Opportunity@Work Taps Workforce AI Pioneer SkyHive to Strengthen Skills-Based Hiring Platform

Opportunity@Work and SkyHive Technologies announce integration aimed at enhancing STARs talent matching platform Stellarworx to ‘highlight STARs’ skills for employers in need of talent’

To help employers scale talent strategies that focus on workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs), rather than through a bachelor’s degree, Opportunity@Work announced a new partnership with SkyHive Technologies that will make skills-based matching more granular and more dynamic, and enable STARs to be more fairly represented for the valuable skills and work experience they have – rather than for the degree they don’t.

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“By improving skills matching on Stellarworx, with greater relevance, dynamism, and reduced bias, we can make it easier for STARs to identify promising job opportunities and for employers to find candidates with the most potential. These new capabilities enabled by SkyHive help to spotlight upwardly mobile career pathways for STARs that will allow them to access the higher-wage work they have long deserved,” said Opportunity@Work CEO Byron Auguste. “This work gets us one step closer to rewiring the labor market so all workers can work, learn, and earn to their full potential.”

As employers grapple with the ongoing “Great Reshuffle” and the so-called “skills shortage,” and are looking for more effective ways to find talent faster, many are turning to skills-based hiring as their primary talent strategy. More than 130 employers have joined Stellarworx – Opportunity@Work’s talent matching platform that helps employers find and hire STARs who have learned skills through alternative routes such as community college, workforce training, boot camps, certificate programs, military service, or on-the-job learning, rather than through a bachelor’s degree. These employers are finding and hiring STARs into career pathway roles in the Washington, D.C. metro area, greater Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and most recently the state of Maryland and greater Houston. Companies of all sizes and industries, including Accenture, Amazon, Aon, Live Nation, Okta, and Workday have already hired STARs to fill key roles using Stellarworx.

“We are thrilled to bring the world’s biggest database of labor market intelligence to connect employers with talent that will help bridge the skills gaps of their workforce, quickly and effectively, using real-time, global market insights,” said SkyHive CEO and Founder Sean Hinton. “With our commitment to ethical artificial intelligence (AI) practices, such as bias detection, removal of protected characteristics, discrimination prevention practices, and a ‘human in the loop’ approach, Stellarworx users can be confident that the skills which are automatically recommended for candidate profiles and job descriptions accurately and fairly represent people of all backgrounds.”

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Stellarworx will leverage SkyHive’s Quantum Labor Analysis Engine to improve skills-based matching. SkyHive uses patented machine learning algorithms to analyze shifts and trends within the labor market as they occur, providing incredible accuracy and relevance to the skills assigned to job seekers. The size and scale of SkyHive’s database, combined with SkyHive’s Ethical AI practices and efforts to minimize the impact of historically biased job transitions, effectively prevent that bias from being perpetuated for STARs as they apply for jobs on Stellarworx. Today’s announcement is the latest investment in Stellarworx and supports Workday’s 2020 ”tech for good” partnership with Opportunity@Work, as well as an existing partnership with Accenture.

This new partnership will utilize Ethical AI methods to counter historically discriminatory hiring practices like biased algorithms, degree screens, stereotypes, and misperceptions, which contribute to the “paper ceiling” – the invisible barrier that comes at every turn for workers without a bachelor’s degree.

“Today is another key milestone in the continued growth of Stellarworx, as we work to highlight STARs’ skills for employers in need of talent,” said Opportunity@Work Chief Technology Officer Kelcey Reed. “This partnership will allow us to leverage SkyHive’s advanced skills matching algorithm to more accurately represent the skills STARs earn through previous experience and training, as well as skills needed for jobs at many levels and across many industries. Together, we are looking beyond the traditional job title to help employers hire for potential instead of pedigree.”

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