New Viasto study suggests most job seekers are already skilled enough for digital workplaces

July 23, 2019
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The clear majority of German employees feel prepared for the changes in a digital workplace - at least, that's the result of a representative study by Europe's leading video recruiting provider, Viasto, which surveyed over 1,000 people. 

According to its report, 84% of the respondents are sure to be valuable employees for employers even in a digital workplace. In return, the respondents are flexible and adapt to a world of work in which they will change their careers several times. Three-quarters of all employees (75%) are even explicitly interested in such a career change - for the youngest candidates (18-29 years), the corresponding proportion is even 85%. For 60% of study participants, changes of this kind are natural side effects of working life. 

"Currently, almost every job is changing. This trend is intensified by digitization. Today's elementary school students will later work in jobs that currently do not exist. That requires flexibility from the workers of the future. In the future they will do more to develop skills during working life. The professional or academic training prepares students less and less for their nebulous careers. Our study shows that employees are increasingly adapting to this development," says Sara Lindemann, Co-founder of Viasto. 

Interestingly, according to the Viasto study, applicants already bring 85% of the core competencies for a job when they start with an employer. Accordingly, many applicants indicate that on average they have acquired just over two (2.04) out of thirteen competences they have asked for in the job itself rather than during their training. The leader among these few is expertise (47%), while other skills such as digital literacy (20%), analytical skills (13%) or empathy (6%) were mentioned by only a few candidates in this context.

"This partial result contains interesting information for employers. After all, they ultimately choose their candidates precisely according to the skills they learn from their own experience but only on the job. The best example of this is the specialist competence that almost half of the employees acquire on the job," explains Sara Lindemann.

An interesting view of the importance of digital skills from the point of view of employees, which are rapidly gaining importance as an indispensable professional skill. For example, nearly half of respondents (45%) rated them as unimportant in their past jobs. For today's working life, however, 95% of participants consider it to be an important skill, 53% even labeling it as 'very important'. In the future going forward, 96% expect digital skills to be necessary for work, and 78% consider it absolutely indispensable. 

In a small but not negligible part of the study participants, there is the concern that digitalization, for example through artificial intelligence, could have a negative impact on their profession. After all, 19% and thus almost one in five are afraid of being left behind in their job. By contrast, 40% of respondents are completely unaware - 43% of 18 to 29 year-olds. 

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July 23, 2019

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