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GSD Episode 16: Nick Beadle
26 Plays2 days ago
Kelvin, Kevin, and Friz speak with Nick Beadle, CEO of Jobs That Work Solutions, a Washington, D.C.-based consultancy focused on jobs policy and workforce development funding. Join us for a lively discussion about workforce development efforts at the federal level such as Workforce Pell and the apoprenticeship models higher education is exploring to help its learners be better prepared to transition into an evolving world of work.
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Transcript
00:00:20
Speaker
All
Introduction to Podcast and Guests
00:00:21
Speaker
right. Hey, welcome everyone to the Getting Stuff Done in Higher Education podcast. I'm Kelvin Bentley. I'm here with my co-hosts, Kevin and Fritz.
00:00:31
Speaker
And our guest today is Nick Beadle. He is one of the nation's leading voices on workforce development, jobs policy, and public investment strategy.
00:00:42
Speaker
Nick is the founder and CEO of Jobs at Work Solutions, where he advises philanthropies, employers, unions, governments, and workforce organizations on building smarter workforce systems and improving job quality.
Nick Beadle's Career Journey
00:00:56
Speaker
Prior to launching his consulting practice and widely read Jobs at Work newsletter, Nick spent more than 11 years at the U.S. Department of Labor, including serving as Chief of Staff for Workforce and Communications for the Good Jobs Initiative.
00:01:12
Speaker
His work has included developing innovative workforce funding models, advancing skills first hiring strategies, and helping shape national workforce policy.
00:01:22
Speaker
Nick, welcome to the GSD podcast. Pleasure to be here. So Nick, you know, before we dive into your, um, uh, again, this will be a great opportunity for us to learn about the work that you've been doing. Um, you know, your previous work within the Department of Labor and also,
00:01:42
Speaker
um the various things that you write about and consult on in terms of workforce development issues. But we love to begin you know every conversation with just understanding your journey, right? So, you know kind of unpacking, you know how did you get involved in the work that you're currently doing now?
00:02:05
Speaker
Was it when you were like, you know, 10 years old, did you think that you would be the one who was going to work for the national government or federal government, especially around workforce policies? But if so if you could just take us through your career journey, we'll start there.
Impact of Higher Education on Nick's Career
00:02:23
Speaker
And then later we'll we'll get back, we'll jump into, again, your background and and how your background is very connected with higher ed, even though your work has been more on the federal government side of things.
00:02:40
Speaker
Yeah, and I have very much, like higher ed has played a very key role in my life. So my so journey is a little peculiar here in a lot of ways, which is, I am actually, un and a and you know the irony of this never really sunk into me for several years, which is in eighth grade, I was in my science class and someone told me, hey, you're going to go down to the newspaper. You're part of this program um called, think it's a program through the Boy Scouts, but I'm not a Boy Scout. Yeah, you're going to go to this newspaper. and You're going to some stuff because you test it.
00:03:12
Speaker
It looked like you'd be a good fit for it. So it's called, I think it was the, net it's called the Explorers program or something along those lines. So I started working um at a newspaper around the ninth grade and sort of just doing stuff every other week for their team focused work. um And I hadn't really not thought about what I was going to do with my life, but like between that and really enjoying the work and, you know, realizing that, a Hey, do all this stuff I do where I write and read all the time might be a superpower. and something people want to pay me to do. That sort of led me into just going to college and then did a few classes and in in school or while it was before I graduated high school. and you know Before I knew it,
00:03:54
Speaker
had scholarships and other stuff like that and ended up as an investigative reporter. um So that was kind of the start of that. you know a few years into being an investigative reporter, I was out in place of West Tennessee called Jackson, or which is halfway between Memphis, halfway between Nashville,
Innovative Workforce Development Policies
00:04:11
Speaker
basically. um a few years then i kind of realized you know i might actually want to be on the other side of this i might actually want to be like on the policy making or a lawyer or something along those lines so i went to law school um and ended up you know hired out school at usdol they have a program there called the honors program which is where they have typically hired their their fresh the younger talent out of law school and they train you for a few years or a couple years around basically how the department works as a whole And then they kind of assign you to a particular where place to live. and And where I ended up living was over on the workforce development side.
00:04:46
Speaker
um And so gradually from there, i ended up becoming the person who I joke, I was the person you come to when you had an interesting idea and some money and you needed those two to work together because I kind of became the person who started like decoding those statutes and honestly, because I had done so much work on the ground and kind of understood how government works and how it doesn't work, particularly the states and localities and who are, who were our customers for these grants.
00:05:12
Speaker
I would usually be the person who would sort of diagnose, Hey, there's this going on and this could affect the law and this is going on. You should keep this in mind. So those sorts of things, um, the Biden folks, uh, when I was there, they sort of, I got to know them a little bit and they're like, Hey, you know, being a,
00:05:28
Speaker
thing where they brought me in to sort of overlook all of our money at at DOL to try to see, you know, hey, we were doing this good jobs work at at the Biden administration in terms of trying to get better results in terms of job outcomes from these programs. So my job became get to know all this money and make sure the good jobs come out of this this money some way. So everything from like mining grants to, you know, the big troughs of of dollars that go to states every year um And so when the administration switched, I decided, hey, I have some stuff I'd like to keep doing. This part of the private sector is the best way of doing it. And, oh, I have this newsletter idea that had been really informed by how little information people had on how this stuff worked. And so that kind of just became a trial run that very quickly became a company that very quickly became talking to you guys here today.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's great, Nick. You know, it's it's interesting that to kind of, I loved what you said just now too about you know, theyre the it's difficult to always know like what's going on in, you know, in this space around workforce development. I feel, I've i've felt this way too with higher ed, like higher ed is already very siloed, right? Like we're we're not always very open to kind of sharing initiatives that we're doing. Certain things are kept very close to the vest.
