need to pay attention to across all of those lines, and it takes a lot of flexibility. And so I know, having worked with Jessica a lot and having gotten to know Bryan's work, these are flexible thinkers, there's a lot of innovation involved in trying to navigate systems that are really stuck and opening new roads here, one of the ways, and Jessica mentioned this, is to be flexible. In the land of higher education, with the things that are already in place, that sort of are forced by our creditors or measured, there's usually a set of outcomes that are required for your college to stay accredited. Those outcomes are almost always at least, like 80% aligned with these NACE competencies. And so finding those connection points is really critical. We have been working with the AAC&U, the American Association of Colleges and Universities, and their leadership is very open and committed to seeing these alignments, I think in the next year, you'll see a sort of more official statement that shows our the commitment to the competencies and the the outcomes that are listed by AAC&U these things have a crosswalk, and there's no reason for us to see them as separate things, and that we need To really take those steps to be flexibly connecting, you know, sort of the those sides of the house in higher education. And then I think that same kind of flexibility is what you need to see across the bridge. Look at your intermediaries. There's usually a ton of folks that are helping to bridge between higher education and employment. How are they making those links and connections, and start to think flexibly about doing the taking, the kind of steps that Brian has been able to take, to really kind of pull and open up the doors from higher education into employment.

Julian Alssid: Yeah. What's so interesting to me, listening to you all is how, how so much of this is, is there to be had. And I think, you know, like, you know, on the education side, this idea of, you know, industry being kind of anathema to what we do, it's like no. And especially the more we see AI creep in, the more they need those academic skills. I mean the employer sides, like, yes, we do skills. We look at skills and so but sort of teasing that out and so much is about this framework that NACE and you all are bringing to your work that, to me, seems to keep the framework. It's the processes. It's drawing on the data, and then the relationships within and among you know your various partners. So as we wind down, how can listeners learn more and continue to follow this work?

Niesha Taylor: A very simple way is to go to, you know, NACEweb.org, to go to our website, to get linked to some of the core information. There's tons of resources we have. Not only we have publications that are really from our research team, deep research reports, but just tools and resources. If you go to the career readiness section, you'll see how to really navigate these competencies, and lots of examples of articles, of folks that are, you know, model practices in implementing the competencies in the way that's been described in our conversation. So that's one way is to connect there, yeah, and keep, keep your eye out for for NACE events. You know, ways that you can come into conversation and hear folks who are doing this work learn from those specific examples in our webinars, in our annual conference. And you know our offerings in terms of, you know, really learning space that NACE offers.

Bryan Taylor: Yeah, I'll just echo that, uh, plug for, you know, just become a NACE member. Because, you know, a lot of the key learnings that I've gotten over the past 15 years have been from attending, you know, the annual conference, or some of the events that NACE puts on, even virtually, just so many ways to just get plugged in and connected. And it's not that difficult to become a member, for sure. So, you know, if you're an employer for you know, out there that you know, has two recruiters, it's, you don't have to have a team of 200 to become a NACE member. You know, it's, it's open to everybody. And I think that community, as I mentioned before, is just, is so important, you know, to be able to bounce off ideas and and be able to have the collaboration and the in the just the conversation around these types of topics.

Julian Alssid: Great. Well, thank you so so much for taking the time. This has been wonderful, enlightening conversation, and we look forward to pushing it out there.

Niesha Taylor: Thanks so much for having us.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Thank you.

Jessica Perez: Thank you.

Bryan Taylor: Thank you.

Kaitlin LeMoine: That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our sponsor, Lumina Foundation. We are also grateful to our wonderful producer, Dustin Ramsdell. You can listen to future episodes at workforces dot info or on Apple, Amazon, and Spotify. Please subscribe, like and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends.

Mary Gatta, Director of Research and Policy at the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), continues our three-part series exploring the intersection of higher education and industry. Gatta shares up-to-date insights from NACE's latest Job Outlook Survey, highlights the growing importance of experiential learning for the job prospects of new graduates, and discusses the significant shift from GPA-based hiring to skills-based approaches, with two-thirds of employers now implementing skills-based practices. Gatta also emphasizes the critical need for faculty involvement in helping students translate classroom learning into career-ready competencies. The conversation offers valuable research insights for higher education professionals, employers, and students navigating the evolving landscape of college-to-career transitions.

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the second interview in our three part mini series with the National Association of Colleges and Employers, or NACE. In our first interview with NACE, President and CEO, Shawn VanDerziel, we discussed the broader landscape surrounding College Career Services and recruiting. Shawn provided an overview of the field and NACE's work, highlighting its central role as a knowledge-based organization with research at its core. Today, we're looking forward to delving deeper into that research with Mary Gatta, who leads NACE's research efforts.

Julian Alssid: As Director of Research and Policy, Mary brings over 20 years of experience in teaching, research and advocacy on issues of education, employment and retirement, inequity. Her work focuses on evidence based research analysis, developing solutions around economic security, education, and workforce policies. Before joining NACE, she held faculty and research positions at the City University of New York, Gottman Community College, Rutgers, University's Center for Women and Work and Wider Opportunities for Women in Washington, DC, which is, I think, Mary, where we may have actually first met.

Mary Gatta: It was it was where we met, yep.

