As the job market has evolved, so too have the skills required of seekers. But when 75% of human resources professionals say a skills shortage has made recruiting particularly challenging in recent months, it would appear as though the workforce hasn’t quite kept pace. Now LinkedIn is stepping in to help close the gap.



On Tuesday, the professional social network announced the launch of a “Skills Assessments” tool, through which users can put their knowledge to the test. Those who pass are given the opportunity to display a badge that reads “passed” next to the skill on their profile pages, a validation of sorts that LinkedIn hopes will encourage skills development among its users and help better match potential employees with the right employers. &nbsp;



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Not Just Equality, But Recognition Of Excellence (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2019/08/09/not-just-equality-but-recognition-of-excellence/" target="_blank">Not Just Equality, But Recognition Of Excellence</a>



“We see an evolving labor market and much more sophistication in how recruiters and hiring managers look for skills. &#8230; We also see a changing learning market,” says Hari Srinivasan, senior director of product management at LinkedIn Learning. “The combination of those two made us excited about changing our opportunity marketplace to make the hiring side and the learning side work better together.” 



So how exactly does it work? Let’s say a user wants to showcase her proficiency in Microsoft Excel. Rather than simply listing “Excel” in the skills section of her profile, she can take a multiple-choice test to demonstrate the extent to which she is an expert. 



If she aces the test, not only will a badge verifying her aptitude will appear on her profile, but she will be more likely to surface in searches by recruiters, who can search for candidates by skill in the same way they might do so by college or employer. If she fails, she can take the test again, but she’ll have to wait a few months—plenty of time to develop her skillset. &nbsp;&nbsp;



The tool has been in beta mode since March, and while just 2 million people have used it—a mere fraction of LinkedIn’s 630 million members—early results seem promising. According to LinkedIn, members who’ve completed skills assessments have been nearly 30% more likely to land jobs than their counterparts who did not take the tests.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Challenging The Gender Divide (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/opinion/2019/09/04/challenging-the-gender-divide/" target="_blank">Challenging The Gender Divide</a>



“This has been a really good way for members to represent what they know, what they are good at,” says Emrecan Dogan, LinkedIn group product manager.



While new to LinkedIn, the practice of assessing candidates’ skills has been a standard among hiring managers for decades. But when research commissioned by LinkedIn revealed that 69% of employees feel that skills have become more important to recruiters than education, LinkedIn felt as though this was the time to give job seekers the opportunity to prove themselves from the get-go.



As important as the hard skills that members can put to the test through LinkedIn’s new tool may be, Dawn Fay, senior district president at recruiting firm Robert Half, encourages those on both side of the job search not to forget the importance of soft skills. “You wouldn’t want to rule somebody in or out just based on how they did on one particular skill assessment,” she says. 



“Have another data point that you can use, question people about how they did on something and see if it’s something that can feed into the puzzle to find out if somebody is going to be a good fit.”



-Samantha Todd; Forbes

gettyimages-1084168538-170667a

How LinkedIn Is Looking To Help Close The Ever-Growing Skills Gap

Facebook is hiring a small team of journalists to help curate breaking news and repair its strained relationship with news publishers, the social media giant announced Tuesday. 



The company says it will employ journalists to select breaking news and top stories that will appear in its soon-to-be-launched feature called News Tab, rather than using algorithms to determine what is shared with its vast network of users.



With the move, Facebook is part of a growing trend in the tech industry. Apple, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and Snapchat have all employed journalists to help their companies sort through the news and cozy up to news organizations.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Facebook Recommits To A More Personalized Dating App, Your Privacy (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2019/05/02/facebook-recommits-to-a-more-personalized-dating-app-your-privacy/" target="_blank">Facebook Recommits To A More Personalized Dating App, Your Privacy</a>



Apple, for example, has used some form of human curation since its subscription Apple News app launched in 2015. In June 2017, the company hired former New York magazine executive editor Lauren Kern as the app’s editor-in-chief. Twitter has also employed some form of human news curation since 2015. 



Even with a team of in-house journalists, companies like Twitter continue to struggle in the fight against misinformation. On Monday, Twitter announcedit will no longer accept advertising from state-controlled media, in large part as a response to the discovery that China ran a misinformation campaign to combat Hong Kong protesters. 



Facebook, facing similar scrutiny for the same Chinese misinformation campaign, said that employing journalists will help “surface more high quality news.”



“Our goal with the News tab is to provide a personalized, highly relevant experience for people,” Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships said in a statement sent to Forbes. “The majority of stories people will see will appear in the tab via algorithmic selection. To start, for the Top News section of the tab we’re pulling together a small team of journalists to ensure we’re highlighting the right stories.”