00:06:52
Speaker
And then i feel like again on the, the federal side of things in terms of like workforce development things, like sometimes that information too, I'm sure you feel the same way, has been siloed, is not really well understood unless you actually take the time to kind of unpack it.
Challenges in Workforce Development
00:07:12
Speaker
um I would love for you to maybe walk us through like, given your background and experience, like what what is going on with the evolution of workforce development? I know that there's this focus you mentioned before about like finding finding money to support improving um the the numbers of skilled workers in various areas. I feel like there's this, you know, there's tension going on right now, right? To actually like, like there's different initiatives that are out there.
00:07:48
Speaker
But I would just love to to hear your thoughts about like, what is the story of workforce development? How has it changed? um You know, from the biting years, you know, from when you first started to kind of where we are now, what are we up against in terms of like the next iteration of what workforce development will look like and its impact then on what we do in higher ed to support that?
00:08:15
Speaker
Um, you know, it's, it's interesting because higher head is very much on the lips of a lot of the people making policy these days. And, you know, I, you know, when I was reporter, I covered the conservative movement a lot. i was a reporter in the deep South. That's kind of what you have to do. Um, and a lot of these are kind of the manifestation of like saws I've heard from the conservative movement for like 20 years, um but they now have this new sort of ammunition in terms of the expense of higher ed and the fact that you have this higher rate of unemployment among recent grads um and those things are are really sort of intertwining in this conversation about workforce and that like i swear when i go listen to a hearing on the hill these days if i don't hear someone
00:08:58
Speaker
Talk about how college is, you know, expensive or bad or whatever, and this is the better way of doing things. I'll honestly surprise. um So it is very much kind of going one in one right now in terms of that everything is being presented as an alternative to college that we need. you know, these alternatives to college that, you know, are a little bit more easier for young people to get into jobs. And then also on the employer side, you know, think the employers want earlier commitments from certain young people to, hey, go into our particular type of job so that they get those people little bit younger and maybe a little bit cheaper and ultimately end up getting those folks um
00:09:43
Speaker
into jobs at a time when, and and maybe get a few more years out of them. You know, I think the challenge with that is, is largely reality. And also that, you know, when I actually talk to people who I think are the the leaders who I think get this from a practical perspective the most, or the people who I think think the hardest about how this stuff works, it's not an either or sort of conversation.
00:10:06
Speaker
And that's really where we're going politically on this. And then, you know, I'm trying ah sometimes gently, sometimes less gently, I try to nudge people back from that because it's not a, hey, I get it. You have some things against college or you have some feelings from your own college experience. I get those. I have my own. But at the same time, it's really not that straightforward in terms of how employers are hiring. And also, quite frankly, where you get job skills, like, you know, the more interesting thing I have heard. Of late is that job skills are are like that liberal arts degreeies are actually much more valuable with AI because you can you have a richer sort of understanding and a broader sort of understanding the whole field that it makes it easier for you to sort of understand how to adapt AI to different things. So it's in this interesting spot where it's very much anti-higher ed and we have all these things and higher ed is definitely not the best at defending itself in any shape or form or even making good arguments for itself.
Employer Expectations vs. Higher Education
00:11:04
Speaker
um But um at the same time, like the the entire, we' what we really need is is more sort of practical approaches that don't really, you know, quite frankly, give a damn about where you got the experience so much as get you to the job because hiring is very inefficient.
00:11:19
Speaker
Yeah. I got chuckle because you've literally like said half the stuff that we've been saying throughout this podcast for a long time is that higher ed does a terrible job telling their own story about why it's important, why you should go to school, you know, why you should get your degree, what it's going to lend to and all that type of stuff. And we, we allow so many pundits and people outside of higher ed to basically tell our story and But it's like this whole this whole connection that you're that you have between here's what organizations are saying and here's what higher ed is saying.
00:11:53
Speaker
I still think there's always been, and and you can tell me if if this is still accurate or or if there's been changes, I just think there's always been like this big disconnect between businesses saying, oh, we want XYZ type of employees.
00:12:09
Speaker
But then it never seems to trickle down to what higher ed is doing or vice versa. Higher ed thinks that they know what what we're doing, what employers want, and they don't. So like, you know i can go back 10, 15 years and it was soft skills, right? Every employer was like, we need people who can read and can write, who are articulate, who can public speak.
00:12:28
Speaker
And now all of a sudden, like, and then schools went down this whole road of trying to figure out how to do that. And then it's like, well, that's not what we want. We need people who can come in that know Tableau, that know this skill and and this skill.
00:12:42
Speaker
With all the organization, and this is where I'm going, with all the organizations that hire people either out of high school, out of college, whatever that may be, how does any institution keep track of what it is that every organization and business needs in order to groom a degree or to groom the things that we're doing? Or is that even what we should be doing?
00:13:09
Speaker
You know, i I think I'm going to take a step back and I'm going to come back to where your point is. But I think something that I come back to a lot is that hiring has been fundamentally broken for a long time, but it's only really gotten worse. And I will say here that while I understand, you know, look, I run a business myself.
00:13:27
Speaker
Hiring is only a small bit of what a lot of companies do. But company employers cover carry a ton of the public policy here in DC because people want to make them happy so that they go hire people.
00:13:39
Speaker
But they do not necessarily work on hiring in any sort of fundamental or or or fundamental way. And that's really challenging because like they're very loud about it. You know, we can't find the talent. We can't do this. Are they looking for the talent? You know, when I've talked to some employers, I'm not entirely sure they are. And I'm also not entirely sure that they're they're putting in the work.