Julian Alssid: Indeed. So welcome to Work Forces. Great to have you.

Mary Gatta: Thank you for having me.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yes. So great to be with you today, Mary. Thanks so much for joining us. And as we get going today, can you please tell us more about your background and your role at NACE.

Mary Gatta: I come out of higher education. For the most part, I spent most of my career in higher ed, in faculty roles. My training is in sociology, so I have a PhD in sociology, and my study, my research, and also a lot of my teaching has really been around work and understanding the impacts of education on labor market rewards, looking at the impacts of systemic inequities and how to mitigate them. So when I joined NACE as our director of research and public policy about four years ago, I was really excited, because the work that we do in terms of our research work at NACE really focuses on how to better understand the outcomes, the career outcomes, of college graduates, how to understand it across lines, levels of equity, and also how to understand the employer side, like, what are employers looking for in recent college grads? So it was a really great opportunity to kind of marry all of that for my own career, and also we know how important evidence-based research is around career outcomes for college graduates and for university recruiters. So that has been, is, really the focus of our research work at NACE.

Julian Alssid: So tell us a little bit more. I mean, at NACE, you're sitting on a real trove of data. So I know you must be in, you know, in researcher heaven, tell us a little bit about that data that you sit on, and add a little bit more about the types of specifically the types of reports you generate, and who uses them and who they're intended for.

Mary Gatta: We do a variety of surveys for our research throughout the year, and we in terms of kind of our samples, we are using...we're fortunate that we're able to survey our members, both our higher education members, who mostly sit in the career service kind of field, and also our employer members who really focus on university recruiters. And what we do throughout the year is do research, sort of, on career centers, right, career services. So what's going on in higher ed? What's going on with employers coming to campus to recruit career fairs? Kind of those basic benchmarks. We also, on the employer side, look at recruiting benchmarks. So what does the recruiting cycle look like, right? What is the hiring cycle look like for college grads? What is the hiring cycle for internships? What are the projections for the upcoming graduating class in terms of entry level hires? What are employers? How are employers thinking about things like skills based hiring, for example, and skills based practices. So throughout the year, we survey both our higher ed and our employer communities on those topics. We also, once a year, do a student survey, where we send that out in the spring through our higher ed partners to students, right where we are able. You know, how are students thinking about experiential learning? What have been their experiences? How are students thinking about the job market? What have been their experiences on how many interviews have they had? How have they sourced those interviews through career fairs, except networks. This year, for the first time, we did over this past summer, a survey of early career talent. So we surveyed college grads who are one to 10 years out to kind of look a little deeper into their outcomes. How did things like experiential learning opportunities during their college tenure impact their career outcomes? And then the final little piece of data. We do is our it's not little, it's actually quite big. Is our first destination survey, which is we look at aggregated levels of what are the outcomes six months post graduation. So we're in the process now of collecting that data for this class of '24 and then that report will be out in the fall.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So you are busy, you're there's a lot you're collecting from a lot of different stakeholders, and really, living at the intersection of these worlds is really fascinating. Can you tell us? I mean, there's so many different directions we could go in this conversation. But given that you've recently conducted the job outlook for 2025 can we start there? Like, what have you learned?

Mary Gatta: Yes. So we have just released, this is hot off the press, our Job Outlook Survey, which is a survey of our university recruiters of employers about what the job outlook looks like for the class of 2025. And we do this survey twice a year, I should say once in the fall, and getting those projections and then again in the spring. So what we are seeing now from our very, very hot off the press data is that right now, college hiring, college graduate hiring, is expected to be about flat, right? We're just seeing about a .6% increase. And just to put this in a little context, in comparison, in the fall, when we surveyed our employers, their projections was they were expecting hiring to increase over 7% from last year from the class of '24 levels. So I think that's a really important data point that we now that we're into the spring, and we're seeing basically a flat increase, a flat hiring projection, really not much of an increase from last year. When we go a little deeper into it, we see that about 65% of the employers in our survey intended to just maintain last year's hiring level, and a little less than a quarter expected to increase that. And just related to that, we do an internship survey every year looking at the benchmarks and the hiring and in our internship survey that we conducted just this past winter, we saw that employers were expecting to bring in fewer interns this year than they did last year. They are projecting a decrease in about 3% in intern hiring. So that's sort of an early sign that there might be some softening going on around hiring, because typically our job outlook projections and our internship projections felt like kind of run or pretty much aligned. So where that's sort of just some other interesting point that we're seeing right now.

Julian Alssid: Mary, can you? Can you tell us a little bit of what you're saying by industry? I mean, are there particular, is there anything that jumps out at you with those terms?

Mary Gatta: Yeah, no, we're kind of seeing it pretty comparable across industries, and so I don't think what we're seeing specifically in terms of industry, it seems to be relatively steady overall. When we look specifically at some industries, we are seeing some hiring projections with increasing around wholesale trade industry, management consulting, and transportation, and some decreases, larger decreases In chemical manufacturing, like pharmaceutical manufacturing, computer and electronics manufacturing, and motor vehicle manufacturing. But of course, with any industry analysis, you know, our Ns are really important here, so I would just take that a little bit into consideration, but that's pretty much what we're seeing.