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Google, Facebook, Twitter Fail To Live Up To Fake News Pledge (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/02/28/google-facebook-twitter-fail-to-live-up-to-fake-news-pledge/" target="_blank">Google, Facebook, Twitter Fail To Live Up To Fake News Pledge</a>



Facebook says the team will take into account user controls, pages and publisher as well as the news that users interact with or share,&nbsp;and other unnamed signals from its vast network to personalize content.&nbsp;



The company has been under pressure to mitigate its misinformation problem since it was revealed in 2016 that Russian operatives carried out a misinformation campaign in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” on the network, as it was described by special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.



The Mueller Report found that Russia spent $1.25 million per month on digital advertisements in an effort to sow discord in the U.S. and influence the presidential election. On Monday, Facebook came under fire for taking money from China to spread disinformation about Hong Kong protests.



The social media giant remains an important part of many Americans lives, much more than its rivals Twitter and Snapchat. According to Pew Research, about 69% of American adults use Facebook, and of those who use it, about 74% visit the site once a day. By comparison, only one in five U.S. adults (22%) use Twitter.



According to a survey conducted in 2018, about four in ten (43%) U.S. adults get at least some news from Facebook.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="How To Use Twitter To  Boost Your Business (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2017/09/22/use-twitter-boost-business/" target="_blank">How To Use Twitter To  Boost Your Business</a>



In January 2017, Facebook hired Campbell Brown, a former television news anchor, to lead its news partnerships team. She remains a key figure in easing the tension between large national news outlets—those who have historically provided an endless trove of free content for the social media giant—and the company.



Publishing executives have slammed Facebook for siphoning advertising revenue away from traditional news publishers while also demanding that those same companies provide content for free. Following years of backlash, the social media company is now trying to work with publishers to create a more even relationship.



Facebook’s news partnership program involves deals that are potentially worth millions of dollars. The Wall Street Journal reports that several news outlets including the Washington Post, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, and the New York Times have discussed receiving as much as $3 million per year to license news content.



The News Tab, which has not been publicly viewed, is being positioned in stark contrast to the company’s Trending Topics news section, which shut down in 2016 following increasing pressure from users.



In 2016, the tech website Gizmodo published an article alleging contractors hired to curate the now-defunct Trending Topics feed were actively suppressing conservative news stories. In a letter to Congress, Facebook said, “We could not reconstruct reliable data logs from before December 2014, so were unable to examine each of the reviewer decisions from that period,” thus suggesting that it may have very well suppressed conservative news when the tool first launched.



-Michael Nuñez; Forbes

gettyimages-904274222-170667a

Facebook Joins Other Tech Giants In Employing Journalists To Curate News

Where would we be without globalization? What if media was restricted to reporting within its own national boundaries? What if we all lived in isolation? It’s a scary picture and one where humanity would have not progressed as broadly as it has.
To fellow African entrepreneurs, I want to say one thing: the more you are exposed to, the bigger you can dream.
Industrialization progressed by further developing what had been done before. Only after working with renowned inventor Thomas Edison, could Nikola Tesla go on to create his own inventions.
Andrew Carnegie worked under the leading businessman, Thomas A. Scott. This mentorship allowed Carnegie to define an era by starting a generation of industrialists, pioneering the philanthropic movement, and becoming an epitome of self-development.
The key word here is exposure.
There are countless occasions where entrepreneurs only discovered their flair by observing other entrepreneurs or studying companies that transformed industries. Some even became competitors of their former employers.
Adrian Gore, the Founder of Discovery Holdings, was exposed to the dealings of the insurance sector early in his career. He worked for Liberty Life but resigned to build his own insurance company. Today, Discovery is the leading medical insurance company in South Africa.
Isn’t it surprising that many companies were started by entrepreneurs who thought they could do it better? Deciding to improve something can shape your destiny. Decisions like these act as the force that pushes us on in our lives.
Look at the former employees of PayPal – today known as the PayPal Mafia. After leaving the famous tech company, these individuals went on to found and fund other mammoth companies like LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Tesla, SpaceX and they are not finished. At the moment, they are investing in Artificial Intelligence.
These gentlemen were exposed to a revolutionary business and they now all share a drive to change the world as we know it to a better world, one that they see in their minds.
Exposure can give you something other than experience, it can also get you through certain doors that were previously shut. Let’s look at two entrepreneurs; both are looking to seal separate deals. Entrepreneur X closes a $1.8 billion deal, while entrepreneur Y gets a $274,000 deal.
Both worked tirelessly to get these deals but the rewards are not the same. It is likely that entrepreneur X has been exposed to certain levels, while entrepreneur Y was operating independently. They might have both known about the $1.8 billion deal, but knowing about it does not mean you have access to it. You need to run in certain circles to get exposed to deals that involve other entrepreneurs in those circles.
What led Aliko Dangote to manufacturing? While trading commodities, he took note of the huge market in Nigeria and decided it was better to manufacture what he was importing.
Before founding Apple, a 12-year-old Steve Jobs landed a summer job at HP and the rest is history. It is this type of exposure that allows entrepreneurs to gravitate towards their destinies.
If you look at the rain, you will never plant. Get out there; attend conferences, travel to various countries, network with successful business leaders and read as much as you can. Whatever you are exposed to can only broaden your current view on the world around you.
By exposing yourself, you also expose your company to other markets and greater opportunities.
You can’t afford to stand idly by and wait for everything to fall in place. Business, and life, is a fight for territory – the moment you stop fighting for what you want, is the moment you will have lost.