00:14:02
Speaker
um And some of that is just kind of, you know, there's a lot of different incentives in terms of American business right now that sort of drive people away from thinking about people. Like I've i've written quite a lot that the main attraction of AI right now is not creating new jobs or necessarily creating efficiency. It's that a lot of investors think you can get easy easy juice sort of profits from firing everybody.
00:14:24
Speaker
And that's you know not necessarily realistic. And I say that as someone who's a daily user of AI and someone who talks to a lot of people who deal with AI on a regular basis. So I think like you know you know higher ed is it definitely ends up the crosshairs of employers who you know don't want to hire these more expensive college grads. And I hear about them, you know college grads expecting too much these days and you know all the other sort of general Gen Z stuff that's kind of going on right now, as tends to happen in every generation. But at the same time, like I don't think that's necessarily always on higher ed.
00:14:58
Speaker
I think it gets dumped on higher ed. Now, that being said, i do think higher ed does need to understand that lot of the reason people go to college is to get a job. I am a working class person. lost my dad when I was a, i spent a lot of my childhood growing up on social security benefits and, and, you know, his life insurance from the Tennessee Valley authority. And, you know, getting a job was the main point of me going to college was me getting a job that was paid better, was more reliable and treated me better than, you know, being a labor at a power plant.
00:15:30
Speaker
So that was a big sort of divide between me and you know explicitly at times, sometimes between me and my professors. like i hated um you know I was good at ethics, but like I had an ethics professor who was like, hey, you're here because of the academy to make you a better person, et cetera, et cetera. I'm like, hey man, I get it, but I'm 22 years old and I need to get employed because that is the point of all this for me is that I came here to get employed.
00:15:56
Speaker
And to have job skills and, you know, those sorts of things. So I think higher ed does need to embrace that a little bit. At the same time, like I think it's on employers too from an institutional level as well. Like I was reading this week in Fortune, for example, that um you know, hire after all the complaints that employers have made about what higher ed is not producing and all these other sort of things, they're doubling down on the ah on the Ivies and hiring from there. And those sorts of things is like, you know, it's it's the Simpsons mean, you know, we've done nothing and we're all out of ideas, man. and So it's it's some of those things that kind of drives me crazy. But I think we're at this sort of very, you know, inflection point, maybe too strong because I don't know if anyone's actually going to change. But it does feel like we're at this inflection point between higher ed or higher ed does need to be a little bit more employment focused. And employers need to be a little bit more you know hiring focused in terms of understanding that the way you hired 20 years ago, really that way you've hired may never work. It may just be what you've done.
Political Landscape Impact on Higher Education
00:16:52
Speaker
um And I don't think the politics is helping because I think that the politics right now is very loud and very silly in terms of how often it decides it wants to talk about college is bad and whatever. And there's a lot of sort of bashing as, you know, we're creating the better way of ah that college should have worked in the first place. And i don't necessarily even see a clear argument or a clear, you know, sometimes even clear sort of hiring models or training models there.
00:17:17
Speaker
But, you know, I get that sometimes I've been in D.C. for 16 years. Like I get that you have to sort of sell things through the political side. But right now I feel like it's hurting more than it's helping. And and ah slowly but surely I try to nudge people back to somewhere more productive because I don't think you can make good policy in this environment.
00:17:35
Speaker
You know, um I read I saw that article, too, that for all the talk of, you know, skills based hiring, not so much degrees as proxies. A lot of lot large scale employers are are ratcheting back and saying, All right, let's let's look for you know degrees as proxies, especially if someone went to an elite institution.
00:17:56
Speaker
And I got to say, too, is someone with liberal arts background to two degrees in history of bachelor's and master's, the whipsawing over the course of my career about liberal arts being valueless and valuable. I'm, it's amusing to watch the pendulum swing back again. and like, Oh, they have the, they have knowledge and stuff to make discerning arguments and create narrative and use AI in a way that's ah spans these kinds of spaces. So,
00:18:22
Speaker
Welcome to the other side of the pendulum, everybody. um But ah you know what I find interesting is what you're saying about this passing of accountability ah or want a want of for kind ah desire for accountability and doing things between higher ed and employers. um you know I feel like, are we at a moment when seems like the employment sector really wants turnkey ready employees, regardless of what they come out of workforce development, alternative credentials, degree programs, etc. And I know for a very long time the US economy, and I mean, just jobs and professions forever.
00:19:10
Speaker
The notion wasn't that is that is that you had to train people. you You got a raw, you got, you're getting a raw material in a, in a new, an entry level person.
00:19:21
Speaker
And you gotta, you gotta to refine that and polish that raw material to be the kind of professional worker, et cetera, you want them to be. And I feel like there's more and more expectation that that is now, there that is really the responsibility of that not even just higher ed, but even the K-12 sector, they need to come out, polish and turnkey, like,
00:19:42
Speaker
We don't want to, we don't want a house that needs to be finished up. We want a turnkey house, turnkey employee. And I feel like that's, where we're now, so that pendulum is swinging further into the, it's on the educational sector, again, whether that's an institution or a job workforce development, et cetera, versus, I mean, look, anecdote.
00:20:03
Speaker
I got out of college, I was a history degree, was you know I was good in math and stuff. I worked for Anderson Consulting. They saw a liberal arts background as plus. plus we went to this campus it was a from what i remember a a women's college in suburban chicago that had closed and they bought the campus and turned into their new employee education thing we were there for like two or three weeks learning how to be anderson consulting employees be business analysts and so i feel is that is that world gone like is this is this where we are for a while where and it's a it's not the job of employers to train up to hire well but then to train up employees i mean
00:20:43
Speaker
But I just feel like more responsibility is being pushed back on educators, educational institutions and and sector. And I just don't know realistic that is because everything is changing so fast as far as skills needed and all that stuff.
