Matthias Schmeisser’s Post

We over-index on hard skills by ignoring the importance of soft skills in our talent/people practices! Key Takeaways: 💡 Soft skills are non-cognitive skills because they are "not predicted by IQ or achievement tests." 💡 The evidence is overwhelming that soft skills are important drivers of success in school and adult life. 💡 While cognitive skills are still important predictors of labor market success, their importance has declined since 2000 💡 Employment and wage growth have been especially strong for professional jobs that require both analytical and social skills to be able to solve complex problems in fluid, rapidly changing, team-based settings. 💡 Social interaction is perhaps the most necessary workplace task for which there is currently no good machine substitute. The reason is that our ability to read and react to others is based on tacit knowledge that has evolved over thousands of years. It's difficult to reverse-engineer a process that we do not explicitly understand. 💡 We also see evidence of the growing importance of social skills in studies of how information and communication technology (ICT) has changed the organization of the workplace. Case studies of ICT implementation show that computerization leads to the reallocation of skilled workers into flexible, team-based settings that facilitate adaptive responses and group problem-solving. 💡 Teamwork requires the capacity to understand the motivations of others. Working effectively with others means not only observing their behavior but also understanding why they act the way they do. Psychologists call this "theory of mind" — the ability to attribute mental states to others based on their behavior, or, more colloquially, to "put oneself into another's shoes." 💡 Social skills increase productivity because they reduce the cost of trading tasks with other workers. Workers with high social skills earn higher wages because they can specialize in their most productive tasks and trade their output with others. 💡 Measuring soft skills - Soft skills are most often measured using survey questions that ask respondents to self-assess their personality characteristics. I found this article through the recent post I shared about "SBH won't work without skills-based compensation" by Charles Handler, Ph.D.. Thanks again! #socialskills #skills

This is a great reminder of why SBH wouldn't work without a holistic skills-based transition to become a skills-led organization. Great job, Charles Handler, Ph.D., and thanks for sharing this article within your newsletter, Kevin Wheeler. Key Takeaways: 💡 We need a new way to objectively and fairly define and measure the unique value each individual brings to the workplace. 💡A “skills-based organization” is needed as “An enterprise that prioritizes and organizes its operations, talent management, and overall strategy around the specific skills and competencies of its workforce, rather than traditional job titles, roles, or hierarchical structures.”  💡True success with SBH can only be found through a holistic view that connects it with all people practices. 💡 Compensation plays a critical role in people practices. Breaking a person’s worth to the company down into numbers sends signals that serve as the foundation for bonding an individual to their employer via perceptions of organizational justice and the formation of psychological contracts. 💡 When it comes to linking hard skills to compensation, we have a good starting point. You either know Java or you don’t at the most basic level. A great deal of information is available around the valuation of hard skills via compensation surveys, benchmarking data, and labor market supply/demand data to quantify the value of these skills to their organizations. 💡 What about soft skills? Soft skills are harder to learn or change because they are part of a person’s wiring. While of critical importance, soft skills are less objective and harder to evaluate, verify, and link directly to KPIs. Soft skills are lagging when it comes to valuation. 💡 Foundational changes are needed to ensure a holistic approach to people practices, the following shifts are essential for supporting skills-based organizations and hiring and comp programs based on hard and soft skills (by redesigning jobs, standardized definition of skills, verification at scale, portability/mobility, and data & analytics) 💡 Recommendation for action: 1. Create a maturity model to see where you are now and where you need to go. 2. Ensure skills-related programs such as hiring and compensation are aligned. 3. Replace job descriptions with a more credible source of information about required skills. 4. Use assessments to accurately, reliably, and fairly verify skills attainment. 5. Collect and curate data to provide hard evidence of the value of hard and soft skills to KPIs. 6. Understand the value of technology and AI in all of this. Conclusion: Human performance within an organization is about the right combination of individual differences in the right place at the right time. Doing so requires a “whole person” approach based on each person's unique combination of hard and soft skills versus desired outcomes for all people practices. #sbh #skills #skillledorganization #compensation #hardskills #softskills

