policy & reform
campusreview.com.au
Start me up
The most in-demand skills in
today’s workforce revealed.
By Loren Smith
A
ttention coders, salespeople
and user-experience designers:
startups want you.
These are the three most in-demand
industry skills, as revealed by a recent
StartupAUS report.
In its report, Australia’s peak national
advocacy group for startups, in
collaboration with Microsoft, UTS and
Google, also notes an emerging need for
product managers and data scientists.
These results were obtained using
information collected from 23 successful
startup founders, in addition to jobs data
from LinkedIn. They were then compared
with hiring patterns in New Zealand,
Canada and Finland, and other data
from startup-heavy countries like the US,
Germany and Israel.
Despite the jargon-heavy job
descriptions, you don’t have to be a
techie to score a role, says Alex McCauley,
StartupAUS’s chief executive.
“One of the interesting bits to come
out of the report is that there’s a very high
demand for non-tech roles,” he adds.
“Familiarity with technology and a
passion for it is important for a lot of roles
– for example, sales – but it’s not all about
software developers.”
A product manager, for example, leads a
multidisciplinary team (that often includes
a researcher, designer, data scientist,
tester and developer) to strategise for and
ultimately deliver a product, like an app.
Given the critical nature of these skills
shortages, some of the more technical
ones, like coding, may be filled by migrants.
Yet for the more business-oriented ones,
like product management, existing skills
and education could plug the gaps.
YOU’VE GOT SKILLS AND YOU
DON’T KNOW IT
Bernadette Makhlouf is a computer science
graduate turned business analyst turned
product manager. Her existing skills landed
her a job at startup NABO, a private social
network for neighbourhoods in Australia.
She never envisioned this occurrence.
“I happened to bump into NABO’s CTO,
many years after we had worked together
at a bank. He thought I should interview for
the product manager role.
“It sounded like a great opportunity.
“At that point, NABO was essentially just
an idea. It was grassroots, and it had a
good business proposition – [compared to]
selling home loans!”
McCauley says startups require skills that
many people, like Makhlouf, already have.
It’s just that they might not know this.
“A lot of key startup hires for data scientist
roles are coming out of academia … This
wasn’t a natural link for me, necessarily.”
Makhlouf says skills such as teamwork
and leadership can also be fostered.
“People shouldn’t be afraid if they’re not
great at something, because you’re not
born with specific skills; they’re something
you’re constantly developing.”
THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES –
OR NOT
McCauley says you can’t do a degree in
most of the in-demand skills, as they are
novel. But that doesn’t mean universities
don’t have a role to play.
Firstly, universities can instil character
traits in people, as well as teach adjacent
skills. However, most significantly to him,
universities can perform the function they
were initially established for.
“Universities are often now seen as
places where people go to start their
careers, [yet people] traditionally went
there to learn about the world and how
to think.
“In a lot of ways, there’s too much
pressure on universities to develop
curricula and courses that cover the bases
on all types of jobs.
“No large institution can be at the cutting
edge of the business and technology
curve. As this picks up pace, it’s reasonable
to think of universities in the old way.”
He further contended that, given young
people will change workplaces on average
17 times in their careers, there’s even
more reason for universities to fulfil their
original purposes.
WHY START UP?
While Makhlouf – who’d been in the
workforce for a decade by the time she
joined NABO – had no financial or other
qualms about joining a new company,
others, perhaps particularly recent
graduates, may not feel the same way.
McCauley seeks to alleviate these
possible fears.
“One of the biggest questions I get
asked, day to day, is from parents asking
what kids should study or what jobs they
should pursue.
“The biggest theme from those
discussions is that traditionally high-value
degrees, particularly vocational ones, are
no longer leading to ‘safe’ jobs because
the economy is changing.”
What’s more, he says that jobs at
startups, in general, are more secure than
they used to be.
“Increasingly, there’s a lot of funding
around for startups, and if you’re working
for a funded one, it is not that risky. You’re
not working for equity and ramen …
you’ve got a proper salary.
“The second thing is that in the job
market, experience working for a startup
has gained a lot of cachet, so the risk is
balanced by this benefit.
“You’re part of a growing business, and
get hands-on experience doing this.” ■
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