Microsoft said it had helped more than 30 million people worldwide access digital skills, surpassing its original target of 25 million sets last June. The organization is expanding its commitment to help 250,000 companies hire new employees in 2021 based on their skills.

Since the announcement of the initiative in 2020, more than 27,000 people in Bulgaria have already used the resources to build digital competencies. The news about the expansion of the program is described in detail in the official blog of Microsoft. The company’s efforts to help are being upgraded by extending access to free LinkedIn Learning and Microsoft Learn courses and accessible certifications to 10 of the most sought-after jobs by the end of 2021. The next step of the initiative lays a new foundation for a skills-based economy through a set of new tools and platforms designed to connect skilled job seekers with employers. the Microsoft President Brad Smith said:

“Over the past year, we’ve seen the pandemic hit the hardest people, who can bear it the least. We are consolidating our commitment at LinkedIn and Microsoft with new efforts to support a more inclusive, skills-based labor market, creating more alternatives, more flexibility and affordable curricula that will make it easier to find a new job.”

LinkedIn plans to help 250,000 companies hire new employees by offering new and existing products to support the process. The company will provide new ways for job seekers to show off their skills and will give employers new tools to connect with candidates based on their competencies. These funds include:

• LinkedIn Skills Path is a new way to help companies hire skills-based staff. It combines LinkedIn Learning courses with Skill Assessments to help select candidates in a more objective way – based on their proven skills. LinkedIn has launched the Skills Path pilot program with various companies committed to expanding their hiring practices to better include candidates with diverse backgrounds. Among these companies are BlackRock, Gap Inc. and TaskRabbit.
• The new descriptive and personalized features of the LinkedIn account will help people share more about themselves, their careers and goals in a more authentic and engaging way. This includes a video version of the presentation of the so-called “Cover Story“, which allows job seekers to show their soft skills to managers responsible for hiring employees. 75% of them believe that the standard summary is not enough to assess the candidate’s skills, and almost 80% believe that the video has become more important in terms of assessing the candidates.
• LinkedIn’s expanded access to the Skills Graph will help create a common language for skills for individuals, employers, educational institutions and government agencies, and will help improve planning, hiring and development programs. of the workforce.

Microsoft is involving every part of the company to support LinkedIn to enable everyone to build digital skills. This applies to Career Coach, a Microsoft Teams application supported by LinkedIn. To personalize guidelines for higher education students to help you navigate your career. Career Coach offers educational institutions a publicly available career solution for students with the help of finding their goals, interests and skills using an AI-based identifier and integration with LinkedIn. The overall profile of the student is presented in accordance with the trends of the labour market and helps to develop real-world skills and connect with mentors and peers. Ryan Roslanski, CEO of LinkedIn said:

“For a long time, the way a person finds a new job is based mostly on the position he has so far, the diploma he has and the people he knows. This is starting to change. Employees are now better at breaking down and talking about both the skills they are attracted to and the skills they need. At the same time, employers are now looking not only for these familiar formal characteristics listed, but also for skills that people from neglected communities acquire and can benefit from the job. We want to accelerate the process of this change. Since June last year, Microsoft and LinkedIn have helped more than 30 million people worldwide acquire new digital skills. Today we are expanding our commitment and in 2021 we will help 250,000 companies hire people in the database for your skills. “

As part of this initiative, Microsoft works closely with non-profit partners to provide comprehensive mentoring support and networking opportunities for more than 6 million users. The company is announcing a new online service, Career Connector, which aims to find employment for 50,000 people in positions using technology over the next three years. This new online platform will focus on learners who have built skills through Microsoft’s nonprofit and learning partners, with a focus on women and underrepresented communities in technologies.