Kaitlin LeMoine: It's interesting to hear you speak about what sounds like a separate survey done around internships, but seeing that there's also a slight decrease there. And yeah, I feel like we're hearing kind of across the landscape the importance of experience and going into the job market with experience. I'm curious just to hear your thoughts.

Mary Gatta: We did a survey about two years ago, on employers, and 80% of employers told us the best return on investment they get for recruiting strategy is internships. And further to that, in our job outlook, we collect data on using the GPA as a filter. So what that means is our employers using the GPA to filter out college grads and back in 2019, before COVID, about 75% of employers said, yeah, they're using the filter. The GPA is a filter. Now we're seeing that decrease to about anywhere between 30 and 40% of employers. And what's replacing that (and it's even for employers that are still using the GPA) is experiential learning, so having internship experience, work experience, and also being able to articulate your skills. So I think even though we're seeing this dip in internship and projections of internship hiring, experiential learning writ large, is really important as a recruitment strategy. And then just added on to that in our early career talent survey that we conducted over the summer, we ran the analysis of students who did some type of experiential learning, whether it was an internship, whether it was undergraduate research, whether it was work, study, study abroad, and those who did not. And what we found in the first one to three years after graduation, those who were experiential learners had more jobs, career satisfaction, saw a higher value to their higher ed, and had an average of $15,000 higher salary. We very much have consistently seen in our research the importance of experiential learning, coupled with (and experience learning is a great way to do this) being able to fully articulate what are the skills that you're learning, be it in the classroom or in a co curricular.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, well, that's it's really, I appreciate you broadening the lens on internships to really be about that experiential education piece, and the recognition that maybe it does come from an internship, or maybe it comes from your involvement with a student activity or a club or leadership experience, or what have you. So I think that's a really interesting and important call out at a time where experiential education just feels so important to kind of demonstrating skill sets, right? And being able to articulate.

Mary Gatta: Yeah, being able to demonstrate skill sets. And also, I mean, there are other important benefits. Think about social capital, type benefits, right? Access to mentors, networks, you know, kind of an understanding of work. All of that is really important that comes from experiential opportunities.

Julian Alssid: Looking beyond the job, the job outlook report, can you speak a little bit more to some of these trends that you're seeing that are sticking out in following the tracking of, you know, skills, skills based hiring. Love to hear more about that, what you're seeing and how that ties back to all of what we're talking about.

Mary Gatta: What we're seeing in our research for about the past two years now is that when we survey our employers, if they're using skills based hiring, almost two thirds of them say they are. They're using skills based hiring at some point in the recruiting process, 90% of those employers say they're using it at the interview stage, and two thirds say they're incorporating skills based hiring in the screening process. So another three quarters also said that they've developed skills based job descriptions, for example, and more than half use a kind of a skills based interview rubric. And then obviously assessments kind of play a role here too, that we know. And about 40% of our employers created internal assessment tools to assess skills, and another quarter or so use external created tools. So I think the skills based hiring. I mean, the fact that two thirds of our employers are saying they're using it at some point, shows it's really important, and it's really important that college grads, and that we help prepare college grads to be in an interview, in a have a resume and a cover letter that is focused around skills based hiring, right? And that incorporates those practices. And this ties also to what I said earlier about the decline of the GPA, right? So experiential learning is part of that right? Employers are looking for experiential learning. But also employers tell us that they really do want students to be able to articulate their skills and competencies, so and be that you know in their interview, be that through their descriptions, etc, through that a work portfolio. That is really important. Another, you know, critically important thing that employers are telling us to be helping prepare students and college grads for that will help give that, get them prepared, and give that and for it like up.

Julian Alssid: So then, how do these trends kind of shape the advice and the guidance that nice provides, you know, career services professionals and students and employers.

Mary Gatta: Yeah. So I think our resource is helpful, you know, across the board, right? So when we're able to get our data, whether it be around skills based hiring the GPA from employers, higher ed career service centers, faculty, staff, etc, are able to then incorporate that into their workshops, into their curriculum in the classroom, right? So having that knowledge of what employers are looking for from amongst college grads will help them maybe adapt syllabi, for example, to align course outcomes with competencies, career readiness competencies, right? So the students can then kind of share with a prospective employer. You know, in my sociology course, for example, I was able, I learned sociology and theory and methods, but I also developed critical thinking skills by engaging in a research project. Or I developed, I worked in teamwork on a group project on X, so that data is really important. The data also from our student survey. For example, we ask our students, what are they looking for in jobs, like, what are the benefits they're looking for? What are the attributes of the job, you know. And overall, our data shows they're looking for economic security type benefits, right, job security, for example. So that helps to inform employers right when they're recruiting students on what the graduates are looking for and what college grads are looking for. So that is really, I think, helpful. I think what's exciting about our early career talent survey, for example, is for the first time, we were able to kind of look at, you know, in, you know, in a self reported way. Obviously, all the data from students is self reported. But how, for the data around experiential learning, for example, how we're able to see a correlation between taking or participating in experiential learning opportunities during your college years and the impact on your early career. And that's informative for students. That's informative for parents to talk with their students, to talk with their children about. So I think that's really also helpful. And, you know, we also have, you know, compensation guides, for example, internship compensation guides that are helpful for employers to sort of gauge, you know, intern pay. We do a salary survey every year, and I should say, our first destination survey, which is the survey that we have on, what are, what are the outcomes six months out, that is open to the public, so that is not behind a paywall at NACE. And you can, we have a dashboard, and you can filter that by type of, you know, type of school region, the northeast, the southeast, etc, the west. And that can also help you think about by major. So it gives you, gives students, it gives, you know, everyone really a sense of, you know, how, what are the outcomes across different whether it's geographic variables, types of Carnegie classifications, etc. So I think you know, college outcome data is really important, because obviously it helps to inform a student's decision about their major, their career path, but it also helps inform both employers and higher ed professionals about the each other, right? Because they're both really important part of the college recruiting.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Absolutely Mary, and I think it's really interesting to hear you talk about how kind of some of these shifts that are happening, like, for example, when you raise skills based hiring or an emphasis on internships, I'm curious to know. I mean, given your years in this space, what are some of the trends you've kind of seen shift pretty significantly over time. And in addition, I mean, you know, what are those shifting? Because when you've seen those things shift over time, what does that make you think about future state, you know, where we are now and where we're headed?

