Why the ‘talent shortage’ is really a shortage of social capital
“The challenge for employers and hiring managers is to work harder to build trust with people who don’t come from the same social backgrounds—but who share the same values and goals, and have wonderful contributions to offer. To expand opportunities for low-income, diverse, overlooked talent, we need to expand our sense of community—in ways that uplift us all.”
– Nitzan Pelman, Climb Hire Founder and CEO
“How many times have you landed a job because someone in your network made a warm introduction or a referral? When I think back on my career, almost every job I’ve ever gotten has come through someone I knew. Not only did that benefit me as a job seeker, but it also reflected well on the person bridging the gap and connecting a strong potential employee with a company. In fact, 85% of positions are filled through networking, which presents a challenge for many talented, hard-working people from diverse and low-income communities who may not have the time, bandwidth, or privilege to grow professional connections.
Despite recent headlines about layoffs at tech giants and other major companies, employers need talent more than ever, but too many are still looking only to hire candidates with the same traditional credentials, ignoring a vast pool of high-quality candidates. Think about the retail worker who juggles multiple jobs to make ends meet. They are gritty, hungry, and motivated—characteristics every employer looks for. But they are generally overlooked and underrepresented.
Many companies have established their intent of diversifying their hiring practices and company cultures, but to solve the workforce shortage and recruit more widely, companies need to take a big-picture approach and recognize that much of today’s talent shortage is ultimately a shortage of social capital—a lack of relationships and connections between different communities that don’t organically interact…” >>> Keep Reading
At Climb Hire, we not only teach you the in-demand skills in tech that will get you the job, we provide the foundation for cultivating those rich professional communities that will help you break in to a new career. LinkedIn data suggests that jobseekers are 9x more likely to be hired when referred by someone else, so we don’t underestimate the power of social capital. We maximize it.
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