JFF Horizons 2024: AI can help HR screen for skills, not just pedigree

Byron Auguste, CEO of Opportunity@Work, joined WorkingNation to share his thoughts on how AI can boost STARs’ access to the workforce ecosystem
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The 70 million Americans who are STARs (Skilled Through Alternative Routes) have been under-leveraged in the workforce ecosystem, says Byron Auguste, CEO of Opportunity@Work, which advocates for skills-first hiring to pave the way to workforce access for people without college degrees.

Auguste joined WorkingNation’s editor-in-chief Ramona Schindelheim for an interview for WorkingNation Overheard at JFF Horizons in Washington, D.C.

He says – despite concerns about algorithmic exclusion – generative AI can help screen for the skills that people have. “There are great tools for hiring managers. There’ll be more on the way. Most hiring managers don’t just hire in a vacuum. They hire in a workflow that may be through an applicant tracking system, maybe through a job board. Ultimately making it as easy to hire inclusively for skills – as it currently is easy to hire in an exclusionary way for degrees is a really important part of it.”

Auguste adds, “The way to tell whether you’re actually doing skills-first hiring is – are you tapping into STARs talent? That’s a super important thing from where we stand.

“The partners in the Tear the Paper Ceiling campaign are really becoming more of a coalition and actually working together. We have most of the big job platforms. We have many large companies. We have many of the premium workforce providers and including competency-based, higher education like Western Governors University.

Opportunity@Work has just announced its received a $20 million grant from MacKenzie Scott’s organization – Yield Giving – which Auguste says will focus on “how to open up opportunities for STARs.”

Learn more about Opportunity@Work.

WorkingNation Overheard at JFF Horizons 2024 was made possible through funding from EnGen.

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.