Nothing was Achieved  by Being Idle

It’s a question that had to be answered sooner or later, the silent question in most entrepreneurs’ minds. It’s a topic I have  discussed privately, but now it’s something I think should be explored publicly.
If you look at the tech capitals of the world – Silicon Valley, Seoul and Tel Aviv – you won’t find any globally renowned black technology entrepreneurs.
It concerns me that a black entrepreneur has not come up with a major breakthrough in technology and gained a personal net worth of over a billion dollars as a result. Bear in mind, I did not say millions as there are many around today who are worth that.
Money is not the defining criteria though. To get to the bottom of this question we need to look at innovation, an idea that took the world by storm like WhatsApp.
Being African is also not in question, the continent has entrepreneurs such as Mark Shuttleworth and Elon Musk who have delivered powerful tech innovations and have billions in their pocket to prove it.
In order to answer the question, we need to confront three issues, cronyism, racism and nepotism. Firstly, they exist; we can’t run away from them.
Nepotism is a global issue. Everyone supports who they know, even people of color. This means that the success of a previous generation cascades to the generation that follows. This continues any race’s probability of success.
Many believe that racism is preventing black Africans from rising to the top. This belief is wrong. Asians and Jews at one point suffered tremendous discrimination, but they succeeded despite that challenge. Today, those two ethnicities are leading the business world.
Another challenge faced by many tech companies started by black entrepreneurs is the moment they come up with an idea, they are immediately thinking of ways to monetize it. You have to make money because you have bills to pay and there is the pressure of friends and family members wanting to see the fruit of what you have been working on.
At the main goal of the most successful tech companies, like Google, Quora and LinkedIn, their main goal was to get  as many people to use their technology as possible. Once that was achieved, they started to figure out how to make money from them. WhatsApp and Quora are still trying to figure this out, but they have millions of users to work with.
Investors in the United States encourage that. You need to attract interest first, monetization will be figured out afterwards and together. The message is that they will give you money if you can show your users have an active interest. Unfortunately, this is not the case in all countries around the world.
I believe Africans are brilliant. We, however, need an ecosystem that can be supportive for all ethnicities on the continent, not just black people. Nairobi and Cape Town are beacons in Africa for the vibrant tech ecosystem they have enabled in their cities. These ecosystems were largely built by the entrepreneurs themselves.
There are two black entrepreneurs who started major technology companies that should be mentioned, David Steward from the United States and Mike Adenuga from Nigeria. Steward runs World Wide Technology, the largest black-owned company in America, with revenue of $7.4 billion in 2015. World Wide Technology is tech service based.
Adenuga, with a personal worth of $3.8 billion, runs telecommunication company Globacom, with over 30 million subscribers. It is not a global brand and it doesn’t have to be.
My point is Africans are created equally and have conquered almost every industry. Competing with the rest of the world should be a challenge, not a competition. Let’s collaborate, with each other and counterparts of all backgrounds, to advance this world technologically.

Where Is The Black Mark Zuckerberg?