Mary Gatta: One of the things, I think, is, and it's something we're working on at NACE, is really engaging faculty in these conversations, connecting career services and faculty more directly. We do know from our student survey that students go to their faculty for career advice. You know, speaking as a former faculty member, you know, we need to help ensure that our faculty are able to connect the amazing work that we're doing in the classroom in our disciplinary area with careers, right? And that work, you know, really requires us not to really change our syllabi significantly in any way, but, or what we're teaching differently in any way, but what it really does, it just kind of overlay on, you know, what are the I'm learning these sociological skills, right? Or I'm learning these skills in biology, but what, how does it, how do I help my students translate that to in an interview? How do I help my students connect that? How do I engage in some type of experiential learning with my students in the classroom on that? So I think we are seeing more and more, you know, the importance of that right? Students are saying they're going to their faculty for advice, and last year, we did a survey with the Society for Experiential Education and AAC&U on faculty who said both students and alumni are coming to them for career advice. So I think that's an important trend that we need to continue to provide the support and the professional development for faculty and career services to connect and work together collaboratively, so that faculty have the knowledge and the resources to help students on this. And I think that's something that we're seeing, you know, really good shifts on, I mean, in in our work. And, you know, faculty, like everyone in higher ed, I think really wants their students to succeed. That's the goal, right? That's why we're here, right? We want to ensure that our students succeed when they leave school. So I think that that's a really positive trend that I hope will continue.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Absolutely.

Julian Alssid: Mary, so with those discussions with faculty, to what degree are they touching on the whole notion of skills based approaches? I mean, that's a really big kind of crosswalk, I think, for many colleges, and very challenging.

Mary Gatta: So one of the first ways that we've been working with faculty and is just to help folks look at their syllabi, like look at their classes, and look at it from not only the lens of their discipline and the learning outcomes, but also the lens of like, our NACE career readiness competencies, right and aligning, like, just doing a very basic alignment of the learning outcomes that I already have in my course, and how do they align to one of our eight NACE competencies: critical thinking, technology, diversity, equity, inclusion, teamwork, etc, and then just kind of framing that in the classroom more. That's all it really involves. When I was when I taught in sociology, one of the things I would do in aligning those competencies is when I would then assign an assignment that I would talk about not only how the assignment was tied to what learning sociological research methods or sociological theory, but also how does it connect to just career readiness competencies that employers are looking for. A simple another simple way of doing that is having to send a very low stakes kind of point, low stakes on a paper, for example, where students write a paragraph reflecting how I worked on this sociology paper can also be connected to what are the skills that I learned broadly around career readiness, and then just helping students make those connections, because employers, you know, tell us the competencies, I mean, our career in his competencies are important, right? And they're looking for that in recent college grads.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So I feel like you're bringing us in this direction, Mary, but what are your recommendations for how our audience can become forces in applying your research findings to shape the future of higher ed and the future of higher ed and employer collaborations.

Mary Gatta: Think our research is really helpful in being able to get a strong landscape of what is happening in colleges, what students are saying, and want and what employers are saying in the recruiting cycles. So I would recommend being able to, depending where you're sitting, right, what, what lane you're sitting, being able to kind of connect that. So if you're in higher ed, I would recommend you know, checking out our job outlook, checking out our recruiting benchmarks, for example, so that you get a sense of, what is it that that employers are looking for? How are they reading the different competencies and importance in the and and proficiency of recent college grads? If you are an employer, our student survey, I think, is really helpful, because it gives you a sense of what your you know, your soon to be employees, your soon to be peers are, are thinking about in terms of their what they've been their college experience, how they think about networks, how they think about mentoring, what they're looking for in a job. If you're a college student, I think that our first destination survey is really helpful for you to get a sense of the college outcomes our early career talent is really helpful in order to get a sense of... We have data now from students who are one to 10 years out, what's their experience like? What, what has been helpful so, and we'll have a series, we're having a series of articles come out on that over the next few months. So I think really, because we're fortunate to be able to serve both the industry recruiters and the higher ed community and have them both participate in our research. I think we can, you know, we're able to kind of provide that data for folks. So I would recommend reviewing the data.

