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Create a compelling resume to highlight the skills you already have that match what employers need for the job you want, with this free resume builder from Rework America Alliance created in partnership with Emsi and Skillful. The Rework America Alliance’s new resume builder will help you customize a resume to a specific job, so you can demonstrate that you have what employers are looking for. Whether you need to create a resume for yourself, or you work with job seekers or students and want to help them to create a strong resume, the Rework America Alliance’s resume builder and optimizer will be valuable additions to your job hunting toolkit. Let employers know the full set of skills acquired through previous jobs, volunteer work, traditional life, experiences, education, short-course and other experience. Show skills that have been learned that can be transferred to a new role or industry, in language employers understand. The tool is a free resource from the Rework America Alliance that has been developed in collaboration with worker-facing organizations to share broadly with career coaches and guidance counsellors nationwide and help them better serve workers in their communities. Through the Rework America Alliance we will also work with employers to help them better recognize the capabilities candidates present through the resume builder. How It Works: 1. Enter your personal info, job history and other experience to create a basic resume. 2. The Smart Resume Builder will use the information you enter to create a skills-based resume that shows the skills you have built from your work and life experience 3. Customize your resume by adding other skills that are suggested based on the specific job you’re applying for. "The new resume tool provides an opportunity for a coach to work with learners or job seekers to understand their skill sets and spur a conversation about how to clearly articulate those skill sets. The resume builder can be a teaching tool for generating ideas on how-to identify and communicate skills, and supports the creation of a strong skills-based resume. This tool will help job seekers be accurate and effective as they tailor and build their resume for future employment opportunities.” Brandi Smith, Executive Director of Career Coaching, Ivy Tech Community College, Indianapolis, Indiana. Why the Rework America Alliance’s Resume Builder Is Unique Workforce data specialists, Emsi partnered with the team at Markle’s Skillful initiative, which is focused on driving more equitable hiring of workers into good jobs, to help job seekers better articulate the skills they have in a way that employers would understand. Talented candidates are regularly overlooked by employers due to an over-emphasis on educational achievements, such as bachelor’s degrees, and past job titles. This particularly impacts the nearly 70% of workers in America who do not hold a bachelor’s degree - which are disproportionately people of color due to systemic racism and inequities such as unequal access to high quality education and training. By creating a resume based on skills, job seekers can highlight their full breadth of capabilities and show employers they hold the skills they are looking for. Emsi is experienced in using labor market data to drive economic prosperity and has created a vast library of skills, drawn from millions of job postings from real employers. This enabled Emsi to build a tool which draws on that information to suggest relevant skills for inclusion in a resume, using up-to-date terminology that employers will recognize. Skillful has drawn on its experience working with career coaches, employers, educational organizations and workforce leaders, to create a more equitable and inclusive labor market, in developing this tool with Emsi. Skillful worked with career coaches to test early versions of the tool and to include their feedback in the design and features of the current tool and future iterations. Sign up to get news and updates about the Rework America Alliance
The pandemic is shifting day-to-day operations for many businesses, often leading to changing workforce needs and redeployment of staff. As the economy starts to recover, adopting a skills-based approach to hiring and talent can help employers to strengthen their workforce, through more inclusive practices that can help to build more diverse teams. Developed in partnership with Skillful’s local partners, employers and employer associations, the Skillful Talent Series learning platform provides practical guidance and support to help employers and employer intermediaries implement an inclusive, skills-based strategy. This new digital training version of Skillful’s market-tested, SHRM-certified training allows HR professionals and hiring managers to learn remotely through a new set of self-guided modules developed to deliver these trainings digitally. The Skillful Talent Series courses are designed to help employers break away from traditional, outdated hiring methods, which overly rely on proxies for skills like degrees, previous job titles, years of experience, and subjective evaluation. The Skillful Talent Series focuses on the key pillars of skills-based hiring: recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and training and advancement. Skills-based hiring practices effectively reduce hiring bias and improve employee retention, diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. "The content from the Skillful Talent Series has been valuable for me and my workers, and it is helping me access candidates that would have otherwise been overlooked. I was able to learn the concepts for skills-based hiring and was provided additional tools and resources to create and update job postings. Having this available digitally will be a great way for companies to deploy more broadly across their organization." - Nicole McMurray, Regional Manager, AppleOne For more information about bringing the Skillful Talent Series to your organization, please email [email protected] Sign up to get news and updates about the Rework America Alliance
