[Dhaka, 08 April, 2021]:
Microsoft Corporation has recently announced that it has helped over 30 million people in 249 countries and territories gain access to digital skills, of which over 60,000 of them are from Bangladesh. This tops its initial goal of 25 million from last June. Microsoft Corp. is also extending its commitment to help 250,000 companies globally make a skills-based hire in 2021.
From laid-off factory workers to retail associates and truck drivers, millions of people have turned to online learning courses from GitHub, LinkedIn, and Microsoft during the pandemic to help prepare for and secure the most in-demand roles, including customer service projects management and data analysis. The announcement, detailed on the Official Microsoft Blog, builds on the company’s efforts to help people by extending through 2021 free LinkedIn Learning and Microsoft Learn courses and low-cost certifications that align to 10 of the most in-demand jobs. The next stage of the initiative sets a new foundation for a skills-based economy through a suite of new tools and platforms designed to connect skilled job seekers with employers.
Afif Mohamed Ali, Country Managing Director, Microsoft Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, and Nepal, said, “The Pandemic has changed everything, and the post-pandemic world will be a lot different than what we knew of it. Moreover, we are standing on the brink of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), which will fundamentally bring alchemical change and significantly impact all industries, including the job market.. It has become vital for individuals to learn and improve their set of skills that will help them emerge stronger in the post-pandemic world. Thus, we have collaborated with LinkedIn to double our efforts to support the development of a more inclusive skill-based labor market, to create more alternatives, greater flexibility, and access learning paths to connect more people with new job opportunities.”
LinkedIn plans to help 250,000 companies globally make skills-based hires this year through new and existing hiring products. The company will provide both new ways for job seekers to demonstrate their skills and new tools for employers to connect to candidates based on their skill proficiencies including, LinkedIn Skills Path, LinkedIn profile features, and LinkedIn Skills Graph.
The pilot of LinkedIn Skills Path is a new way to help companies hire for skills. Skills Path brings together LinkedIn Learning courses with Skill Assessments to help recruiters source candidates more equitably — based on their proven skills. LinkedIn is piloting Skills Path with various companies, including BlackRock, Gap Inc., and TaskRabbit, committed to broadening their hiring practices to include candidates with diverse experiences.
New expressive and personalized LinkedIn profile features will help people share more about themselves, their career, and their goals in a more authentic and engaging way. This includes a video Cover Story that allows job seekers to demonstrate their soft skills to recruiters and hiring managers.
Expanded access to LinkedIn’s Skills Graph will help create a common skills language for individuals, employers, educational institutions, and government agencies to improve workforce planning, hiring, and development programs.
Microsoft is bringing together every part of the company to supplement LinkedIn’s work to promote far-reaching digital skills opportunities, including Career Coach. It is a Microsoft Teams for Education app powered by LinkedIn that provides personalized guidance for higher education students to navigate their career journey. Career Coach offers educational institutions a unified career solution for students to discover their goals, interests, and skills using an AI-based skills identifier and LinkedIn integration. It also aligns a students’ comprehensive profile with job market trends and helps them grow real-world skills while connecting them with mentors and peers all in one place.
Olivier Legrand, Managing Director & Vice-President, Asia Pacific & China, LinkedIn said, “More and more, we are seeing skills-based hiring becoming critical in our world of work. We’ve seen people across the globe express a desire to learn and build their skills, and organizations too, are hiring based on skills instead of traditional qualifications. LinkedIn, together with Microsoft, are committed to helping everyone shift towards a skills-based economy. In 2021, we will continue our efforts to equip jobseekers with the right resources to pick up new skills, and connect them to opportunities, as well as aim to help 250,000 organizations make a skills-based hire.”
As part of the initiative, Microsoft has worked closely with its nonprofit partners to provide wrap-around support with coaching, mentoring, and networking to nearly 6 million learners worldwide. Microsoft will apply these lessons more broadly and is announcing a new online service, Career Connector, that will provide 50,000 job seekers worldwide with the opportunity to secure a tech-enabled job over the next three years. It will focus on learners who have built skills via Microsoft’s nonprofit and learning partners, emphasizing women and underrepresented minorities in technology.