The latest recruiting brainfood newsletter from Hung Lee shared a nice report on the state of AI. They asked 730 tech folks in April 2024. Key Takeaways: 💡 AI sentiment, after the hype storm of 2023, a more clear-eyed view seems to be emerging of AI’s relative immaturity, current limitations—and big potential. When it comes to actionable AI, this is just the beginning. 💡AI adoption, maybe everyone’s using it, but most respondents were clear that they were a long way from the top. Plenty of respondents rated their company well—about 30% consider themselves either “running” or “flying” when it comes to adoption. 💡 Who’s seeing the most productivity gains? Overall, a strong majority of respondents who use copilots or other AI tools at work report increased productivity from doing so. It also plays out that the more you use AI tools, the more likely you are to find them valuable: 64.4% of daily users report significant productivity improvements, versus 17% of weekly users and 6.6% of occasional users. 💡 The jobs are not on fire. 45.7% rated entry-level ICs as most at risk of replacement by AI. Middle management takes second place (13.2%), Senior ICs and executive/senior leadership are seen as low risk. And relatedly (or not) executives’ enthusiasm for adopting AI has been strong: C-suite respondents were the biggest daily users of AI at ~72% (other roles range from ~45–56%). They also reported the highest impact and productivity increases versus other roles, adding to the idea that AI is less of a threat than a tool. 💡 These teams use AI! Engineering (45%), Marketing (36,2%), Data Science (32,8%), Product (31,1%), Ops (31%), Support (28,4%), Sales (24,9%), Finance (12,7%), HR (10,3%) and Legal (8,8%). Two of the top three pain points respondents associated with developing AI apps were model output accuracy/hallucinations (38.9%) and data access/security (33.5%) which have remained largely unchanged from 2023’s survey. Closing Thoughts: On an individual level, AI has a meaningful impact on the way people work. Businesses are still figuring out how to make the most impactful use of the evolving tech. Developers need executive buy-in, adequate staffing and funding, and robust data governance to succeed with AI projects. Sign up for Hung Lee's newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/dYv-6CX #AI #insights #stateofAI

Big shout to Andreea Lungulescu who had a wonderful appearance on one of the best TA podcasts with Matt Alder around the topic of TA Teams of the Future. Key Takeaways: 💡 Impact of AI, everyone talks about it but no one is implementing it into the strategy yet. There is a danger of falling behind. 💡 AI Skills - what is LLM, what tooling exist and what they can do, and how do you apply these tools for your practices, ethics, compliance 💡 Dedication to a person/role who helps to implement AI or tooling in general in our Talent Acquisition Teams. People forget about RecOps! 💡 Why do Talent Acquisition Teams fail to become strategic? Because we are not involved in workforce planning. We are only seen as a cost center. 💡 How TA team will change in the future? We need a holistic understanding of Talent practices. Need new roles to be created. Reactive hiring to proactive talent planning, predictive analytics, internal mobility, etc.. Check it out! A great conversation. #talentacquisition #future #AI

"Mega" proud of last night ❤️ . Talent Crunch Berlin (TC) designed a new format as an invite-only event for handpicked Talent Leaders who work together on Talent Strategies to overcome different Talent Challenges on how to make strategic and tactical decisions on what kind of talents you need to achieve business objectives. What resonated really well last night was the build, buy, or borrow approach on how to solve these challenges. Thank you for your sponsorship, relokate, retalent and kopff 🙏 . Thank you, Andreea Lungulescu, 🌎 Katharina Hilgers, and your team for creating such a wonderful night for all these talent leaders: Alice Wrede, Natalia Dorozala, Brittany Patton, Syed Ali Abbas, Chris Brown, W. Jan Kukawski, Anthony Piper, Renée Vonk, Jasmin Blum, Kacper Kowalik. I never received such wonderful feedback that attendees enjoyed the dinner, loved the location, and their time was very well spent on a great learning experience. Happy Friday! 🙌 #talent #strategies #community

