If you think you need a certain degree to be considered for a new role or a shift in your career, this may not be the case at all anymore. Graduate recruitment levels have dropped and more and more businesses are switching to skills-based hiring - in fact, LinkedIn saw 40% of hirers use skills data when hiring through their platform. Buzzwords like “upskilling” and “reskilling” illustrate the increased focus companies are putting on the significant and measurable results that come with investing in training their employees, which means that now is an important time to think strategically about where you’re headed and what your career goals are.
Although mass layoffs and hiring freezes are affecting nearly every industry, according to Gallup, it’s in a company’s best interests to retain its top talent as the expense of replacing a salaried employee can be up to two times the employee’s annual salary.
So how can you leverage these trends to your benefit? Here are our top predictions for skills to make you indispensable in 2023 and to help propel your career to new heights.
Analytical thinking and innovation are more valued now than ever before. By definition, data science is the refining of data to make it useful. During the pandemic, we saw this skill at work, refining massive amounts of raw data to help detect and monitor the spread of a highly contagious virus. Needed in every job sector, not just tech, data scientists hit an all-time high of base pay last year according to Glassdoor. This trend shows no signs of slowing down in 2023, with some of the top data science skills hiring managers will be looking for, including:
Data visualization skills, or the ability to present data visually in graphs or images, are critical to presenting data in a way that optimizes cognitive retention and trust. In fact, learners who are provided with illustrations perform 323% better than those who follow text-only directions. Even simple graphs improve perceptions of accuracy and truthfulness to 97%. The augmented and virtual reality (VR) tech sector alone is expected to reach USD 88.4 billion by 2026! Some companies will never return to a fully on-site workforce and many more offer hybrid working environments, making it more critical than ever to provide accessible, impactful data, leading to an increased demand for data visualization skills. The top characteristics of data visualization skills are:
As experts in workforce training and development, we aren’t surprised to see this one here! Many companies have not evolved their learning and training programs over time. In remote or hybrid workforce environments, employers must provide employees with continuous learning opportunities and the ability to practice those skills. We’ll see a continued rise in self-paced learning, microlearning, social learning, and gamification as well as peer-to-peer learning. Incorporating VR, gamification, video, and mobile learning means that there are hard skills that will be needed and valued in this category in 2023 as they aid in great knowledge retention and adoption in the corporate environment.
Programming is quickly becoming a critical skill in more sectors than just tech. It’s a foundational skill that can be built on to help you learn new technologies, more comprehensively understand the IT project lifecycle, develop abstract thinking skills, write your own code and simple algorithms, and more. Here are some of the top programming languages according to the TIOBE Index’s monthly report:
Shockingly, there are some things that machines just can’t do as well as humans. With up to 30% of our working time being automated by 2030, truly human services will be more valuable and in-demand than ever. While they may sound basic, these soft skills can be improved with focused attention and can help candidates stand out to hiring managers in 2023:
The time to invest in your professional development is now. The half-life of a skill is estimated at just five years, and with massive change and growth happening, not just in tech, but across all industries, there is no time like the present to ensure you’re competitive in today’s workplace and the workplace of tomorrow. Learn more about how we help critical industries deliver dynamic, results-driven learning and training opportunities to their workforce.
