The Myth of the Skills Gap – MIT Technology Review

The idea that American workers are being left in the dust because they lack technological savvy does not stand up to scrutiny. Our focus should be on coordination and communication between workers and employers.

Source: The Myth of the Skills Gap – MIT Technology Review

Liz Ryan, a popular HR expert on LinkedIn, posted this article from Fall 2017. The main thing that I gathered from this is that the “lack of job skills” line is hooey. What’s truly lacking, according to this article’s author, is soft skills like being able to read and write well. While this is seemingly a universal gap, it’s something that technical communicators should be able to fill the void. High level reading and writing is a huge part of what we do, so this could be a reason why technical communication is growing.

So, when you are job searching and feel like you can’t find anything suitable, don’t despair (or don’t despair completely). If you are a technical writer or communicator, then you have the soft skills that a lot of STEM jobs are lacking, but you have some of that, too. You can fill a need somewhere–it’s just a question of what’s the best fit.

What do you think of this article? Include your comments below.

–TechCommGeekMom

Author: TechCommGeekMom

Danielle M. Villegas is a technical communicator who currently employed at Cox Automotive, Inc., and freelances as her own technical communications consultancy, Dair Communications. She has worked at the International Refugee Committee, MetLife, Novo Nordisk, BASF North America, Merck, and Deloitte, with a background in content strategy, web content management, social media, project management, e-learning, and client services. Danielle is best known in the technical communications world for her blog, TechCommGeekMom.com, which has continued to flourish since it was launched during her graduate studies at NJIT in 2012. She has presented webinars and seminars for Adobe, the Society for Technical Communication (STC), the IEEE ProComm, TCUK (ISTC) and at Drexel University’s eLearning Conference. She has written articles for the STC Intercom, STC Notebook, the Content Rules blog, and The Content Wrangler as well. She is very active in the STC, as a former chapter president for the STC-Philadelphia Metro Chapter, and is currently serving on three STC Board committees. You can learn more about Danielle on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemvillegas, on Twitter @techcommgeekmom, or through her blog. All content is the owner's opinions, and does not reflect those of her employers past or present. View All Posts