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Forbes
08-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Why Major Employers Are Seeking A Shared Hiring Language
This is a published version of Forbes' Careers Newsletter. Click here to subscribe and get it in your inbox every Tuesday. Workforce development firm Burning Glass insists that skills, rather than degrees, are the key to job success. Its new skill-specific job description language could be a game changer for 11 million jobs ranging from software engineer and financial manager to customer service. Getty Images Have you ever found yourself struggling to describe your job? What skills are you actually using in your day-to-day? It can sometimes be hard to narrow down, especially when major employers often don't use the same language to describe specific jobs. The Burning Glass Institute (BGI) is hoping to change that. Today it launched its SkillsFirst website, detailing the skills needed for nine job titles—accounting for over 11 million workers— that major employers are using in their hiring process. Joining the nonprofit in implementing this shared language in their hiring practices are 10 of America's largest employers, including Accenture, Bank of America, Blackstone, Home Depot, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Nordstrom, PepsiCo, Walmart and Verizon. 'Just being able to understand and define the skills required for a job, it sounds simple, but it's actually a really big exercise,' says BGI President Matt Sigelman. It's part of a larger movement toward skills-based hiring, where companies eliminate required degrees (not all, we'd all like to be represented by lawyers with J.D.s!) in favor of requiring specific skills actually used in specific jobs. 'In a time where people might say there's no opportunities for inclusion in the workforce, we actually think that skills-first is a way to say there are opportunities for everybody,' says Donna Morris, chief people officer at Walmart. Jobs with skills listed on the SkillsFirst website range from front-line positions to knowledge workers, including: retail salesperson; first-line supervisors of retail sales workers; sales managers; customer service representatives; customer service managers; financial analysts; product managers; and software developers. Having clear skills listed benefits employers that want to streamline and simplify their job titles. Verizon, for example, was able to go from 70,000 different job titles and codes to just 2,100 after implementing their own skills-first approach in 2021. But such a system also helps non-degreed workers or non-traditional hires—like veterans or immigrants—that make up the 'hidden workforce,' according to Verizon's chief human resources officer Samantha Hammock. It can also help job seekers determine which skills, whether it be something as broad as 'marketing' or as specific as 'UX experience,' that they need for a particular job, and which ones employers are willing to pay a premium for. And for current employees looking for a promotion, different skill levels can help determine what they need to work on in order to grow. You can read more about the launch here. Happy reading, and hope you have a lovely week! Practical insights and advice from Forbes staff and contributors to help you succeed in your job, accelerate your career and lead smarter Tips for growing your career and resilience in uncertain times. Forget being nice—being nosy, bossy and shameless can get you promoted. Burnout is not ambition, hard work needs an audience and more career advice that high-achievers should listen to. Saddled with six figures in debt, students usually scramble for Big Law's summer associate jobs and $200,000 plus starting salaries. This year, as some of the most prestigious firms capitulate to the Trump Administration, some are rethinking their choices and even pushing back. For the last two weeks the Trump Administration has targeted the legal profession as part of the president's quest to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion practices. After the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sent a letter to 20 firms warning them against using DEI during their hiring processes, Trump signed a number of executive orders restricting Big Law firms from representing clients with government contracts. Some, like Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block and WilmerHale, have fought back, suing the administration to block the president's actions. But others, including Skadden Arps; Paul Weiss; Milbank; and Willkie, Farr and Gallagher have bent the knee, providing a combined $340 million in pro bono legal work for causes Trump favors. The pushback from the legal community has been immense. The American Bar Association, associates at Big Law firms, law school deans and even state attorneys general have condemned both actions. But for aspiring lawyers, many of whom want to work in Big Law, the choice of what to do—and how to advocate for themselves—is difficult. What power do they actually have against these million-dollar companies? More than they think. 'What these firms really care about is campus access and the prestige that goes along with that," says Rachel Cohen, a former third-year associate at Skadden's financial practice that virally quit her job over the firm's lack of support for Perkins Coie's suit against the Trump Administration. 'Outside of it, firms don't care very much about what law students think.' So students are taking advantage of recruiting season. A toolkit organized by Cohen is asking public interest students to apply to firms that have caved to Trump and pepper interviewers with uncomfortable questions, or to write to career services offices and ask for those firms to be barred from campus events. A spreadsheet organized by Georgetown Law students is tracking firms' responses to the executive orders, and student groups, like the Georgetown Energy Law Group, are pulling out of recruiting events with firms that capitulate to the administration. But with mounting debt, an uncertain job market and increasing recession fears, not all students are rushing to close the door to a possible $200,000 salary straight out of school. 'It's really hard to turn down that option,' says a first-year law student recruiting Big Law, who requested anonymity for fears of professional retaliation. 'It feels like Big Law is the only answer.' News from the world of work It was another contradictory month for the job market. The U.S. added 228,000 jobs in March, more than expected, with hourly wages increasing 3.8% year-over-year. But unemployment also rose to 4.2%. Job cuts also rose, increasing by over 205% from last March largely due to DOGE cuts at the federal government. In total, nearly 500,000 jobs were cut from the American economy, according to staffing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Such market uncertainty has led to another month of poor employee confidence, according to Glassdoor senior economist Daniel Zhao. While business sentiment grew slightly, entry-level employees' confidence in their jobs fell the most as recession fears increased. It makes sense––these positions are often the least secure jobs during a recession and can stunt career growth for young workers. One of President Trump's main reasons for implementing tariffs was to support American manufacturing jobs. But his strategy won't bring those jobs back on-shore, writes senior contributor Erik Sherman. Even if companies wanted to, and enough people were willing to do those jobs, it takes a few years to build, equip, and make operational a new factory. Just one week before the tax filing deadline, the IRS is cutting between 20% to 25% of its staff. The first to go: civil rights employees as part of the government's effort to cut down on DEI initiatives. Deloitte is also slashing its workforce due to losing government contracts, the Wall Street Journal reports, though the firm did not specify how many employees would be laid off. It is just one of the government consultant firms that proposed billion-dollar cuts to their contracts last week in hopes of maintaining at least part of their initial deals with the government. That's the size of the newly announced National Apprentice Fund, a joint fund from Google and Jobs for the Future that will provide financial assistance to over 750 apprentices with a one-time award of $2,800. How Two Men Made Billions Exploiting Those With Bad Credit DOGE firings have mostly taken place at what time of the week? A. Monday mornings B. Friday nights C. Sunday nights D. Last day of the month Check if you got it right here.
