Microsoft Corp, an American multinational technology, plans to provide job opportunities to 50,000 job seekers to secure a tech-enabled job over the next three years through its new online service, Career Connector.

Career Connector will shed its limelight on those individuals who have inculcated skills from Microsoft’s non-profit and learning partners, placing more emphasis on women and the less voiced communities.

With that said, Microsoft is pooling all of its resources to support LinkedIn’s objective to facilitate far-reaching digital skills opportunities involving Career Coach, a Microsoft Teams for Education app powered by LinkedIn, offers customized guidance to higher education students, as to direct their career pathways.

The app enforces a unified career solution to students at educational institutions to help sort out their goals, interests and skills through an AI-based skills identifier. On the other hand LinkedIn integration strives to match a student’s comprehensive profile with job market trends while it aids them to gain real-world skills and help connect with mentors and peers all in one place.

The initiative aims at building a new foundation for a skills-based economy using a set of tools and platforms devices to connect skilled job seekers with employers.

Via new and existing recruiting products, LinkedIn is set at aiding 250,000 businesses to accomplish skills-base hires around this year. The firm will display new ways for job seekers to showcase their skills and new tools that connect applicants to employers based on their skill sets, such as:

The Pilot of LinkedIn Skills Path:
A new approach to assist businesses in recruiting for unique skills path incorporates LinkedIn Learning courses with Ability Tests to help recruiters find applicants more equally based on their demonstrated abilities. LinkedIn is exploring Skills Route with a range of firms, including BlackRock, Gap Inc., and TaskRabbit, all of which are dedicated to broadening their recruiting strategies to include applicants with a variety of backgrounds.

New Expressive and Personalized LinkedIn Profile Features:
To encourage people to share more about themselves, their careers, and their aspirations in a more genuine and engaging manner. This involves a video Cover Story that allows job seekers to show recruiters and hiring managers their soft skills. A traditional resume is inadequate in assessing a candidate's soft skills, according to 75% of hiring managers, and video has become more critical in evaluating applicants, according to nearly 80 percent.

Expanded access to LinkedIn’s Skills Graph:
To establish a platform for individuals, employers, educational institutions, and government agencies in developing a shared skills language to aid in workforce preparation, recruiting, and growth program.

“For a long time, the way people got hired was based solely on the job they had, the degree they earned or the people they knew. That’s starting to change. Workers are now better understanding and articulating the skills they have and the skills they need while businesses are looking not just at those familiar credentials but also at the skills that workers from often- overlooked communities have to get the job done. We want to help accelerate that change,” said Ryan Roslansky, LinkedIn CEO.

Under the initiative, Microsoft has worked along its non-profit partners in offering wrap-around support which consists of coaching, mentoring and networking to about six million learners. It will then apply these lessons in detail via Career Connector.

The company was already engaged in the initiative where it benefited over 30 million from 249 countries and enabled access of digital skills to territories, accomplishing its initial goal of 25 million last year and is currently focused on helping 250,000 companies to open skills-based opportunities this year.

“Since last June, Microsoft and LinkedIn have helped more than 30 million people worldwide gain access to digital skills, and today we’re extending our commitment to skills by helping 250,000 companies make a skills-based hire in 2021”, added Roslansky.

Millions of individuals from factory workers to retail associates and truck drivers showed interests in online learning courses from GitHub, LinkedIn and Microsoft over the pandemic so as to be prepared to land in the most in-demand roles like customer service, project management and data analysis.

“Over the past year, we’ve seen the pandemic hit people who can bear it the least,” said Microsoft President Brad Smith. “We are doubling down at LinkedIn and across Microsoft with new work to support a more inclusive skills-based labor market, creating more alternatives, greater flexibility, and accessible learning paths that connect these more readily with new jobs.”

Around this year, the company intends to benefit individuals through LinkedIn learning and Microsoft learning courses with cost-efficient certifications parallel to 10 of the most in-demand jobs.