00:20:55
Speaker
i don't know. I just wanted to get your perspective on it, Nick, because I think i feel like you're more you're at an intersection of these all these things. to To keep it perhaps too real for any forum, I mean, I think it's going that way until someone reinvents this and then sells it as hot future. Yeah.
00:21:09
Speaker
i mean I mean, not to be too blunt about it, but I do think that's kind of where where things head, is that this is very sort of trend focused. And I do see a lot of, you know, someone did ask me like once, how do you get like a major corporation or a major sort of field to kind of,
00:21:25
Speaker
you know, go along with the hiring technique, i said, get it on trend or or get it in, you know, get it in Fortune or get it in, you know, Forbes or something along those lines and get it shared. um So I do think, you know, that that may seem very cynical. It may seem very whatever. But, you know, I i think it's, you know, having navigated 10 years of coming back to the same questions over and over again is kind of an interesting thing. um So, you know, I i do think we are are stepping away from that. And I do think there's a degree of what I jokingly call sort of spreadsheet brain here, that it's a whole lot easier and a whole lot better. And quite frankly, if you're a hiring manager, it's a whole lot safer to look for, you know, this sort of perfect person who can maximize efficiency on day one.
00:22:09
Speaker
That person just generally doesn't exist. And maybe they exist in some models somewhere, but I kind of question the model. um But you're right, it's sort of being looked toward for our K-12. And there's definitely sort of spots where we do need to be more career focused in K-12 in certain spots, because mainly because I think it's a great way of getting kids interested in things like math and science and stuff if they, you know, see a job at the end of it. I mean, I can speak for myself and speak for other people. I know that, you know, that was definitely what kind of got them moving. um But um at the same time, i think it's kind of, you know, it's overstating things to assume you're going to get a turnkey, you know, ready to go in every way 18 year old, mainly because they just don't make that many 18 year olds who are turnkey at anything, or quite frankly, that many people, nor should they.
00:22:56
Speaker
And to me, as always, like I, you know, you you don't, you know, there is a a responsibility on management also to develop talent. as well as on management's part to be able to manage talent. And I don't necessarily think that part has has kind of gotten a lot of emphasis. And I won't say which however many number years, but I do think it's getting worse. And I do think that there are you know more and more filters being applied here in rather ham-fisted ways that kind of make it very hard for people to...
00:23:29
Speaker
to kind of get into um you know get into jobs, even when they're super qualified, and then we're leaving a lot of good talent on the table because it doesn't look right or doesn't seem very turnkey, even if it is much more turnkey than you think. um I e personally think that, you know, if you were looking for that turnkey talent, you should not be looking at 18 to 24 year olds because they're still cooking. And that is totally normal and human. And that is perfectly fine. I want my 18 to 24 year olds to keep cooking um and and kind of growing as people because you you learn a lot about life at that age and you're developing, you're literally still developing. So, you know, you may not be ready to commit to be a, you know, industrial engineer for the rest of your life. And you may change quite a bit. Like, you know, I, and, and as someone who has changed careers an awful lot, you know, or at least changed different types of jobs, I think that is normal and healthy and good to kind of figure out, you know, your, You want to be spreadsheet about spreadsheet brain about it, which is, you know, find highest and best use your highest and best use is not a static thing.
00:24:30
Speaker
um So I think those things are there. The population i hear a lot about right now and kind of honestly complained about when they are really sort of your secret weapon are those older than 25 to
Reskilling Older Populations
00:24:42
Speaker
35 year olds. And when I talk to people, like especially in the community colleges, they will rave about those guys because there's a certain population of folks who, you know, maybe college didn't work out for them. the first time, um but they ended up in like a lower wage job to where they're just usually on the cusp of the living wage.
00:25:00
Speaker
um And then they decide, you know look at, say, you know, being in a man a manufacturing job or being in a trades job or being in some other time or nursing or health care whatever. And they say, hey, this serves my life right now. This gives me the benefits I want and then the schedule I want.
00:25:16
Speaker
And also, like, it gives me much better pay and gives me above a bubble living wage. I want to go do this. And, you know, they kill it in college and they kill it in getting a job because they have been a professional. They don't have to learn that stuff on the job and and go through a lot of the growing pains that I hear employers complaining about that they have to deal with at all, right? now um But you know the problem is is that they're older.
00:25:38
Speaker
And there's a lot of complaints right now that you know and for apprenticeship, for example, that the average age of an apprentice is in the 30s. I think that's awesome because that's someone who's reskilling or likely kind of moving into a job that's a a better fit for them, even if it's not you know ideal in terms of, oh, we're losing X number of years in terms of what we could get if this person started a little younger. So so I, you know, in terms of like where I i think there may be need to be more closest to a policy fix, I think it's like one, we need to serve that older population a little bit better, but also, you know, try to adjust to so that if we do have those people who are going to be get get to go a little bit faster at a younger age, like do create those pathways to them, but also assume that those folks are going to switch careers because they're young, and they have more years to kind of come to those decisions and life changes. pretty quick sometimes in your 20s. So, you know, I would definitely want to try to take that slightly older population and emphasize them and get them in into jobs because I think they're kind of being underutilized right now, mainly because they're a little bit older and quite frankly, because I think a lot of our decision makers just don't relate to them because a lot of them did have their stuff together when they were little bit
00:26:47
Speaker
a Yeah, you know, you brought up apprenticeships um and I would love to hear your your your overall thoughts about them.
Apprenticeships and Their Challenges
00:26:58
Speaker
I bring it up because I feel like in my especially like in my LinkedIn feed, based on the folks that I follow, including you, obviously. um Apprenticeship seems to come up very often, right? Whether it's, like you know, Apprenticeship Week, which was, I guess, just last week or two weeks ago, upcoming conferences, um you know, webinars, right, from organizations like Craft Education, you know Molly's work there.