Getting America Back to Work: Connecting Displaced Workers With Good Jobs Tools to Get Started The Rework America Alliance is working with leading employers and advocacy and civic organizations to help displaced workers, particularly those of color, move into quality, in-demand jobs as the economy rebounds so that we can create a more equitable recovery. To support that work, we are working with leading employers from the Alliance and the Rework America Business Network, their partners, and members of their supply chains to develop a coalition of employers, large and small, committed to using inclusive, skill-based sourcing and hiring strategies to meet their talent needs, increase diversity, and help get Americans back to work. Taking a skills-based approach will enable companies to leverage the skills and abilities of workers who have been displaced by COVID-19, enabling them to quickly fill positions with a talented, diverse set of workers when they are ready to hire. To make it easier for employers to adopt inclusive sourcing and hiring practices, we are developing a series of implementation tools and resources. This is the first version of these tools. We will continue to refine them and release enhanced versions over the coming months. We encourage companies to get started NOW in putting these new approaches to work – even if that means starting with a narrower set of roles that you expect to hire for over the next year. Making changes now will enable you to apply lessons learned to a broader set of hiring needs increase. Sourcing & Hiring “Quick Start” Playbook – Step-by-step guidance, case studies, tools and resources, and tips from leading employers to help organizations adopt a skills-based strategy and bring talented workers from new sources and backgrounds to your organization Job-specific Hiring Toolkit – Ready-to-use, customizable job postings, interview guides, onboarding plans, and other tools for specific roles that are expected to experience job growth and are accessible to large numbers of displaced workers. Toolkits for additional jobs will be added on an ongoing basis and we will focus the early toolkits on good jobs where demand will be stronger as the economy recovers and where workers displaced by the pandemic can be strong candidates based on the skills they have or can quickly build with affordable, accessible, effective targeted training. ◦ Computer User Support Specialist Skillful Talent Series – e-Learning platform with practical guidance and support to help employers and employer intermediaries implement an inclusive, skills-based strategy. This new digital training version of Skillful’s market-tested, SHRM-certified training allows HR professionals and hiring managers to learn remotely. Other tools to get started: Skillful Job Posting Generator Create free, ready-to-use, customizable skills-based jobs postings HRIT “How-to guides” – Overviews on how to use existing functionality at major HRIT vendors to support the adoption of inclusive, skills-based practices.* ◦ Workday ◦ Other vendor overviews coming in 2021 *Please note that these overviews are posted ‘as is’ as resources to users of this website and do not constitute an endorsement of any organization or specific practices by Markle, Skillful, the Rework America Alliance or any Alliance member. Join Leading Employers and National Advocacy Organizations "Employers will play a critical role in determining whether the recovery from this crisis creates opportunity for all. At Microsoft, we are committed to broadening our skills-based assessment approach to recognize ability regardless of where it was acquired" - Lauren Gardner, Corporate VP, Global Talent Acquisition, Microsoft “Without substantial changes to how employers source and hire talent, this crisis will follow the model of past recessions and leave millions of Latinx workers and other workers of color behind. We need employers at the table to drive an equitable recovery, and we’re prepared to help them do that.” - Peggy McLeod, Deputy VP of Education and Workforce Development, UnidosUS A Skills-Based Strategy Reduces Bias and Improves Hiring Employers committing to action with the Rework America Alliance are adopting the following skills-based sourcing and hiring practices for target roles* at their organization: Screening & Sourcing Write inclusive, skills-based job posting with required and preferred competencies for the role. Remove degree and years of experience requirements. Mask applicant name on resume review to select interviewees. Interview & Selection Ensure an interview pool contains multiple candidates with a diverse mix of experiences and educational attainment Create and utilize a skills-based interview guide and ensure all applicants are asked the same questions. Use rubrics to evaluate candidates on interviews and assessments. *Employers are focusing on roles where they have hiring needs and where a displaced worker without a 4-year degree could gain the skills needed for the role with limited additional training. These roles offer good wages, benefits, and a path to advancement. Skills-Based Hiring - A Proven Approach: 5x better hiring: Research shows that hiring for skills is 5x more predictive of job performance than hiring for education and 2.5x more predictive than hiring for work experience Improved engagement: Workers who strongly agree that the job description was a good reflection of their job are 2.5 times more likely to be engaged as an employee. Increased equity: Women tend to apply to jobs only when they meet 100% of job requirements, while men apply if they meet 60%. Sign up to get news and updates about the Rework America Alliance
