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What is the Internet of Careers®?

A Glance

The way career data is being shared hasn’t been working. Resumes and CVs might be better than stone tablets—Leonardo da Vinci probably thought so, when he invented the first one in the late 1400s—but the HR and EdTech worlds really need to get with the times.

 

Hiring people based on what they say about their own skills, identity, and education credentials on their resume or their LinkedIn profile is terribly inefficient. Self-reported career records are unreliable and non-standardized. Misrepresentation is a common issue.

 

How the world exchanges career information is one of the biggest challenges in Human Capital Management. We’re so used to this chronic pain point that it was generally accepted as inevitable, and a 17 billion dollar resume screening and background checks industry resulted. But even this industry is unable to confirm all the many elements that comprise the holistic background and capabilities of an individual, and it’s fraught with its own challenges, resulting in cost and time inefficiencies. Tackling this fundamental challenge of a trusted exchange of career-related information has been too monumental in scale for the industry to contemplate. Until now.

 

Using the power of blockchain, the Velocity Network Foundation is building the solution to a 500-year-old problem. A new way to exchange employment experience, professional achievements, assessment reports, educational and certification data instantly, reliably, and cost-effectively. We’re doing so through a utility layer that connects human capital data processors around the world. The connected data processors run the distributed ledger and act as the consensus network that verifies records and ensures their self-sovereign management by individuals within digital wallets. An all-in-one network, in an open source, vendor-neutral platform, that’s governed by a collaborative, democratic, nonprofit foundation—that’s the Velocity Network Foundation.

 

In this platform, data is:

  • Verified and trusted. Credentials are digitally signed by the issuing authority.
  • Self-sovereign. Users have sole ownership and control over their records and personal data.
  • Secured. Built on a blockchain designed with the highest security in mind.
  • Cost-effective. Verified records are shared digitally, eliminating costly manual processes.
  • Interoperable, transparent, globally accessible, and portable.

This is the Internet of Careers®. It’s a new world of work that empowers people.

 

What will the Internet of Careers® mean for me?

If you’re an individual, you will be in control of your career data and with whom you share it. You’ll be able to assemble a comprehensive profile across all your education, training and employment experiences, fully controlled by you from your mobile device. By providing potential employers, recruiters, educational institutions, and service providers with this trusted, verifiable data, your skills, training, and experience can swiftly translate into genuine value in the labor market, and you can access better career and development opportunities.

 

For organizations, it will mean increased productivity. If you’re an employer looking to hire, you’ll be empowered with a more efficient and effective way of hiring. By applying analytics and AI to the trusted and now more comprehensive data from individuals’ profiles, you will be able to match people to roles much more accurately, recommend learning, education and development activities, and design bespoke talent management and retention activities.

 

Who is involved in launching it?

The cornerstone of the Internet of Careers® is its open ecosystem. Leading visionary organizations are collaborating to define, deploy, and champion this vendor-neutral, public utility layer—for the industry, by the industry. Global leaders from across HR Tech, Education Tech, gig and contingent workforce platforms, employment marketplaces, background and credential services, assessment and people insights providers, recruitment, development and advisory firms have come together to drive this vision forward.

 

As of today, member organizations include Aon’s Assessment Solutions, Cisive, Cornerstone On Demand, Credential Engine, Emsi, HireRight, Joynd, Korn Ferry, National Student Clearinghouse, Oracle, Randstad, Relias, SAP, SHL, SumTotal Systems, Ultimate Software, Unit4, Upwork, Velocity Career Labs, and ZipRecruiter.

 

The Velocity Network Foundation invites all industry incumbents to join us as we move to change the world of work.

Velocity Network is reinventing how career records are shared across the global market. We’re building the Internet of Careers®: a frictionless, open, democratic, collaborative way to manage career data.

 

We think Leonardo would be proud.

 

Photo by ELEVATE on Pexels