00:27:27
Speaker
So there's there's lots of interesting buzz around it, right? Funding, but would love to hear your thoughts about, like, in terms of workforce development approaches, why are we so enamored with apprenticeships right now? Not to poo-poo them, but i but I feel like kind of similar to AI, there's just lots of buzz around it. It's on trend.
00:27:52
Speaker
And I would love to kind of maybe have you help us to unpack why why is there such glee around apprenticeships and and what And as you think about that, i would love to also hear what you think higher ed should do in order to, you know, evolve itself to better prepare our learners, right? is it a prince Is it through apprenticeships? Should we be looking at other solutions?
00:28:23
Speaker
And if so, what are they? So I'd love to hear your thoughts on those two those two things. um So first of all, blatantly, wish you all a blessed and competent National Apprenticeship Week. and I hope you all you know celebrate it and in the usual way, which is by gaining skills on a progressive way with a progressive wage. um So the... um You know, apprenticeship has been we're in going on towards like two decades now of it being the political and policy maker in this space is sort of preferred way of getting people into jobs. And I will say that I think a lot of that is very employer based because I think a lot of smart people and I would say and reasonably, and I've been in the rooms with with where this has happened. They hear about what employers want and sort of the custom, very granular sort of training and, you know, that they want someone who is built to specification and they hear, ma hey, man, you need to set an apprenticeship program.
00:29:23
Speaker
um because really that's the best way of doing it is sort of structuring that way. And they also hear that like, hey, the barrier to getting people above these sort of skilled jobs is cost. Like, you know you have to go buy your skills or buy your your kind of credibility with a college degree or something else. Whereas with apprenticeship, you're making money at the same time you're you're doing it. And then you're gradually, you' you know your your wage is going up as your skill level is kind of going up. So, you know, that I think is like from a, a you know, brain sort of way that, you know, as your, or a logical sort of way, it makes a lot of sense. Like, hey, we have problem, here is solution. I think a lot of the challenges with apprenticeship right now, though, are largely political.
00:30:12
Speaker
um And I think that's a complex thing I will go to in a moment, but also, quite frankly, that I think that there's just kind of a a big lack of understanding, especially from big corporate decision makers about this. Like I have had conversations with with corporate leaders where they basically described apprentices as like non-employees that they have to pay for for a number of years before they get any usefulness out of it. that's the point of an apprenticeship is that you're getting somebody in the building getting productivity out of them and paying them and then you're getting more productivity out on long one term and i think that has really not necessarily been you know the communication because the political sort of side of this really, you know, sands it down to apprenticeship good. and apprenticeship is good. I'm a big believer in apprenticeship. But it is, you know, not necessarily, it has a little bit more of a richer story to tell that I think we we need to do better selling to to, you know, business leaders in this country or more education, while also acknowledging that I think after 20 years of this or nearly 20 years of this, some business leaders, I don't think just are are interested in doing this full style. um because they see it as a cost that doesn't yield anything in the long run is that your this just sum up what you're saying i think some of this is quite frankly emotional that i've been told to do this so long and i'm and i am not doing this and by god you're not going to make me do this some of that is there and like i i'm you know i get that that's fine that's what what life is like you know counter be sort of like it but it is totally the cost part
00:31:39
Speaker
that you know you get a college grad, you're not having to pay for their training. You're not having to pay them benefits. You're not having to do this stuff. and um It is an outsourcing in a way. We want to outsource our training to whatever educational venue it is, an institution or whatever. yeah And that's that's where i that's that's a perspective i have is For a long time, it's hired has been seen as a place to outsource those things. And when they don't see what, they don't like what they're potentially getting, the they see it more as a raw material versus a finished person who's productive and ready to go. There's tension.
00:32:15
Speaker
but to To me, apprenticeship is the wrong word. Right. Like apprenticeship goes all the way back to medical doctors in the right? Well, there's still apprentices. You went and worked for a doctor or a dentist or carpenter or plumber or whatever. And you learned the skill, you learned the trade. And then ultimately you did that for so many years and you were able to do it.
00:32:37
Speaker
on I just think the apprenticeship is just the wrong, I think. Everybody has this. I think it's the definition of what an apprenticeship is. And I think because for so long, apprenticeship has always really meant you work side by side with somebody, you may or may make may or may not make money, but you're learning a skill that you can then go out and use on your own and build your own business.
00:33:01
Speaker
And I think that's where I don't know. I think i just think apprenticeship is just the wrong wrong terminology for trying to get people in like to get people into those types of things.
00:33:15
Speaker
you know If we need to get a a focus group of corporate leaders that we can bounce names off of them, I would not be
Alternatives to Traditional Apprenticeships
00:33:22
Speaker
a opposed to that. Maybe it's like you know train train happy you know vehicle or something along those lines. And quite frankly, there are there are employers that run ah basically apprenticeship programs that you use don't call them that.
00:33:33
Speaker
And that's something of a sore spot among some people in apprenticeship because, you know, they are under constant pressure to grow apprenticeship all the time. And they can't count these things because they're, you know, maybe, um you know, a degree slightly off in terms of what an apprenticeship is or they're not registered or or not one of those things. So, you know, I take that point and sometimes quite frankly white labeling and entrepreneurship as something else that's not an apprenticeship may be the way to do it at some of these big employers that I think have a really grim viewpoint of it, but may be willing to invest in something else. Now, granted, I don't necessari necessarily know that, you know, being counters at some these companies want to invest in something else. I think that's part of the challenge here too.