What are digital skills? In today’s economy, workers need foundational digital skills and knowledge to adapt and respond to new technology, systems, tools, and processes. The pandemic has exacerbated this in recent months, as businesses adapt to changing ways of reaching customers, often resulting in new operating procedures and accelerating automation and digitization In its 2019 report Digital Blindspot: How Digital Literacy Can Create a More Resilient Workforce , the Rework America Business Network created a framework to categorize the skills workers need--distinguishing between employability digital skills like problem solving with technology that increase the marginal likelihood of employment and a broader set of foundational skills. Employability digital skills are the “basic set of capabilities workers need in order to use devices, data, and computing proficiently, safely, and ethically to perform their job’s core activities in the increasingly digitized future of work.” This distinction enables workers to focus on building work-relevant digital skills, prioritizing time and resources for the skills that will help lead to employment. Low-income, people of color, and rural communities have significantly less access to the broadband services, devices, and connectivity. Expanding access to broadband is essential to ensure these communities can participate in opportunities for digital skills building and other online learning. Why do Digital Skills matter? As the Digital Blindspot report explains, “Technology’s transformation of nearly every facet of our lives presents both profound opportunities and risks. Finding and applying for jobs, accessing medical records, or even reserving a picnic table at a park or answering a jury duty questionnaire now requires access to an internet-enabled device. Our reliance on technology to perform even mundane tasks risks exacerbating gaps between technology haves and have-nots.” “The ubiquity of email, word processing, and sector-specific machines or software platforms means the penalty for lacking digital fluency is rapidly growing, creating barriers for those who lack the technology skills or confidence to use digital tools effectively.” What digital skills matter the most for employability? The Digital Blindspot report outlines five dimensions of digital skills that constitute baseline expectations for employability digital literacy. Baseline for Employability Digital Literacy Skills Problem Solving Using Technology ◦ Definition: Interpretation and use of digital information (e.g., data, research) to solve a problem) ◦ Example Skills: Identify the correct data for resolving problems Computer and Mobile Device Interactions ◦ Definition: Understanding the basic skills needed to interact with computers and mobile devices ◦ Example Skills: Typing, turning a device on and off, searching for a file Basic Tools (e.g., Word, Email) ◦ Definition: Mastery of basic productivity tools and software common to most occupations and digital settings ◦ Example Skills: Proficiency in word processing, Sending and receiving emails, Proficiency with GSuite Data Security and Safety ◦ Definition: Awareness of threats to a computer and techniques to protect computers, and data, from those threats ◦ Example Skills: Identify the various threats to your computer and the data stored on it Data Ethics ◦ Definition: Understanding how to behave legally and ethically in a digital context (e.g., on the internet) ◦ Examples Skills: Explain intellectual property and copyright as they apply to computing Additional Employability Skills Occupation-Specific Tools ◦ Definition: Use of advanced digital tools and programs, used to execute specific tasks (e.g., programming) ◦ Example Skills: Proficiency with programming languages (e.g., Python) Analytics & Data Manipulation ◦ Definition: Understanding how to interact with and manipulate data for a specific purpose (e.g., to yield visualizations) ◦ Examples Skills: Create and edit simple data structures and storage, manipulate data to render desired visualizations Note: “While the primary five areas above are relatively stable across functions, the final two areas of employability digital skills— occupation-specific tools and analytics and data manipulation—have a significant degree of variability and encompass a wide range of technical skills.” Free and Low-Cost Resources for Building Digital Skills Examples of free resources to build vital digital skills: Arapahoe Community College ASU - Understanding Data Sources and Security Technologies edX IBM LinkedIn/ Microsoft/Github Microsoft
