Month / November 2017

by Nicolle

Professional development by podcast

I feel like we’ve made online learning really transactional.
— Maria Andersen, on the Teaching in Higher Education podcast

It’s a challenge to find (and fund) relevant professional development opportunities as a self-employed person launching a new company.

I network a lot to keep connected to communities and ideas. I try to build learning networks from those connections but I have gaps in my learning networks. Recently I discovered the Learning in Higher Education podcast by Bonnie Stachowiok. The podcast focuses mostly on improving digital pedagogy, a subject near and dear to my heart. I’ve binged so many episodes of this podcast while neglecting my weekly favorites like Reply All, Game Plan, and On the Media. (there’s just not enough time for all my favorite in a week).

As I’ve binged I’ve realized how valuable this podcast is for my own professional development. I’m binging not just because I love the subject but because the perspective is so useful as I build the future of career education. I’m taking notes and thinking about how I’ll integrate play into courses or use new edtech resources. On the episode, Learning is not a spectator sport, I yelled in support, banging on my steering wheel, when the guest Maria Andersen said

You don’t actually learn until you engage with it.

With the flood of mediocre online learning experiences out there this rang so true. My goal as an instructional designer is to get students to engage with the content (without discussion forums) so the concepts stick. And thanks to this podcast I’m learning ways to do just that.

The host’s teaching skills are what makes this podcast such a joy to listen to. Not only am I getting incredibly useful content, she presents it in a thought provoking manner, much like you’d expect your favorite professor to do.

And then there’s the curated resources alongside the podcasts. This podcast is a goldmine for anyone who wants to improve their teaching, coaching, or facilitation skills. As an entrepreneur and instructional designer, it’s opened up a new way of thinking about professional development and growth.

by Nicolle

Bon Voyage

On top of leaving their country, which is surely one of the hardest decisions of their lives, each migrant must still make the difficult, usually treacherous journey to Europe where they are greeted by an entirely new set of problems. The process is almost cosmically, comically dark and arduous. That realization was what inspired Swiss animator Fabio Friedli to create his still all-too-timely tragicomedy “Bon Voyage.” Typically reserved for expressing good wishes to those about to go on a journey, Friedli twists the saying “bon voyage” into a hilariously cynical and ironic title for his film. – Vimeo Staff Pick “Bon Voyage”

I’ve been slow to post on podcasts lately so I’ll share this short film instead. Bon Voyage offers up a different, powerful perspective on how we understand the refugee journey. It’s so easy to skim past the endless stories on the migration and refugee crisis in our timelines. Storytelling like this, and other films, can hopefully cut through our collective fatigue.

 

by Nicolle

Hiring practices are about to get even more opaque

All that advice about plugging keywords into your resume to make sure it passes the ATS systems is about to be useless. Here’s an excerpt from AI for Recruiting: A Definitive Guide to for HR Professionals by Ideal.com, a AI-powered resume screening and candidate tracking solution for busy recruiters.

Intelligent screening software automates resume screening by using AI (i.e., machine learning) on your existing resume database. The software learns which candidates moved on to become successful and unsuccessful employees based on their performance, tenure, and turnover rates. Specifically, it learns what existing employees’ experience, skills, and other qualities are and applies this knowledge to new applicants in order to automatically rank, grade, and shortlist the strongest candidates.The software can also enrich candidates’ resumes by using public data sources about their prior employers as well as their public social media profiles.

Now for all the questions: What are the “other qualities” that they measure? How much weight do they give to experience vs. skills? How much data does a company need to use these algorithms effectively? How does a company without loads of data use this technology? Who decides which data to use? Who reviews the training data for accuracy and bias – the company or the vendor? How does this company avoid bias, especially if people who advance are all white men (due to unconscious bias in the promotion process)? What data points are most valuable on candidates social profiles? Which social profiles are they pulling from? Are personal websites included? Which companies are using this technology? Are candidates without publicly available social media data scored lower? Of the companies using these technologies, who’s responsible for asking the questions above?

This technology gives a whole new meaning to submitting your resume into a black hole.

by Nicolle

International Student Career Outcomes: Recommendations Aplenty

UPDATE: Thanks for your emails! If you’re interested in career services support for international students, check out Get Hired: The US Job Search for International Students. For $29/month, international students get access to online career training courses designed specifically for them.  

I’m breaking from my usual posts on algorithms taking over our lives to share insights from the new report by WENR: Career Prospects and Outcomes of U.S.-Educated International Students: Improving Services, Bolstering Success. If you’re new to working with international students it’s worth the full read to better understand your international students’ career ambitions. If you’re a career services director the data can help you build out a stronger international student engagement strategy and support your training efforts. I work with international students through my company GlobalMe School. I’ve got recommendations aplenty to add to this report. So fair warning: #longread ahead (or at least longer than what I normally write. I’m a proponent of lazy blogging)

Continue reading →

by Nicolle

Harsh words, harsher realities

“You’re out of time. If you can’t already write a piece of code to find the longest palindrome in a string, you probably won’t be able to do so before the automation revolution deals a body blow to your banking job sometime around 2022. Cathy Bessant, the chief technology and operations officer at Bank of America, said as much in conversation with Bloomberg last month. If you’re a bank employee who’s technologically illiterate, Bessant said it’s no good rushing to do a few coding courses on the side. You’re too late: things are moving too fast. “The kind of skills that we’ll need have to be taught beginning at a much earlier age,” said Bessant. “Whether you can train the same worker at the same time you’re changing their job remains to be seen.” – Can’t Code? The only other thing that will save your job

Immediate thoughts: 

Does this include executives and leadership?

Are they doing any work to train their best and brightest in these skills?

Where will these bankers go now?

Does it even matter since this is the new reality:

“Huy Nguyen Trieu, the former head of macro structuring at Citi, told us he knows of a team of just four algorithmic traders who now manage 70% of the trades that were done by 140 people in 2010″

Luckily there’s a sliver of hope for bankers in form of soft skills:

“Not for nothing has Goldman Sachs president David Solomon been extolling the virtues of a well-rounded education that incorporates public speaking and communication. Just as banks need geeks, they’ll also need exceptionally charismatic individuals to act as the face of the new automated reality.”

Maybe I should launch a new workshop as part of my power skills series: How to Charm the Pants Off of Your Audience and Save Your Job