Key points:
- Institutions must meet students’ expectations–including workforce readiness
- How higher ed can meet workforce needs
- Gen Z workers increasingly dissatisfied with their career readiness
- For more news on career readiness, visit eCN’s Teaching & Learning hub
A new edtech resource will make it easier for educators and students to translate their educational experiences to the workforce, boosting the employability and workforce success for future graduates.
Through a collaboration between Riipen, developer of a popular marketplace platform that enables learners to connect with real-world work projects, and labor market analytics firm Lightcast, Riipen will integrate Lightcast’s Open Skills Library into its platform, making it possible for colleges and employers to use a common lexicon of 32,000 real-world skills in work-based learning projects.
“Expanding access to real work-based learning experiences is critical to helping learners prepare for and understand the skills employers are currently seeking,” said Dr. Sukhwant Jhaj, Vice Provost for Academic Innovation and Student Achievement at Arizona State University. “This new partnership will help colleges and their faculty further bridge the gap between education and the evolving demands of the labor market. By aligning our curriculum with real-world skill requirements, we empower our students to enter the workforce confidently and competently, ready to contribute and succeed in their chosen careers.”
A recent report from the Strada Institute for the Future of Work found that more than half of recent graduates are underemployed, working in jobs that do not require a degree. At the same time, a growing number of corporate executives often view college graduates as unprepared for real-world problem-solving. The latest National Survey of College Internships revealed that most college students cannot access internships because of time and financial constraints, further perpetuating skills and equity gaps in the workforce.
Nearly two-thirds of surveyed Gen Z workers younger than 24 say they are dissatisfied with how their school or college prepared them for employment, according to another report. Sixty-three percent of respondents say they believe they lack the necessary skills to compete in today’s job market, and nearly 80 percent of individuals seriously considered leaving their jobs due to a perceived lack of professional development opportunities, compared to 54 percent of workers aged 45 and older.
To help close that gap, the Riipen experiential learning platform enables Instructors and course designers to embed employer-created projects into courses and activities to facilitate work-based learning. With the Lightcast Open Skills Library integration, college faculty can now use the sophisticated datasets available through the open-source library to match course-level instruction to role and industry-specific skills verified by real-world employers. Students, in turn, will gain a new level of insight into the world of work, along with accumulating and communicating a portfolio of the specific skills they demonstrated to prospective employers.
The Lightcast Open Skills Library is based on data from millions of online job postings, resumes, and profiles, continually refreshed by a dedicated team of expert economists and labor market analysts. The Library is an extensive list of 32,000 skills organized into 32 broad categories of skills with over 400 subcategories. The integration will allow Riipen to add ‘skillifying functionality’ for all users at no cost. When a project or experience is created on Riipen, it’s automatically analyzed for skills from the Lightcast Open Skills Library, allowing the creator to add or refine tagged skills to ensure accuracy.
“The integration with Lightcast’s Open Skills Library is critical in further connecting faculty to the skills that employers value most, enabling educators to further refine and tailor their courses in real-time,” said Dana Stephenson, CEO of Riipen. “We are thrilled to partner with colleges and universities to create a more dynamic and responsive educational environment that can further equip learners with the skills they need to thrive in today’s fast-changing job market.”
Material from a press release was used in this report.
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