Julian Alssid: So Mary, how can our listeners learn more and keep following your work.

Mary Gatta: Yeah, absolutely. Well, certainly. You know, checking out our website and our social media, we're very active on LinkedIn, for example. So checking that out, I should say we are a membership organization. So if you are in the field and want to join NACE, we do more than just research. We do professional development. We have a conference every year that is coming up in June in Philadelphia, and we do that annually. We have a virtual conference in addition to the in person conference, and we also have many, many webinars and symposia throughout the year, both in person and virtual formats. So I would definitely recommend checking us out online.

Julian Alssid: Sounds like it's a lot more research too - a lot more access to the research, for your members.

Mary Gatta: Yeah.

Julian Alssid: Cool. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it.

Mary Gatta: Thank you for having me. Yes.

Kaitlin LeMoine

Thank you so much, Mary. That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our sponsor, Lumina Foundation. We're also grateful to our wonderful producer, Dustin Ramsdell. You can listen to future episodes at workforces dot info or on Apple, Amazon and Spotify. Please subscribe, like and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends.

Shawn VanDerziel, President and CEO of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), kicks off a special three-part series exploring the crucial intersection of higher education and industry. Drawing on his extensive experience in HR and recruitment, VanDerziel discusses how the evolving economy is reshaping entry-level hiring practices and the growing importance of skills-based recruitment. He highlights the challenges facing both employers and higher education institutions, including the "language gap" that prevents students from effectively articulating their skills to employers. VanDerziel also examines how AI is transforming both recruitment strategies and career services, drawing employers back to campus recruiting while offering new opportunities for understaffed career offices. The conversation offers practical strategies for helping students translate their academic experiences into workplace-relevant skills, ultimately strengthening the vital bridge between post-secondary education and meaningful employment.

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in. Julian. We've spent a lot of time on this podcast exploring the connections between higher ed and industry. Among many topics, we've discussed experiential learning, skills based education, business, higher ed partnerships and the impact of AI. We've examined how colleges are continuing to adapt to workforce needs and how innovative collaborations are aligning academic programs with evolving career opportunities.

Julian Alssid: That's right Kaitlin, and we're excited to share that we've partnered with the National Association of Colleges and Employers, or NACE, for a special three part mini series focused on a really critical piece of the higher ed-industry connection.

Kaitlin LeMoine: For our listeners who may be less familiar, NACE is the leading professional organization for career services and university relations and recruiting professionals. As described on their website, NACE empowers and connects the community of professionals who support, develop, and employ the college educated workforce.

Julian Alssid: This series will examine the work happening at the crucial intersection of learning and work in three parts. First, we'll discuss the broader landscape surrounding college career services and recruiting. Then we'll explore NACE's latest research, including projections for the class of 2025, and finally, we'll look at how leading colleges and employers are putting these insights into practice. To kick off today's conversation, we're honored to be joined by Shawn VanDerziel, President and CEO of NACE.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Shawn, thanks so much for joining us today. We're excited to have you on this podcast.

Shawn VanDerziel: Well, thanks for inviting us. I'm excited to be here with you all.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So, Shawn, as we jump in today, can you please give us some background on yourself and what led you to NACE.

Shawn VanDerziel: Sure I've had a windy road to my current position. I'm going to start back way back into college and move quickly through my career, so you can see the perspective by which I approach my work. I graduated from a large state school with my undergraduate and had no idea what I was going to do with my degree, and I had an opportunity to move to Chicago afterwards, which was a great move for me. And I found my first position working in college admissions, student enrollment, which was a natural for me, because in college, I was one of those overly involved students. I was a first generation student, so I didn't have the same resources as as many others may have had, and and wasn't quite sure how to approach my job search, etc, but I knew some things from my college experience, such as like giving campus tours, working with the admissions office, leading student groups, and I found my way into admissions. It was a great way to start my career. Worked my way up, and I got really burned out, and but what can I do? I was so tired of traveling all the time, being up until 10 o'clock at night, going to college fairs at high schools, all of those things. And so I thought, how can I transition these skills into something else? And I thought about recruiting, recruiting employees. So I was recruiting students. Why couldn't I recruit employees? And I found an organization that was really interested in me because of my connection to college students. They were very interested in connecting with college students to their employment opportunities. It was the first time that an outsourced service. Well, I should say, Fortune 500 company, utilized a outsourced service to fully take over the recruitment function. And so I worked for a company called Norrell Corporation, which was a billion dollar staffing company at the time, and we took over Bank of America's recruiting function for their Midwest region because they were expanding banks. So they were opening over 100 banks throughout the Chicagoland area in a period of about a year and a half. And I started as the recruitment manager, hiring all of these folks who are going to work in these banks, particularly through their management trainee programs and for tellers. And they wanted college students to be involved with that. So I was back on college campuses, looking for those students. Well again, I got really burned out, and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is the i being an outsourced service is a no joke kind of job. And I thought again, like, how can I transition this? And I already had the recruitment experience. I had always wanted to work at a museum, and finally, I had the skill to actually do something in a museum, and that was to work in a human resources office within a museum which is very niche, but I found a job and that I could apply for, and I actually got the job. And so I spent almost 25 years at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, which is one of the world's largest natural history museums, and I worked my way up from a human resources rep doing recruitment and employee relations to becoming the Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief of Staff. And I oversaw lots of different departments over time, including our IT department, our education department, marketing for a short while, and also oversaw our Board of Trustees and the functions related to that. While I was at The Field Museum, I built a really large internship program that included over 200 interns every summer. And that experience led me to NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers as a volunteer, I became a volunteer leader and eventually the Chair of the Board of NACE. Over a decade ago, when the executive director of NACE was about to retire, I became a part of the search process, and was lucky enough to actually be offered the job at the end of that executive search process. So five years ago, I started as this President and CEO of NACE, and am so delighted to be representing this organization to the world.