A recent study from the 50,000-member strong B2B Technology Marketing community on LinkedIn showed that 85% of B2B Marketers say LinkedIn is the most effective social network in delivering content. That study also showed that 71% of B2B Marketers say audience relevance is the most important element of content marketing and 88% of B2B Marketers cite case studies as the most effective form content marketing.
Yet, most business owners and most marketing, sales and business development professionals have a LinkedIn profile that reads like a resume. Their profiles do not show why a decision-maker or influencer should connect with them. Right there, they are not demonstrating their relevance. And, they’re not effectively showing their relevance in the content they are sharing.
Let me show you how four women are effectively using content and LinkedIn to generate more leads and profits.
<h4>How the founder of Wizard Media gained hundreds of leads and $60,000 by mixing content marketing with LinkedIn marketing</h4>
If you look at the profile of Jimena Cortes, you’ll notice we’ve included case studies. For example, you’ll find a case study on how Jimena built a Neiman Marcus jewelry designer’s Facebook community to 45,000 members in nine months (something retailers would find very interesting). Within that case study, Jimena shows why her strategies took the client from 600 fans to 45,000 fans, zero engagement to capturing 37% of her fans’ information and from zero sales to $12,000 in three days.
Because her profile has content that resonates with her targeted audiences – her targeted audiences are accepting her LinkedIn connection. They’re joining her LinkedIn groups where she offers more content. The profile attracted a prospect that was ready, willing and able to spend $36,000 per year on her services.
Plus, when Jimena completes an email lead generation campaign through LinkedIn (using LinkedIn groups) about an upcoming webinar, prospects are signing up because they see that she has value to offer just by looking at her profile. By mixing LinkedIn marketing with webinar marketing (a form of content marketing), Jimena gained an additional $60,000 for her business last year.
<h4>IT marketing firm gains four new clients fast by challenging the way software and technology companies market their solutions</h4>
Conversion Copywriting President Susan Tatum creates thought leadership content for her clients so they can attract more prospects. But she was creating the same old, boring topics on her own blog. She was writing about topics like “Wow to write an awesome white paper”, “Why tech marketers must have a blog” and “Five signs you’re talking to the wrong content writer.” She was writing for the search engines – but she wasn’t writing content that would position her as an influencer within the different social media circles she belonged to, including LinkedIn. LinkedIn members are savvy, educated professionals, who are constantly looking for new and original ideas and ways of conducting business. As there are thousands of LinkedIn groups with hundreds of discussions happening every single day, your content will get ignored if you are providing the same old, regurgitated content that’s already all over the web. By creating thought-provoking blog posts, special reports and discussions that literally open the eyes of technology marketers inside her own Linked-In group and inside the 50 targeted groups she belongs to, Susan increased her website traffic by 300%. She went from zero LinkedIn shares to 90+ LinkedIn shares. And, she was able to recently gain four new clients including a company that serves 86% of the Fortune 100.
<h4>International coaching firm attracts more women business owners by telling stories</h4>
While working with Zee Worstell, President of AccelerateHer, I discovered that she and her clients had amazing stories to tell. Zee’s expertise is in showing women business owners how to price themselves appropriately. She knows first-hand how hard this is because she came across this issue when she was growing her recruiting business. When she was starting out, she would lower her prices in order to secure a client and wound up earning less than she was worth. This backfired because prospects would doubt her work because she was priced significantly lower than her competition. She was turning off prospects just by lowering her fees – and the clients she did get failed to show her respect. So, we had Zee create blog posts that discussed the “good girl beliefs” that held her back as a woman business owner. She discussed her own confidence issues within the articles and the mistakes she made. She also writes articles where she discusses the challenges her clients faced – and she tells their complete story and how they’ve become successful. As on average, women business owners make 45% less than male business owners, her target audience resonated with the discussions that were being created based on the blog posts. In fact, when she spoke to many of her LinkedIn connections on the phone (as she took the LinkedIn conversation offline) they felt like she was writing and speaking directly to them. As a result they signed up for her coaching program.
&nbsp;
<h4>How the author of this article mixed LinkedIn marketing and content marketing to gain more PR, more exposure and more leads</h4>
You are reading this article right now because I invited the editor to connect and to join my Get Help with Linked Strategies LinkedIn group so she can see the value I have to offer her readers. After reviewing my LinkedIn discussions and blog posts, she asked me to write the article that you’re reading right now. How many leads do you think I’ll generate by being on one of the top business websites? Now, offer real value, challenge your prospects, start thought-provoking conversations, showcase your expertise by sharing case studies, demonstrate your relevance and connect with your audience with stories. And you will generate more leads with LinkedIn.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Tag: LinkedIn

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

How LinkedIn Is Looking To Help Close The Ever-Growing Skills Gap

Facebook Joins Other Tech Giants In Employing Journalists To Curate News

Nothing was Achieved by Being Idle

Where Is The Black Mark Zuckerberg?

LinkedIn with content marketing