As the economy starts to recover and employers need to rebuild their workforce, the first step to hiring more equitably starts with drafting more inclusive job postings. The Skillful Job Posting Generator can help HR and hiring managers write job descriptions that will expand their organization’s talent pool, fill positions faster and attract talented applicants who can get the job done - without deterring qualified candidates due to unnecessary requirements or biased language. For the nearly 70% of adults without a bachelor’s degree, many of them people of color, systemic racism which includes discriminatory hiring practices, and unequal access to education and opportunities, have created additional barriers to good jobs. By focusing on the skills a candidate needs to be successful in a role, employers can open opportunities to candidates that would otherwise be overlooked. By not relying solely on past job titles and proxies for skills, such as degrees (where they are not a necessary requirement for a role) it is possible to access a more diverse talent pool and avoid filtering out qualified candidates. The free, online Job Posting Generator helps employers to identify the skills and competencies required for the job they are trying to fill and then incorporates them into a job posting. With an easy-to-use design, the tool walks users through a step-by-step process, auto-populating key fields to create a skills-based job posting. This free tool can help organizations to take the first step to adopt a skills-based approach to hiring, helping them efficiently and equitably source and retain talent. The Skillful Job Posting Generator was instrumental in helping our organization approach hiring from a new perspective and look more closely at what skills we needed from a candidate for them to be successful in the role. We created a job posting which clearly conveyed the skills we were looking for and eliminated unnecessary requirements, opening the opportunity to a more diverse talent pool, attracting better qualified candidates – including those who may not otherwise have applied and would have been overlooked.” Kathy Duffin, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP, Director of People and Culture, Colorado Department of Labor & Employment (CDLE) Skillful Job Posting Generator Sign up to get news and updates about the Rework America Alliance
Career coaching and guidance is crucial to helping people during this economic crisis. Many of the recent job losses will be permanent and those unemployed will need to seek out new opportunities, possibly in unfamiliar occupations or industries—all while balancing immediate financial needs for food, bills, rent, and other urgent needs. For the nearly 70% of adults without a bachelor’s degree, many of them people of color, systemic racism, which includes discriminatory hiring practices and unequal access to education and opportunities has created additional barriers to good jobs. Access to career coaching services can help individuals struggling to find work by providing support and information to help them gain good jobs in this economy. The Rework America Alliance is developing high quality, virtual foundational skills training for career coaches based on the training Markle’s Skillful initiative has been delivering in several states. This program will help coaches provide better insights and support for job seekers, by establishing core coaching competencies with a focus on providing more skills-based, human-centered, and equity-driven career guidance. The first course, Skills-based Job Search is expected to be available in January and will provide an introduction to the purpose and methods of a skills-based job search. It will prepare coaches to empower job seekers to lead with their skills, find positions that intersect with their skills and interests, apply for previously unconsidered positions, and begin to build a meaningful career. In addition to these skills, the Alliance is working to provide coaches with new tools and access to better job insights. When these skills and resources come together, coaches are better able to guide job seekers with practical advice and support that can connect them with a good job. Coaches will be trained through a series of modules to identify non-traditional career pathways, post-secondary training options, and career exploration data sources. They will also learn how to analyze the local, regional, and state-level economic data; and how to prepare themselves and their clients with basic digital skills. The first virtual course is being piloted with Ivy Tech Community College, Indianapolis, and career coach alumni from the Skillful Governor’s Coaching Corps training programs in Colorado and Indiana. We will work with our national and community partners including Goodwill, National Urban League, Rural LISC, UnidosUS and our network of state workforce partners, to get training and resources to career coaches and guidance counsellors. This work is done in partnership - and with thanks to - the State of Indiana Governor's Workforce Cabinet, Strada Education Network, Walmart, Microsoft, and Wipfli LLP. “Across the country, millions of our neighbors need a job, a better job or a career so they can support themselves and their households. When job seekers and career advancers courageously take action to transform their lives, a readily-available career coach can co-create bridges to opportunity. In a career coaching relationship, job seekers recognize their capabilities and interests, discover insights on local career options and jobs employers are looking to fill, and connect with training that equips them for careers with thriving wages - often while navigating the toughest times of their lives. By providing coaches with effective skills, we are equipping more job seekers and career advancers to successfully move into jobs that will allow them to thrive,” said Wendi Copeland, chief strategic partnership activation officer for Goodwill Industries International.” If you would like more information about training for career coaches for your organization, please email [email protected] See the Rework America Alliance’s Resume Builder tool that can help career coaches and job seekers build powerful skills-based resumes.