Julian Alssid: Always so great to hear peoples' origin stories. And so tell us a bit more about NACE. So give us an overview, if you will, Shawn and and then the role that nice really plays at the sort of intersection of higher ed and industry.

Shawn VanDerziel: Yeah, simply put, that's exactly what we do. We bridge post secondary education to employment. We're all about outcomes and equitable outcomes for all students who pursue post secondary education. What that means on a day to day basis is that we are a membership association that represents folks who work on college campuses, mostly in the career services offices. So we represent every type of college and university, small, large, private, public, community college, four year, you name it, that's about two thirds of our members. One third of our members are the employers who go into college campuses and recruit college students for employment opportunities, for full time internships, co ops, apprenticeships, you name it, the full gambit of opportunities. We represent close to 3,000 organizations, and over 17,000 almost 18,000 individuals are a part of the association.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Wow. Yeah. So this is, this is an extensive operation you have going on, and I would imagine, thank you. Thank you for the background you provided, because it just feels like, wow, you're drawing on, I'm sure, all the different skills and experiences gathered over the years, especially both on the college recruitment side and then on the employer recruitment side as well. It's quite striking.

Shawn VanDerziel: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. And one of the things that on important work, really important work. And we're not insular, so meaning, like we just don't do things for our members. We do things for the public at large, so that they understand what's happening with the outcomes of students. So at the center of everything that we do is research. We're a knowledge based organization, so we're able to study the employment market from a variety of perspectives. We can see what's happening at college campuses to prepare students for employment opportunities. We can talk with students about what they're looking for in their jobs and how they're being prepared for jobs in their careers, and we talk to the employers about what they're looking for and how those other two pieces need to evolve to meet the growing and demanding needs of the workplace of the future.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Amazing. So with all that being said, given the rapidly shifting environment that we're currently operating in this very dynamic space, we'd love to dive into a couple of different areas that you just that you mentioned, and that NACE raised recently as part of a recent more environmental scan. I believe you posted about it on LinkedIn not too long ago. So one question we have is, first, how do you see the current economy and economic outlook reshaping how employers are hiring entry level talent, and how, with a different lens how colleges are preparing those learners for success as well.

Shawn VanDerziel: What we know right now is that the employment market is contracting so there are fewer opportunities for college graduates to join the workforce as compared to, let's say, two or three years ago, and that is from general full time employment all the way through to internships. With that we also know that employers are continually telling us that there's a gap between what college students offer and what they're looking to hire. So they have, they have made a bunch of shifts in their hiring and how they hire, which is no different than the general employment landscape. So we keep hearing about skills based hiring. Well, this has caused employers, particularly with early talent to really focus on that skills based hiring. So what they're saying is, is that in the old days, they would look at students who had a particular major, and they would look to see what their grade point average is as a starting place for the hiring process, and today, they're telling us for some jobs, we will do that, particularly highly technical jobs that require technical skills. So if you're going to be an engineer, Well, you certainly don't want someone working on your airplane who didn't get good grades, right? So you want to know that they're the top of their class because they have the knowledge to do the job. So they might still be screened by GPA. But if I'm looking for someone who's going into a management trainee program of some sort, that's more of a generalist or etc, I might think a little bit more broadly. I don't necessarily have to have someone who has the highest GPA. What I want is someone who has the skills and competencies to do the job. So how am I then going to find that person? Well, I have to substitute something in there to screen that person by we know from talking to employers that work experiences in general are very important to them. So anytime a student can demonstrate work experiences, and they can list what they actually gained in skill or competency in that work is super important, and they look for internship experience, either internship experience with them as their that student's employer, or they look for industry experience. So did the person have an internship in something that's closely aligned? And those are the students that they're saying they probably have the skills to do the job. They're also, of course, doing things like keyword searches and and using AI as part of part of the recruitment process. But they're really trying to dig down to find students who are going to succeed long term, and that's also one of the reasons that they invest so much money, particularly large companies, into internship programs, because we know that internship programs are the number one return on investment for employers from a recruitment perspective, the cost value is there for them. They know that they can convert at least 50% of those interns into being full time employees. They know that when they hire that student who starts as an intern, they're going to be with the company, more likely a year later and more likely five years later. We know that we've got that that data data to back it up, so the return on investment is really there. So we're finding more and more interest from employers and and partnering with schools to make sure their internship programs are solid. We're also finding that they are returning to campus, so they've been doing hiring on the web for quite some time. They've been focusing on it virtually, but they're also finding a need to get back in person so that they can weed through some of the talent a little bit more quickly.