00:34:17
Speaker
So, yeah, it's it's kind of fraught, but I hear your point. And and I'll also say, like, yeah, I've heard that before. It's like, I'm not a blacksmith. You know, I'm not going to go out here and do iron work. I'm, you know, I'm someone who wants to go into IT, t whereas there are very good IT apprenticeships. um So, you know, the terminology very much gets hung up on it. And I would also say, quite frankly, and something that I think I'm I keep trying to kind of nudge people into paying attention to on the government side, which is that how the heck do you get an apprenticeship if you're someone who wants to be an apprentice? And that's a very hard question to answer for people. And it's not straightforward. Sometimes you can go on Indeed and find one, but they don't necessarily say, hey, this is an apprenticeship. We're going to pay you.
00:35:00
Speaker
We're paying you $20 an hour now We're going to be paying you $50 an hour, you know, three years from now because we're doing this. um So it's not a user-friendly sort of thing. Whereas, you know, where we've talked about is, hey, nationally, we need to do more apprenticeship. and And that doesn't necessarily sort of help the actual meat and potatoes. How do people learn about this stuff piece of it?
00:35:20
Speaker
Well, and even that, I mean, how did how, where is it for the other end of the employer, the employee, I should say, right? I can do an apprenticeship for three years and then they can say, no you didn't fit, you didn't you didn't you didn't meet the requirements that we need for you to stay longer. Then they go hire another apprenticeship, apprentice for three years. Like they just keep recycling the low pace wages person. Like, I mean, I think again, that's that's one of those things where people are so sitting on the other side going,
00:35:47
Speaker
what's in it for me at the end of the day. right If I do this for three years and then I don't get the job or they just decide we don't want to pay somebody more, we're going to go back and pay a lower pay wage.
00:35:58
Speaker
Right? Like, I mean, you're in this world. I'm not, I could be very pessimistic about the whole, again, it's, it's also one those things where apprenticeship also kind of hits a little bit with higher ed or the fact that you don't need a degree anymore to get a job.
00:36:14
Speaker
So now you can just go work for this company as an apprentice and you'll learn how to be an accountant, but never go get a bachelor's degree in accounting. Right. So part of it is balancing that with,
00:36:26
Speaker
the rationale and the reason why you need to go to higher ed with also helping corporations build a better employee base that they know are going to be there long-term and so forth. But I can just see, like, I don't know. i
00:36:43
Speaker
I struggle with just the, there's so many gaps, so many places for it to break. And i think to your point, there's so many different definitions and not everybody's using this the same way.
00:36:55
Speaker
How do you get Bank of America? I mean, I'm just going to throw out names. How do you get Bank of America and JP Morgan and Schwab to all agree what an apprenticeship is for but financial organization?
00:37:06
Speaker
i mean, it's been done. Look at look, My brother's a doctor. So my sister-in-law is a doctor. That's right. Like we got doctors like residency is an apprenticeship. Call a residency, but it's a really low paid apprenticeship after you've built up, it you got a lot of skills, but now got to refine it and put and learn it invoke it.
00:37:26
Speaker
So the whole medical field is agreed on what a residency is. And they have since the early 20th century. um so like you can do it across at least a giant sector like finance or whatever.
00:37:40
Speaker
So it can happen. yeah but first store i all i'm a juris stock who has house me at that and I mean, those hospitals get government money for and then they pay them an abysmal wage yep for that residency. But at the end of that, whether you stay at that hospital or not, you're still a doctor and you can get a that's that's what I'm like.
00:38:03
Speaker
That's where I'm the bridge for me is what's the what's portable out of an apprenticeship if it doesn't pan out as planned. Right. Yeah. that Because the organization's choosing that it doesn't plan out as planned, not the employee, the organization. That's what i'm where's the, where's the boundaries for the organization to follow through and just not keep hiring, you know, JP Morgan all of a sudden turns into McDonald's of salaries.
00:38:32
Speaker
This is you're you're hitting on a lot of the complex issues here. i will honestly say the interesting thing I have heard more and more from employers is the flip of that, which is that we spend three years paying this person and building them up and doing all these other sort of things. And then we don't actually, then they leave.
00:38:55
Speaker
ah And, you know, that is the really sort of, you know, it's interesting because they don't they're not necessarily going to that same place you are. And granted, they can if they go into registered pressure, they could pay, you know, minimum wage at the front end. And honestly, that's why some programs lose registered apprenticeships because they're having them do the workload of a skilled job, but they're paying them, you know, those McDonald's wages, um which is not great or ideal or, you know, necessarily the best strategy at the end of the day.
00:39:23
Speaker
Like, i i you know you kind of hit it at a very good point here, which is you know Schwab, JP Morgan, Bank of America. you know The very funny thing that has been happening here a lot is that, and and you know I have even heard employers acknowledge it, but it's it's you know an interesting thing, let's say, which is that a lot of employers think their stuff is like very unique and very special, and they have use unicorn jobs that they teach them very specific ways. Now, as their former you know regulator to some extent, i
00:39:56
Speaker
don't think that's accurate in a lot of ways. They may use slightly different language. They may call the job something slightly el less, but they're so slightly different and they may have their own spin on it. But like, I don't necessarily think that is a material enough difference to use my jurist doctor language here to that, that, that, you know, it's worth saying, Hey, what if someone learns, you know, over at JP Morgan, they can't apply here over at bank of America. We need the bank of America way of doing this.
00:40:24
Speaker
um So I think that is a challenge that we're still running into as well as that. There's a degree of, you know, and I've heard employers describe it this way to preciousness in terms of that our job is different and it is better and is whatever so that we have to have our own particular special person to do this role. So.