Forbes
08-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Employers Including Blackstone, Walmart, And Microsoft, Increasing Focus On Skills Over College Degrees
'In a time where people might say there's no opportunities for inclusion in the workforce, we actually think that skills-first hiring is a way to say there are opportunities for everybody,' says Donna Morris, chief people officer at Walmart. Getty Images With rising costs, student protests and looming budget cuts, sentiment on the power of a college degree continues to sour. Now, top employers, while not abandoning the need for top college grads, are leaning into specific skills instead of degrees to find the right talent. The Skills-First Workforce Initiative, led by Philadelphia-based nonprofit Burning Glass Institute, is launching a career website outlining the skills needed for some of the most in-demand jobs in the market. The SkillsFirst website details skills needed for nine job titles –retail salesperson; first-line supervisors of retail sales workers; sales managers; customer service representatives; customer service managers; financial analysts; product managers; and software developers. These roles account for over 11 million workers, according to Burning Glass. Joining the non-profit in this new initiative are ten of America's largest employers, including Accenture, Bank of America, Blackstone, Home Depot, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Nordstrom, PepsiCo, Walmart and Verizon in the launch. 'Just being able to understand and define the skills required for a job, it sounds simple but it's actually a really big exercise,' says Matt Siegelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute. Skills-based hiring has grown in popularity in the last year, especially as diversity, equity and inclusion programs have come under attack. In September, the Department of Labor released a starter kit for employers looking to change their degree requirements. Advice included a sample rubric for 'people skills,' a list of on-the-job scenarios and interview questions. But since President Donald Trump was sworn into office in January, the department has overhauled its offerings. A link to the recently published toolkit has been deleted and leads to an error page, though it is still available through the WayBack Machine. Now the private sector is stepping in. Though discussions among Walmart, Burning Glass and the other employers have been ongoing for over a year, the launch of the website marks the first public release of specific language both employers and employees can rely on to describe job skills. 'This is noncompetitive in nature,' says Donna Morris, chief people officer at Walmart. 'Each of these companies have their own hiring objectives, their own behavioral expectations that layer together with skills.' Two candidates with the same skills may be better fits for different companies. The companies in the coalition are also not direct competitors, covering a range of industries from finance to retail and pharmaceuticals. The website lists four different groups of skills––baseline, leadership, role-specific skills and specialization––required for each position, assigning a percentage of importance and proficiency level for each skill. Take the breakdown for a product manager. Baseline skills include knowing the '4 Ps' of marketing (product, price, place and promotion) and experience leading complex sales negotiations. But the most important, and in-demand, skills come in the role-specific competencies like using market research to accurately predict the lifecycle of a product. Each is assigned a level of mastery and how important, on average, the skill is to employers. Burning Glass says this is determined by their proprietary model, which pulls data from a database of tens of millions of job postings, analyzes how each job is described and pulls out common skills, and input from the 11 employers in the coalition. The site also offers information on job-specific specializations, like computer science or user experience (UX). A software engineer for example needs to be able to write, troubleshoot and debug code while documenting changes in Git. But perhaps the most helpful information for job seekers is a skill's wage premium, which reflects how much employers are willing to pay a premium for. For example, companies are willing to pay a 5% wage premium to product managers with UX experience, a 3.9% wage increase to software engineers who know Python and an 8.3% bump to those working in open-source platforms like Kubernetes. Such specific language can be specially useful for non-traditional hires like veterans, who struggle to translate their experience in the armed forces to corporate America. It's how employers can not only hire the right people, but deepen their talent pool, according to Sheri Bronstein, chief people officer at Bank of America The launch of the website comes at a complex time in the labor market. The U.S. economy added about 228,000 jobs in March, more than forecasted, but unemployment increased slightly in the same month and DOGE-led cuts in the federal government will have ripple effects throughout private sectors. Add in fears of a looming recession and incoming tariffs on nearly all imports, and many businesses have paused their hiring and are reconsidering their 2025 plans. It's left employees increasingly feeling stuck, unmotivated and unproductive. 'There's a lot of reasons why the workforce may be disillusioned right now,' says Walmart's Morris. 