Julian Alssid: That's so interesting that they're they're coming back.

Shawn VanDerziel: Yeah, absolutely. And AI has a lot to do with that, and we certainly can talk more about AI and how that's impacting everything, but there's an impersonalization that's happening, and there really is a business case for for getting back on campus and finding that talent.

Julian Alssid: Yeah, so before we go into AI, which definitely we want to hear more about, it's all the rage, as you may have heard, interested to talk a little bit more about the skills based practices, because there's been some written about how... The Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Center on Workforce wrote a piece a few months ago, which, of course, could be ancient history at this point, that companies were not picking up so much on on skills based practices. And so I'm interested to hear your take on that. You know, I get it with respect to the jobs where they're they are looking for skills. But how is it? Are they integrating this more broadly into their organizations? Are you seeing that?

Shawn VanDerziel: Yeah, it's a really interesting question. So employers in our surveying do say that they, the majority of them, are doing some type of skills based hiring. Where they are doing it is either through keyword searches as an example, in screening the resumes through automated systems or the the other bulk is through behavioral based interviewing questions. So when a student actually lands an interview, being able to talk through with them what they have actually accomplished, and what they have the ability to be able to do based upon the skills and competencies that they've gained. And so by providing those concrete examples, they're able to kind of dig through that. But it also goes back to what I was mentioning just a few minutes ago, which is around they're kind of substituting when they say skills based hiring, what we say academically doesn't necessarily match what employers are doing logistically. There's always this gap between industry and higher ed and the language. And this is a really good example. And so when, from an academic perspective, we think of skill, we think, well, gosh, you're looking for someone who has great verbal speaking skills, right? You can do public speaking. Okay, great. So then, how do you screen for that? Well, what are those employers going to do to find that they're not going to put a test in place to have every candidate come through and do some kind of speech, right? That's not what they're going to do to get to that skill. What they're going to do is they're going to look on that resume and say, oh, gosh, did this student have an internship? And in that internship, did they use their verbal communication skills? Did they designate that on there? So if that skill is not listed, the employer isn't going to find it as a starting place, and then they're not going to be able to dig deeper on it when they get them into an interview. So this comes full circle to what's happening on campuses and preparing students to be career ready, and bridging that employment because we have an onus in higher education with these students to help them to articulate their skills and their competencies in a way that an employer can translate it and employers speak a totally different language. They want the shortcut. They want to get to the candidate in the fastest way possible. So they are going to put any mechanism in place to do that. And so it behooves us to help those graduates to be able to articulate it in every which way, all of the experiences that they have, right? So it doesn't even have they can come from unexpected ways. It could come from student activities. It could come from work study. It could come from a whole variety of places that a student may have obtained skills and competencies throughout their college career.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, it's really interesting to hear you talk about the language gap that exists Shawn and kind and the difference between, you know, maybe how, on the academic side, we describe a skill, and then the shortcut language that employers might use, I feel like that's, that's an area that we've I feel like has, you know, it's been around for for so long now, and it feels like there's just, there's more and more great work happening around how to close that gap. And you know, I think that if we're going to turn to the conversation of AI, it seems like there's some really interesting work there that might be able to support some of the closing of those gaps. But then there's also some new challenges that emerge as well. So would love to transition over to talk a little bit more about AI and how what you're seeing from the perspective of both use on the employer side with respect to recruitment and hiring, and also when we think about career services and preparing learners for really bridging that gap between post secondary and employer. Where is AI, you know, used well, where is it less effective? And you know, where do we still have work to do?

Shawn VanDerziel: I'll start with the employers. So as I mentioned earlier, employers are using it for screening, most definitely, and they've been doing that for a long time, using various AI technologies to help them screen resumes. But an interesting thing is happening right now, which is because of the explosion of AI, there are some employers that are seeing an explosion of resumes hitting them, and because of these bots that are out there, and there are fake candidates that are hitting employers by the hundreds of thousands. And there are job seekers who are literally sending out thousands of resumes at a time. And so when that happens, an employer is put at a disadvantage, because now they have for one opening, or let's call it, two openings, they have 10,000 candidates. So there's a real challenge there for them to screen all of those resumes and to really find the top candidates to come out of that and to really give the right people the right chance, right and so it's a tough predicament to be in, and that's one of the reasons employers are actually thinking about going back to campus, in larger numbers coming up here because they started to deploy a strategy over the last few years of virtual recruiting, which was successful for them, where they were more agnostic about the campus by which they were recruiting from. And now, because of the influx of AI, they are rethinking this, and they're saying, hey, I need to get to candidates differently. I need to know that they're legit candidates. I need to be able to talk to some people and and so I may actually go back and do target schools again, and go on to select school campuses, which then, of course, creates more competition among the schools. So it's this vicious circle that ends up happening, but again, those employers are looking to get to the candidates in the most efficient and effective way possible. On the college side, AI has great promise, particularly for those understaffed career services offices, which are the majority of career service offices on campuses these days. If we're about career outcomes, we need to be investing in career services. But unfortunately, the investment hasn't been made on most campuses. AI can play a really pivotal role in helping to expand the services that a college can offer. It's not going to solve the issues, but more students can be reached, maybe more efficiently. So bots can be deployed to answer basic questions, the staff can direct the learners to resources that are can help them write their resumes, figure out other types of industries or jobs that the student may have the skills to do, to do career exploration, the list goes on and on, and then the career services staff can really dive deep with students in quality work, in one on one work, doing really meaningful work, and helping to set that student up for career success, around the articulation of skills, around targeting of certain employers, thinking broadly about the application of what they've learned, and so it could make a difference long term. But of course, we're at the beginning of it all.

