How to tap hidden global talent
This post discusses the need to recruit and hire from untapped talent pools to enable greater diversity, inclusion, and economic growth. It highlights barriers preventing employers from accessing these talent pools and proposes using the theory of change canvas and rolemodel web application to tap hidden global talent pools.
October 2023 update: rolemodel-o has been iterated to VeteranGPT.com for junior military officers.
Introduction
In today’s rapidly evolving global workforce, it is important to recognize and harness the untapped potential of skilled talent pools. As a US Army veteran, I recognize the unique skills and perspectives that veterans bring to the civilian labor force.
However, this realization has led me to think about the vast array of untapped talent segments that often go overlooked in our pursuit of diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), and economic growth.
In this post, I highlight some of the structural barriers preventing employers from accessing skilled talent pools and how we can unleash their potential for greater DEI and economic growth effects.
In a previous post, I referenced this 2022 Forbes article highlighting 200 of “America’s Best Employers for Veterans.” My key takeaway is that companies want to hire veterans, which likely contributes to record-low veteran unemployment and mission-driven business outcomes.
I argue that a similar employer want or desire is needed to enable global untapped talent career development and recruitment. In this case, “untapped talent” refers to at least 19 skilled worker categories that may be missing hours, missing from work, or missing from the workforce.
Additionally, I propose using the theory of change canvas and rolemodel web application to operationalize employers’ perceived desire for diverse and inclusive talent management. The desire to hire untapped talent should be motivated by the below UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 and targets:
UN SDG 8
Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
UN SDG 8 Targets
8.3 Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services
8.5 By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value
Theory of change canvas overview
The theory of change canvas is a tool based on the theory of change framework. This framework evolved from a field of program theory and program evaluation in the 1990s and has roots in 1950s management by objectives literature.
In short, a theory of change is:
a theory of how and why an initiative works
The canvas I used is divided into seven areas guided by the below questions.
rolemodel web app overview
The current version of rolemodel is a web app for veterans that have trouble starting and continuing their civilian career transition. We help connect them to meaningful career paths through highly personalized career exploration and role discovery.
What is the problem we are trying to solve?
There are multiple structural barriers preventing employers from accessing untapped talent pools. These barriers range from skills gaps to exclusive applicant and recruitment management systems and misidentified corporate motivations like charity instead of competitive advantage.
For example, in this 2021 HBS report, 88% of employers said that qualified, highly skilled candidates were excluded from the initial hiring process because they didn’t match the exact job description criteria. Notably, this number rose to 94% for middle-skilled workers.
For this challenge, rolemodel focuses on helping employers execute inclusive and unbiased hiring practices targeting untapped talent segments like (Figure 3):
Caregivers, veterans, immigrants and refugees, those with physical disabilities, and relocating partners and spouses. They also include people with mental health or developmental/neurodiversity challenges, those from less advantaged populations, people who were previously incarcerated, and those without traditional qualifications.
We also use an inclusive framework and dataset accounting for a wide range of job role competencies present across the Figure 3 categories.
Who is our key audience?
Our stakeholders include untapped talent segments in the US, UK, and German labor markets, comprising approximately 77 million workers. We chose veterans as our initial entry point, which I discuss in the following section.
Our 2030 vision focuses on improved youth employment outcomes in Sub-saharan Africa. In this vision, we support hundreds of millions of young people who are unemployed, underemployed, or vulnerably employed.
What is the entry point to reaching our audience?
As an MVP stage startup, our entry point is the transition from military to civilian life. Veterans are currently testing our civilian career exploration and role discovery solution and validating our recent GPT 3.5 (roles to consider) and USAJOBS API (roles to apply for) integrations.
Additionally, we are working with veterans to better understand their unique career transition challenges and provide personalized support beyond MVP role matching. This support includes role-targeted resumes, networking insights, and interview preparation.
Over the next few months, we’ll develop B2B ideal customer profiles (ICP) to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of businesses’ veteran recruitment programs. This profile should enable future pilots and strategic partnerships to achieve product — market fit and widespread commercial adoption endgame.
What steps are needed to bring about change?
Helping employers adopt hiring practices focused on creating more access for veterans is a key step for us. Hiring practices can be assessed from obstacles, pain points, and jobs-to-be-done lenses, making our support more concentrated and efficient.
On the demand side, we enable small, medium, and large enterprises with our end-to-end solution that helps employers manage diverse talent through:
● Highly compatible untapped talent sourcing
● Direct candidate engagement, recruitment, and hiring
● Internal role exploration for higher retention
What are the measurable effects and wider benefits of our work?
For businesses, measurable effects include reduced loss of productivity and logistical employee turnover costs. We can also measure how benefits like meaningful work, career advancement, and well-being increase employee productivity, retention, and business outcomes. Importantly, we believe this strategy is repeatable and scalable across untapped regional talent (supply) and SME (demand) segments.
What is the long-term change we see as our goal?
Our goal is changing the structural mechanisms of interactions preventing qualified people from getting jobs — our goal nests with UN SDG 8 along with its targets and indicators. We’ll continue iterating our MVP and learning from our customers to reach our long-term goal.
Conclusion
Tapping global talent across the categories discussed likely supports goals at all levels. Businesses can adjust their hiring practices to screen in candidates from diverse talent pools to reduce skills shortages and labor turnover costs. Additionally, re-absorbing these populations into the workforce positively impacts job creation, entrepreneurship, and innovation.
By leveraging innovative tools such as the theory of change canvas and the rolemodel web application, we can bridge the gap between employers and untapped global talent. These tools can drive us closer to achieving sustainable economic growth and creating a workforce that values and embraces diversity.
The current version of rolemodel uses a civilian career quiz with over 200 standardized data points to help job seekers discover hidden opportunities, network effectively, and submit competitive applications.
Future versions will include a talent marketplace where candidates and employers can connect directly based on quantifiable role and company culture compatibility metrics.
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Victor is a former US Army Officer and experienced international defense consultant. He has worked as a training facilitator in over 20 European countries since 2013. Victor is currently an entrepreneur and certified professional resume writer working with Europe-based transitioning military members. His interests include talent management, machine learning, and writing children’s books.