The Rework America Alliance aims to identify and provide guidance on affordable and effective training programs that provide unemployed and low-wage workers—a disproportionate share being workers of color—with the skills needed to move into good quality jobs that offer strong career mobility potential, where and if education and training is needed. The Alliance is utilizing a Job-2-Job approach to training that focuses on (1) education and training programs that develop the targeted learning and skills workers need to successfully obtain a specific good job that aligns with their interests; (2) the key outcomes from training programs that align to economic gains for workers, ensuring equitable outcomes along lines of race and other relevant demographics; and (3) the training guidance and tools to support coaches and workers in navigating an individual’s path towards obtaining a new job. These resources are critical to making pathways to economic security accessible to impacted workers, especially those with the greatest barriers to economic opportunity. Yellow boxes denote the key training components. Job-2-Job Skill Delta To identify the targeted learning and skills workers need to successfully obtain a specific good job, the Job-2-Job approach will conduct a behind the scenes analysis that identifies (1) the skills a worker has likely built in their most recent job; (2) the set of skills that a worker would need to successfully obtain a specific new job; and (3) the Skill Delta between (1) and (2). The Alliance will identify training programs that build the learning and skills identified by the Delta analysis. The below visual presents an illustrative, hypothetical Job-2-Job Skill Delta analysis. Draft Effectiveness Framework As part of this Alliance Job-2-Job approach, we are utilizing a Draft Effectiveness Framework. The Draft Framework aims to collect, organize, and present in an actionable way vital information on training programs to inform jobseekers’ navigation of the training landscape. The framework includes: Effectiveness metrics Key outcomes metrics that are important indicators of training programs’ success in preparing participants for good quality jobs. These metrics are grouped into two categories to indicate priority and value to the worker in supporting actionable decision making. Metrics and data will be disaggregated by race, gender, and other relevant demographics to ensure equitable outcomes. Effectiveness tiers A scheme of organizing programs based on their outcomes in different metrics to make navigation of effective programs by coaches and workers more readily accessible. Effectiveness data sources and validity A means of differentiating data based on the reliability of its source, while sourcing data from different places based on availability. The effectiveness framework aims to ensure that identified training opportunities do in fact lead to economic mobility. This protects workers, particularly the most economically vulnerable, from participating in programs that do not lead to jobs and ultimately leave them in no better economic position. This is a draft framework, and we invite you to provide feedback on the metrics, tiers, and data sources and validity. Please send input to [email protected] The components of the Job-2-Job approach will combine to create clear and actionable information on training programs to support coaches and workers in identifying a promising program to pursue: What’s Next: In the new year, the Alliance will work with our partners, collaborators, data experts, states, and other stakeholders to build resources that provide actionable, vital information on training options that succeed in preparing workers for good jobs with strong career mobility potential.