Turning 18 🎈 for at least 20 times now 😂 , let's reflect... 🎁 Nobody gets my age right, I need to consider that as a compliment now 🤔 . In a business context, I'm still perceived as a rookie because I look rather young (Note to myself: Dress older or more formal💡 ) 🎁 Relationship building: Be more intentional about it. Work is not everything but it also helps at work (sometimes too well - lessons learned 🤦♂️ ). 🎁 I'm amazed at how well I got used to working under pressure. I don't get nervous or lose it. And I somehow managed to master the challenges. Not sure if that means I know what I'm doing 🤔 . 🎁 Stage freight doesn't exist for me anymore. After doing so many events, and so many events at the same time, public speaking is something I enjoy. It's probably dozens of podcasts that helped me here. 🎁 Leadership gets more challenging if you don't know the foundation of psychology. Start with yourself on how emotionally stable you are. If you are not, you cannot do your job properly. Please educate yourself! 🎁 Once you master the psychology foundation, I'm shocked how many people suffer from severe personality disorders from past drama. They need help! 🎁 Exercising regularly gives me a lot of energy. I highly recommend it. 🏃♂️ Let me celebrate my birthday now! #thoughts #reflection #mentalhealth

Level Up: Hiring Top Talent with Skills-based Hiring Are you struggling to find the right talent for your team? Join our next Talking Talent on Skills-Based Hiring, a game-changing approach that focuses on a candidate's specific skills and abilities rather than traditional qualifications like degrees or job titles. Learn why companies like Catawiki & Emnify are shifting to this method and discover how it makes your hiring sustainable and enhances enhanced diversity and capability within your teams. We'll explore how to identify skill gaps, implement effective skill assessments, and overcome potential challenges. Don't miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights into the future of recruitment and how technology is shaping skills-based hiring. Save your spot today!

A great conversation with Hung Lee and Johnny Campbell about Skills Based Hiring. Key Takeaways for me: 🎯 Johnny explained very nicely what skills-based hiring looks for a BDR 🎯 It's not just skills, it's also how you apply them by understanding their behaviors 🎯 Achievements - when you apply skills, you are interested in how well you do it and what the outcome is 🎯 Motivation - of course, we need to look at motivation 🎯 There is no blocker in terms of seniority, you can do it with all the roles Glad both agree that assessments are the way going forward! 👏 #talent #talentacquisition #skillsbasedhiring

Do something great and get rewarded for it 🤩 #network #community #tickets

What day yesterday 🙌 . Two of my favorite communities HIGHER Community and the one and only Talent Crunch Berlin (TC) organized impactful sessions for our Berlin community. 🎯 Panel discussion in the morning with Phillip Blaydes, Malte Fenger, and Kathrin Holzfurtner where we discussed the latest industry data about the status quo of our industry from a global perspective. I really enjoyed the format where we constantly interacted with the audience. This created a real vibe in the room where we could learn from each other. First time at SOHO House, nice one 🤩 🎯 Hoffest in the afternoon from HRpepper talking about "Musterbruch" with German People Leaders and lots of case studies presented on capturing political and social challenges to prepare companies to be successful. It was interesting to see that nothing these days is predictable anymore: careers, education, and where you find your passion in the end that makes you successful. It was inspiring to hear from Sebastian Fitzek. 🎯 Last but not least our Talent Crunch Berlin (TC) event in the evening with Andreea Lungulescu, Lars van Wieren, Mahmoud Aly, Alisa Reznik, and Nebojša Miletić. We took the perspective of hiring managers to understand their needs and what their drivers are in a successful relationship with us. 3 events in one day 🤔 Note to myself: Really, Matthias 🤦♂️ #talent #people #bestpractices #insights #network #talentacquisition