00:40:44
Speaker
That is challenging in its own right. The other thing that I think is is also challenging here is that, you know if i you know, I won't say there are any easy solutions, but if you want a relatively straightforward solution at the end of the day in terms of how to do this stuff and hire people and scratch, employers itches regardless of where someone has skills it's what we call skills first hiring which is that hiring someone based on their skills verified through the hiring process about which we now have a decade of like research and guides we're at one of them like that you can actually go and and apply for now but i see there's very limited uptake of that on employers because it requires one they agree on what the job is And they have a clear idea of like how to hire for it. And two, I think there's still a degree of like less than sort of way of seeing it, that if you're not hiring someone, you know, with that sort of pedigree, you know, they don't have that Princeton or Harvard or Yale degree or something along those lines. Like, I do think that is a continued sort of hold up to this sort of stuff. So it it is a very, you know, that is like the very straightforward fix is, you know,
00:41:48
Speaker
you know, say screw how you got these skills. You have the skills. Let's get you hired and let's pay you like you have the skills because you have the skills. um I'm not seeing kind of employers getting over like the middle block there. And I will say, like, some of that is also like internal the employers like you cannot have skills first hiring without getting all your people in line. And sometimes in big organizations, that's really hard to do in terms of agreeing what a job is and and what you're hiring for.
00:42:12
Speaker
Yeah, I did. I've read some things that there were buy in and mandate from say leadership but in sectors or companies, this let's do skills first hiring, let's eliminate degree requirements, et cetera. But then the hr side of those organizations are like, Whoa, this is, this creates, this amplifies our workload that much more because how do you sift through candidates when they're all potentially portraying their skills in a different way? I mean, not that a,
00:42:45
Speaker
A degree is not a perfect proxy, but it's a proxy, right? You can screen for this. Like, do you have a ah BS in accounting? Done, okay. We can screen for those who do or do not. So um that's when you said that the uptake has been...
00:43:00
Speaker
Rocky but in that uniform, but that's what made me think of it. I've seen in writing about that in research, but you know Fortune magazine. Higher Ed struggles with the same thing, right? like to try to account to try to apply skills to degree programs is very difficult, right? So even to be able to say a bachelor's degree in accounting, what skills did you learn? I learned Excel. I learned spreadsheet. It's very difficult to to package those.
Higher Education's Role in Job Preparation
00:43:30
Speaker
And so if higher ed has a hard time packaging what skill, and I think that's also a dirty word in higher ed in some places, the word skills associated with degrees.
00:43:41
Speaker
And so then you also, so that exacerbates this a little bit too, because when employers start talking about skills and higher ed's like, well, you don't teach skills. We teach the whole, like, i mean, it's just, I don't know. I just think there's just a huge I'm going to be the the Debbie Downer today. There's just a huge disconnect, I still think, between what employers want and what higher ed thinks that they're delivering.
00:44:06
Speaker
And I think, Nick, it goes right back to your point that you said earlier. At the end of the day, you're getting a degree because you want a job. And I think sometimes in higher ed, we don't we forget that people are trying to get a job when they finish.
00:44:20
Speaker
We all talk about careers, but we have this bigger thing that you're going to become a well-rounded person and you're going to do all these other things. And I just don't think it's, I think the disconnect is just. I agree. And i and to me, and I've had this argument, and that's not an argument. I've had this discussion with people that to me, higher ed for almost, for most of its history in the United States has been about Jobs.
00:44:45
Speaker
The Moral Act is about getting people practical skills to work in agriculture in this emerging scientific and industrial and engineering space. The GI Bill was to like, not make well rounded people but was to get people out there to skill up and given levers to go on into jobs. i mean We all know these things, but so the fact that people are like, oh, it's like there was never this golden age, I think, of where higher ed was purely for making well-rounded people. Yeah, yeah, maybe before a moral act, it was... Colonial. Colonial.
00:45:15
Speaker
Even then it was to like train your clergy yeah do to train to like refine your aristocracy. That's really what was. You know, those clergy is a job. I'm from the deep south. And I mean, i don't think it's too much to say that a lot of those schools were fit a lot of those like universities were built as finishing schools. for someone to come back and run over the family business and do those sort of things. And I still think a lot, and I don't mean to say that the way that sort of discussion in higher ed is is inherently classes, but I do think that it that it it does not make sense to separate the class aspect from it, which is that you know that' sort of we're building you into a person, we're not thinking about the job part of this. And I've talked to, you know, pirate folks who are like, hey, we want to not even even worry about that thing. Like, I don't think you get to, I mean, that's not the point. And especially because, you know you know, that hasn't been the case since probably the 40s, since you had the TI Act that brought in a lot of people and really changed you know, made the degree more important and made the degree more, you know, relevant for for other folks. So, yeah, I get it. Like higher ed has had this sort of thing, but I also think that, you know, not to be too backwoods here about things, but, you know, I am backwoods and and and look comfortable or income, but like that's That's wealthy people stuff, man. And, you know. Champagne problems.
00:46:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's it is it is an upper class sort of issue to a degree too. And I don't mean to be too classist or anything. I'm like, I get into classism too much here. But I do think that's a degree that a bit, like that, you know, you are not having to, you you get to come back and really enjoy it. And and quite frankly,
00:46:52
Speaker
Your higher ed experience, if you were somebody who is working through school, or if you're somebody who, you know, is coming from that lower rung and you were there on like a scholarship or whatever, your experience is going vastly different from a person who it was an expectation you go to college, it was a given that you go to college and that you're going to probably have a little bit more of a stable base to operate from and a little bit more time to invest in those sort of people building stuff um and you know the challenge is ultimately and we've seen lots of research on this you know those people who work through they have less social capital coming out of it and social capital is really the secret to getting a job in a lot of ways right because it's not necessarily skills at the end of the day that's the combo breaker it's who you know and you get to know people in those sororities and fraternities or honors groups or stuff that a lot of those Or internships because, yeah, yeah. I think, you know, to me, it's an all, this doesn't say higher ed is diluted, that that forming well-rounded people and all the benefits that come with that, like health outcomes and civic participation, voting, whatever.
