Is there too much hype about Green Skills?

Everyone is talking about green skills – the need for more green skills development, and the value green skills can bring to the conversation.

The hype is not entirely a bad thing. It gets attention. The problem occurs when this attention is short lived – as is everything with our social media brains these days – the potential impact is diluted.

Instead of encouraging action, people are left confused as to what green skills actually are. In an effort to appear more relevant they might simply add the jargon to their job title or lists of expertise. After all, aren’t green skills relevant to every aspect of operations in an organisation?

The broader definitions of Green Skills support this. Green skills are seen as anything that helps to reduce environmental harm or works towards more sustainable resource use. Defined like this even an office manager could claim to have green skills by initiating paper or glass recycling. The challenge with this approach is that it doesn’t really help hiring managers find the green skills they really need.

A bit of a backstory

We’ve been recycling for decades and it hasn’t had the impact it was supposed to. Not because waste management can’t get it right, but because it’s treated as a band aid – a linear rather than circular system. Production doesn’t slow down, neither does consumerism or extraction.

The problem is that markets don’t fully support recycling. Recycled plastic can become more expensive than virgin plastic, as an example, and in the end economics dominate. More extraction, more production, more waste.

So, when the call goes out for green skills, it’s because organisations are realising there’s more to sustainability than ticking off an ESG report and putting out recycling bins for collection. What’s needed are system changes and people with the skills who understand what that looks like. Hence the move towards circularity.

The next challenge

Even if you understand why green skills are needed, the solution isn’t simple. In many cases, the focus of specific green skills can be very specific and new. This may not align with the skills that were traditionally needed. The end result is that reviewing skills based on what’s listed in CV’s may discount candidates who could potentially be a good fit.

For decades the CV has been used as the gatekeeper for determining a candidate’s suitability for a role. It seemed logical – a short summary of skills and experience. A showcase of expertise, with an assumption that if it’s well articulated, it’s an indication of a top candidate.

AI has effectively removed this simple advantage. A simple prompt creates CV copy which most people will admit is far better than anything they could have put together. For people seeking jobs in a highly competitive working environment, this can be a breath of fresh air. With the ability to better articulate their work experience, you significantly improve your chances of landing the roles you want. Sadly, there’s a down side to this.

Generative AI is generic in its approach, because that’s how LLM’s are trained. They also have a habit of latching onto buzzwords like green skills and using identical wording. It makes individuals sound great. It also makes everyone sound the same. Despite what the CV’s say, hiring managers are discovering that not everyone has the green skills needed.

How do hiring managers differentiate skilled candidates now?

With the focus on green skills, and urgency to implement systems change, Hiring Managers are under pressure to find skilled people who can deliver. With roles changing and AI making every CV sound amazing, how is that even possible?

The answer is simple: define what success looks like in the role and then test candidates for skills, attitude and behaviour. These are tests that you can’t cheat on, because there’s no obvious right or wrong answer. In fact, as in life, there genuinely is no right or wrong answer. So, even if candidates run the questions through an AI prompt, it’s not going to help. You don’t even need a CV. Just put the link to the assessment in an advert and ask everyone to simply click the link to apply. 10 mins later, they’ve applied and you know how closely their “green skills” match the role.

The assessments focus on how candidates would approach a situation, how they would go about solving a problem, or how they would respond to something that has the potential to positively or negatively affect the work flow. In other words, it’s about matching skills, behaviour and attitude to outcomes. And ultimately, this is where it’s going to count.

If we’re to move beyond the hype of green skills and translate the awareness of green skills into impact, we have to move away from talking about green skills in broad terms and the old method of relying on CV’s to identify potential.  This approach has already shown that it rarely produces the impact that companies need and want. Impact relies on people having the knowledge and skills to operate in a role, and to care enough to approach tasks with good attitudes and behaviours.

Green skills create impact! How companies define and assess them is what’ll make all the difference.

 

WasteRecruit has now made our bespoke skills-based assessment available to hiring managers through an online app.

Incorporated into the hiring process, they assess candidates in real time, speeding up and streamlining the initial phase of recruitment. 

To see how this works contact Nick at WasteRecruit on 07946708405.