Kaitlin LeMoine: It's interesting to hear you talk about how the use of AI in the in career services offices can actually get career services professionals back to like, maybe like, the core of their work, and what's the most important to their work. And it's interesting. Julian, I feel like we're we've heard some of that about like, well, what are the benefits? What are the benefits of AI? And this is a great example of one space where it's like, maybe it means that the professionals themselves can get back to like what is most critical, and then some of the other, perhaps time consuming, but maybe less impactful work can be automated or supported in other ways. I find that really interesting. And then just the one other thing I wanted to mention is, I think it's, it's really interesting to hear like, it's like, there's progress there, and then it's interesting to hear on the employer side, almost a return to previous practice. And what is that, you know, what does it look like to adjust their like hiring practices now, with this new reality of, you know, kind of endless numbers of resumes and trying to determine what's real and what's not, and how to really assess the skills and abilities of applicants. Really, some really interesting tensions there.

Shawn VanDerziel: That's right. One of the things that we're not finding, though, is that students are getting the AI experiences they need to prepare them. So that's yet another dimension that we need higher education working on with students, but we also need the employers. We found in one of our research pieces last year that very few students, less than 10% actually were asked to use AI skills in their internship, which is so surprising, because you would think that companies who are saying there's a future with AI that this entry level group of folks coming into their company could help them to explore it. Could help to experiment with it. Could bring these new skills to them, yet the students themselves didn't use the technology when they were in their internship, so I hope to see that change as well.

Julian Alssid: Yeah, so we really are at the beginning, and as you said, Shawn, of so much of this, and I guess for our audience, which kind of represents both sides of this, as well as the providers, the companies that are also trying to support this work, what are some practical steps that educators, employers and folks who want to work with, you know them, can take to really design the kind of nimble and adaptable, you know, skills focused education and some of the kind of, you know, exemplar recruitment practices you're talking about

Shawn VanDerziel: As you mentioned, there are some really practical things that can be done that are super simple, and that's thinking about a learner holistically when they come into a college or university, and all of the touch points that they have and all of the experiences that They might go through from the curriculum in the classroom, the projects that they do in the classroom, the student activities, the work study, the part time jobs, the list goes on and on that these are all learning experiences that we know add value to the college graduate experience and why college graduates are so valuable to the future of work. However, these learners aren't able to articulate all of those experiences to translate them to the work world. That's a problem. So they don't give themselves credit for that student activity that they just participated in, that classroom project that they did, where they were the leader of their group, where they analyzed all kinds of data to get to an answer or something, where they did a classroom presentation and had to articulate the results of it, where they then and had to work in a team and collaborate with a team of folks that were difficult to work with because they came from all over, all different disciplines, etc, etc, right? So, like, that's one example where skills and competencies were built, yet students aren't taking credit for it, and the reasons that they're not taking credit for it, for what how that applies to the work world, is that we're not helping them to make that connection, that it is real world, what they just did. And so that's a simple example of just taking the step with these learners to help them to understand how what they just did applies to the world of work. It may seem elementary, but it's needed, and it's going to make a huge difference in these students lives. And then ta da, the employers see it, right, and then they hear it, they're more quick, able to quickly identify that these students actually do have the skills and the competencies to do the job that they're looking to fill.

Julian Alssid: You're getting right at that very basic translation language problem we've been talking about.

Shawn VanDerziel: That's exactly right.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Thanks so much for joining us in today's conversation. Shawn, this has been really fascinating, and really appreciate you taking on a couple of really big, big questions with lots of nuance embedded in them. So as we close out today's conversation, how can our listeners learn more about you, about NACE, and continue to follow your great work?

Shawn VanDerziel: Yeah, there are a number of ways. The first thing I would suggest is that you follow us on LinkedIn. So look up National Association of Colleges and Employers, and we post regularly, like every day, multiple times a day, statistics, interesting tidbits related to all of this work that everyone can join in on. So even just to be a lurker, that is a great place to hear what's happening in this college to career pipeline. I would also invite you to if you belong to a university or college, to see if you already have a membership with NACE, and if there's a possibility of you being added to the membership role so you're regularly kept up to date. But certainly go to our website at naceweb.org. And we have a ton of stuff there for free, for everybody, again, for the general public to be able to understand what's happening in this world, because we see that as our job to strengthen employment outcomes for all learners well.

Julian Alssid: Thank you so much for joining us, Shawn and and we look forward to continuing with this conversation with your colleagues and taking deeper and deeper. Really appreciate you taking this on.

Shawn VanDerziel: It's been so great having this conversation with you all, and happy to come back anytime.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Great. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our sponsor, Lumina Foundation. We're also grateful to our wonderful producer, Dustin Ramsdell. You can listen to future episodes at workforces dot info or on Apple, Amazon and Spotify. Please subscribe, like and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends.