Taking Control of Our Career Identity
It is clear that the metaphor of climbing the career ladder is no longer valid. A more relevant metaphor already in use is one of a journey, with numerous options to follow different career paths at different times. Indeed, sometimes we take time away from our careers altogether, or follow an entirely different model of work.
More than 50% of millennial workers are already freelancing and, in 2019, over one third of the US workforce, freelanced.
Whilst the term given to our career as it spans out in front of us is not fixed, what is certain is that we acquire new skills, competencies and talents all the time. Some of these acquired skills or qualifications may be essential in our current role – but not as relevant in our next role. Nonetheless, they are important to us, and we need to retain the history of what we have learned and when.
With the general digitisation of much of our lives and, in particular, our job hunting, how unusual that we still rely on a resume as a way of collating and documenting our skills, qualifications and accreditations. We search for a new role via apps, apply online, often asked to complete assessments on our phone, are interviewed via video and communicated with the hiring company through email. And yet, we submit a perfectly formatted resume with our details!
There are mixed reactions to resumes by talent acquisition professionals – partly as there is often doubt to the accuracy of the information included. Different reports suggest differing levels of the extent of ‘exaggeration’ by applicants concerning qualifications, degree institutions and achievements, sometimes as high at 80%. And it doesn’t go unnoticed. More than half of hiring managers say they have a sneaking suspicion about the accuracy of resumes. Background checks are commonplace but they only do so much, and are costly to the hiring organization.
Is it time that applicants take control to prove their accreditations, and curate them in a single digital place access to which they can give to relevant talent decision makers?
We think it is. And that is why we are proud to be a founding member of the Velocity Network Foundation to build the first ‘Internet of Careers’ using blockchain.
The Velocity Network intends to be the world’s network for verified and trusted career credentials, designed for the digital age. Individuals will be able to take ownership of their verified career credentials, choose whether to share them and decide how that data is to be used. At the same time, organizations will be able to rely on trusted, immutable and verified applicant, candidate, employee and student data, seamlessly and cost effectively eliminating hiring risks.
The Velocity Network is a governed by a collaborative, democratic, non-profit foundation set out to put people back in control and build a globally accessible, trustworthy ‘Internet of Careers’.
Dr Achim Preuss, Aon Assessment Solutions comments:
“We are proud to be part of this initiative alongside other trailblazing innovators. Together we will build a new reality of self-sovereign career identity.”
Learn more in this Video featuring each of the 15 founding members and visit the Velocity website – www.velocitynetwork.foundation
This article originally appeared on Aon.com