Developing and delivering the tools and resources needed in local communitiesWe are committed to connecting the resources of the Rework America Alliance with local communities in partnership with our delivery partners. We believe in-community delivery is important because we want to get the tools and resources of the Alliance into the hands of those who need them the most, particularly people of color, women, those working low-wage jobs and those without a bachelor’s degree, as quickly as possible. These local efforts are also nested within a broader delivery outreach strategy where we will make tools and resources available widely through Alliance channels. In the first half of 2021, we will begin the planning for our local community engagement, starting with efforts designed with four key Rework America Alliance partners, Goodwill, National Urban League, Rural LISC, and UnidosUS. Through this direct in-community engagement we will both make available the collective resources of the Alliance, such as labor market insights, guidance on effective training prioritization, coaching resources, and employer toolkits, and help our partners coordinate a robust workforce development ecosystem with key stakeholders such as local employers, training providers, and government agencies. During this process, we will also collect insights about what resources have the most impact and develop best practices to inform the work of the Alliance as we scale. “Goodwill Industries International’s partnership with Rework America Alliance is accelerating the way we connect job seekers to in-demand occupations with sustainable wages. Together, we will collaborate to modernize the workforce system to provide products and services to job seekers so they can excel in the evolving labor market.” Sonya N. Francis, Senior Director, Mission Innovation and Strategy, Goodwill Industries International Translating data from insight to action We believe it is crucial to harness the power of data to help individuals navigate this time of unprecedented job loss and uncertainty. Millions of workers develop extensive skills through their work experience, yet these skills often go unrecognized – both by employers and by workers themselves. Too many workers do not have the guidance to leverage their experiences to access a next job, let alone an in-demand job with greater income, resilience, and quality. When empowered with the right data, job coaches can far more effectively help job seekers access the right next opportunity – and employers can better recognize and value the experience of applicants. This Fall, the Alliance has focused on making labor market data actionable for the people and organizations (coaches, employers, unions, workforce systems, community advocacy groups, training providers, etc.) who support workers coming from lower-wage occupations, many of whom must rely on their experience rather than academic credentials to secure their next job. It is this “last mile” that makes all the difference in truly having an impact. Thanks to the diverse members of the Alliance, we are drawing on 360 degrees of perspective, capability, and frontline experience. What we have been doing We are developing analytics to enable worker-serving-organizations, employers, labor, and coaches to better support lower-wage workers in accessing good jobs and economic mobility. Crucially, we are shaping and validating the insights together with these organizations and the workers they support to be as useful as possible through the uncertainties of the economic recovery.
Dr. Christopher B. Howard became the eighth president of Robert Morris University in suburban Pittsburgh on February 1, 2016. A nationally ranked, doctoral granting institution, RMU enrolls approximately 5,000 students. Dr. Howard is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he earned a B.S. in political science in 1991. A Rhodes Scholar, he earned his doctorate in politics at the University of Oxford and an M.B.A. with distinction from the Harvard Business School. He is a recipient of the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award, which recognizes distinguished individuals on the 25th anniversary of the conclusion of their college athletic careers. Dr. Howard has received the Armed Forces Merit Award from the Football Writers Association of America. He is a member of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics and a former member of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. A retired Air Force reserve lieutenant colonel, Dr. Howard served as a helicopter pilot and then became an intelligence officer for the elite Joint Special Operations Command. Defense Secretary William Cohen asked Dr. Howard to accompany a 1999 U.S. delegation to South Africa as a political-military advisor. He was called back to active duty during 2003 in Afghanistan and was awarded the Bronze Star. Dr. Howard also served as the Reserve Air Attaché to Liberia. Prior to his appointment as president of RMU, Dr. Howard for six years was the president of Hampden- Sydney College, near Richmond, Va. During Dr. Howard’s tenure as president, enrollment, retention, and alumni giving increased. Previously he served as vice president for leadership and strategic initiatives at the University of Oklahoma, where he also served as the director of the Honors College Leadership Center and a President’s Associates Presidential Professor. Dr. Howard enjoyed a successful career in the corporate world, working at General Electric and Bristol- Myers Squibb. At both companies, Dr. Howard’s responsibilities included sales, marketing, international project management, strategic planning, internal consulting, and business development. Dr. Howard is highly sought after as a speaker by the nation’s premiere higher education organizations, including the College Board, the Education Advisory Board, Ruffalo Noel Levitz, and the National Association of College and University Business Officers. He has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. Dr. Howard has taught seminars in the Harvard Graduate School of Education Management Development Program and spoken at the Arizona State University-Georgetown University Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership. Dr. Howard is married to Barbara Noble Howard from Johannesburg, South Africa. Barbara is a Temple University graduate, director of the Impact Young Lives Foundation, a member of the Virginia War Memorial Board of Directors, and a trustee of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The Howards have two sons, Cohen and Joshua.