'But as employers we can provide some hope and focus on investing in our people to optimize their success.' A standard skills language becomes a way for employers to educate, motivate and be transparent with their workforces about what it takes to continue to grow. The unified skills language makes working on a desired promotion that much easier. The path from customer service representative to manager, for example, includes gaining leadership skills, coaching experience and account management experience. But the power comes in being able to use that language defining skills and transferring it from one employer to the next. A unified language for 'skills become a currency that [employees] can use to apply for that new job internally or externally,' says Morris. Employers joining the initiative have already seen an impact on their own hiring practices and employee satisfaction. Verizon, which says 99% of their roles do not require degrees, streamlined its repository of 70,000 job titles down to 2,100 different roles when first implementing its skills-first approach in 2021. The company boasts an average tenure of 13.1 years, 70% more than the national average of 3.9 years, which it credits to its career growth opportunities. Skills-first gave Verizon employees the transparency needed to see the path towards a promotion across different roles, says its chief human resources officer Samantha Hammock. 'When you start thinking about where your skills match into other roles, it opens a window of visibility into a whole new world of [job opportunities],' she adds. It's a similar case at Walmart, which prides itself over the fact that 75% of its store managers, who have a base pay of $130,000 can occasionally earn more than $500,000 a year, started in hourly positions. Skills training has raised customer and store cleanliness satisfaction scores in the top third of stores participating in training, and front-line workers are now promoted to a new role within an average of seven months. Demarcating declining or in-demand skills is another benefit for early-career folks using the website, especially those deciding what job to take up in a quickly evolving labor market. 'Talent scarcity across the economy is requiring companies to rethink and rewire their hiring practices,' says Courtney della Cava, global head of portfolio talent and organization performance at Blackstone, which will be implementing skills-first approaches across its over 250 portfolio companies. Such practices are not just a way to increase retention, but also anticipate future skills needs. It's already happening. Take 'AI prompt engineering', where coders train AI large language models in answering questions, a skill required for software engineers that has become a top priority in 2024, according to Burning Glass. It was in virtually all descriptions for software engineers, but when Open AI and its competitors updated their chatbots to get better at answering prompts that were sometimes vague, the skill disappeared, reveals Erik Leiden, managing director of workforce strategy at Burning Glass. They had to ultimately remove the skill from the job page. 'There are skills that are growing in popularity now that will decline, and there are skills that will hit the radar that aren't on the radar now,' he adds. The nonprofit says it will continuously update the skills needed for each job, using AI to keep track of requirement changes in job postings across its database. Burning Glass is also already planning to expand the library of jobs and accompanying skillsets in the coming months. In its second phase, the website will host career pathways for 30 job titles, including wholesale sales representatives, security guards, shipping and inventory clerks and even human resources specialists. Ultimately it's all about unifying skills that employees already had, and employers sought out, but may have been describing in different ways. 'Why should their skills not be the currency for growth they have ahead?' asks Morris.
USA Today
05-02-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Walmart to eliminate jobs, close NC office as part of relocation plan: Reports
Walmart is eliminating several jobs and closing its Charlotte, North Carolina office as it relocates employees to its main hubs in California and Arkansas, according to multiple reports citing an internal memo. The multinational retail corporation is asking staffers based in Hoboken, New Jersey, and other smaller offices, to relocate to its newly opened headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas and its office in Sunnyvale, California, Donna Morris, Walmart's chief people officer, wrote in a memo viewed by Bloomberg News and Reuters. 'We are making these changes to put key capabilities together, encouraging speed and shared understanding,' Morris wrote in the recent memo, per the outlets. USA TODAY contacted Walmart on Wednesday but has not received a response. Why is Walmart relocating? This decision is a part of Walmart's bigger relocation strategy that began last year, and it's occurring when many U.S. corporations are mandating that employees return to the office three to five days a week. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. With the closure of Walmart's Charlotte office and the cutting of numerous corporate roles as part of this relocation process, hundreds of jobs are expected to be eliminated, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. In 2024, Walmart asked employees in Dallas, Atlanta, and Toronto to relocate to bigger hubs, most of which went to the main office in Bentonville. Changes in 'some parts of our business … will result in a reduction of several hundred campus roles,' Morris said in May in a separate memo to employees shared with USA TODAY. 'We believe that being together, in person, makes us better and helps us to collaborate, innovate and move even faster,' Morris said in the 2024 memo. 'We also believe it helps strengthen our culture as well as grow and develop our associates.'
