The Penn Foster Blog

It's a truth not yet universally acknowledged that skills are more important than degrees in today's economy. Proactive employers are reworking job postings and hiring processes to bring in applicants with the right aptitudes. They're also training workers to improve vital competencies. It's a step in the right direction. But are employers doing enough?

As a veterinary practice owner, manager, or executive, you want to provide the best care possible for your clients and patients. But you can't do it alone. Providing quality care in the modern veterinary health care market requires a whole team of qualified staff. The American Veterinary Medical Association has been promoting the concept of a veterinary health care team for years, and with good reason. 

When you think customer service, you might think about such industries as retail, hospitality, and restaurants. In these industries, training workers in customer service is essential. At the same time, almost every industry could benefit from workers who have customer service training. 

When the average person thinks about manufacturing, they picture huge multinational corporations with hundreds of employees. However, most manufacturing companies are small businesses with fewer than 20 employees. If you're running one of those small manufacturing facilities, you know first-hand how difficult it can be to find qualified employees. 

Veterinary medicine is a booming industry. With an estimated 67% of US households claiming at least one pet in the American Pet Products Association (APPA) biennial survey, there's no question that veterinary practices, both private and corporate, should be booming. However, with an influx of new pet owners, it's difficult for practices, small and large, to keep up with appointments and quality patient care without credentialed veterinary technicians on board. 

The gig economy, the free market system in which temporary positions are common, has grown exponentially in the past decade, from 10.1% in 2005 to 15.8% in 2015.1 The growth of this industry falls to the development of new technologies that enable transactions directly between providers and consumers and the increasing disinterest in acquiring traditional 9-5 jobs.1 More than ever before, people are filling temporary roles including working as handymen, cultivating content as freelance writers, and performing administrative work.Despite the temporary nature of these roles, they often require new skill sets to be learned. Free educational services and skills development programs provided through libraries have become critical to job placement and advancement for many gig positions and demand continues to increase.

A well-developed job posting is the first step toward attracting the right talent to fill open positions. With a yawning skills gap, and a plummeting unemployment rate, quality job postings are more important than ever. If you're still repurposing the same job postings you used a decade ago, you're probably missing great candidates. 

The time has come to rethink hiring. If your company is using the same processes and requirements it was using 10 years ago, you're probably struggling to find qualified candidates. You're not alone. Businesses of all sizes are finding jobs hard to fill. Tech giants like Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon are no exception. 

By now most corporations recognize that the United States is facing a skills gap. Yet there are still some people who refuse to believe the skills gap exists. While it's tempting to claim that these skills gap deniers have some political agenda that can only succeed if the skills gap is proven false, the reality is that most people who don't believe in the skills gap are looking at the problem too narrowly. 

While libraries have significantly evolved over the last decade to become more technologically advanced, they have also progressed considerably when it comes to providing educational services to their patrons. This is especially important in a time when 73% of American adults consider themselves lifelong learners.1 Nick Buron, Chief Librarian at a location that serves nearly 2.3 million patrons, takes it one step further and insists that lifelong learning is "no longer a luxury " it is a necessity."