00:47:55
Speaker
Those things are all true. Higher Ed has created and fostered well-rounded people who also are really they have really ah lofty or great career outcomes and whatever those might be. like Being ah a low-paid teacher is great is a great outcome if that's the outcome you want to be or to be a social worker. That's not a lucrative place. Not every career has to be lucrative and Not every low, not every non lucrative career is a, is an accident, meaning someone didn't want it. So to me, those things are, they do happen. You can create you the at its best higher ed. You well round a person, get them lots of different knowledge and experiences and you prepare them, whether it's for a straight line career path, you're going to an engineer or you're going to be a doctor or they're like me where you have this meandering, but great career path because you have a history degree and some tech chops to go with it.
00:48:48
Speaker
Um, it it it happens. And so to say hire, it is only about creating well-rounded people, or it's only about rifling people into jobs that are very linear.
00:48:59
Speaker
It's neither. It's both. It's always has at its best. It is both. Like you, you, you create people for it you, you create, you help people adapt to a horizon of opportunities, not necessarily one single one to me that I'm already worried about the, it needs to be a straight line from one degree, From your degree to one profession. like The world doesn't put people one profession now. You have to move around, you have to be malleable. So i think we're... i'm agreeing I agree with you, Fritz. I mean, I do think that that that is... I think... I guess my point was more of higher ed just doesn't like... Since they don't like the word skills and they don't like to associate job-related type of things to a degree, I think that's where they kind of like build this little bit of a wall of...
00:49:45
Speaker
you know you know i can go back to, i have a very good friend who graduated, the bachelor her daughter graduated with bachelor's degree, and I helped her through her program and advising her and all these different types of things. And she ultimately ended up going to an employer for a job interview. And the first and she had a bachelor's degree in in business analytics. And the first thing they asked her, do you know Tableau?
00:50:05
Speaker
And she said, no. And they said, they basically closed the door on her interview and said, when you know Tableau, come back and interview. We'd love to hire you. So she had to go out after her bachelor's degree and learn Tableau because her business administration degree did not teach Tableau.
00:50:22
Speaker
I've had conversations with other organization with other higher ed organizations. They see that as a skill and they don't teach Tableau. that particular product because that's up to the employer to do. Like that's to me, that's the disconnect. And I'm not saying that's everybody in higher ed. It's a two way disconnect to me because that employer can like, well, this person's bright and brilliant.
00:50:45
Speaker
I mean, I i do Tableau. i I'm, you know, it's not impossible to learn it on your own or- it's you have it So for the. so She learned Tableau. She came back and she got the job. but But I'm just saying they
Adapting to Technological Changes
00:50:57
Speaker
didn't. But again, it's a very large organization who could have done an an apprenticeship type program with her and said, well, we'll we'll we'll pay you x until you learn Tableau. and then once you learn.
00:51:07
Speaker
Two months. like is up morning But again, it was a total opposite type thing where they wanted somebody with a specific skill set. but But the first, the where I'm trying to like, again, it's just that disconnect between. oh yeah, I think it it goes on the institution too.
00:51:21
Speaker
They should know that like you need to have these, least whether it's Power BI or Tableau or like you need to be able to adapt to all these kinds of analytics tools. Yeah. Because it's like, you know, it's like, oh, you don't know C++. plus plus Well, you need to know COBOL or whatever. Like you can adapt, but for eve for both sides to not have set her up for that and to adapt her to it is to me, That's that's the issue. That's the disconnect. Yeah. And this was an employer in that university's backyard.
00:51:48
Speaker
like Right. They could have asked, like, what do you need from our business analytics? They should know what they want from potential graduates. Anyways, that's not to go down a totally different conversation than where Nick was going, but It's not because I know no employers like, you know, I what I try to encourage and I've talked to community college leaders who I think have a different sort of setup because it has always been about a job to them.
00:52:15
Speaker
And I think they are probably better built for this era because and one also because they're so revenue based. They've never had to just say, hey, I can go to this, you know, alum and say, hey, write me a check. And that's going to patch X, Y and Z. They have to figure out how to, you know, make stuff work and, you know, be attracted to the market and sell a product. But like I know one who, you know, their entire product, they they so scrutinize every grad rate and every hire rate and every other things because they work with these employers. And if they notice a dip, they're like, OK, what are we doing wrong right now?
00:52:44
Speaker
Like, what are we missing? And very frequently it's like, hey, yeah, we added this thing. We need you guys here and they need to adjust the curriculum on the fly. And like that is kind of the future. Is that terribly fair to everybody involved? Not necessarily, not in the least, but also like with the pace of technological change. And quite frankly, you know, new management comes in these companies all the time because of X, Y and Z thing or pressures from investors or whatever. um all those sort of things definitely sort of lead to you know those sorts of changes and adaptability. So I think that's a great story in terms of where we're at, is that you have to have those relationships. And I do think that like higher ed, higher ed, your four-year institutions are a little bit behind the ball on that because they don't necessarily have those relationships. They have giant advancement departments, but they don't necessarily have, you know they may need to do a little bit of patching so that they get those alums they can go back to later and get them on. To me, reality is...
00:53:36
Speaker
reality is steamrolling a lot of higher ed right now. It's coming at us. So an institution can put their, put you know plant their flag and like we will never teach a skill. And the reality and reality is gonna determine, the market of students will determine whether that's ah a realistic perspective to have or not. I think it would be and bad, it would be unconscionable, like not a good steward of that institution to do that because That is not what, you know, it's not just giving people what they want, but you have to adapt to reality. So um I'm not saying every institution that's closed has stood on that that, you know, soapbox and done that. But, you know, the the combination of lower, like, decreased college going rate, demographic planing down across the board is really making every institution face reality that,
00:54:29
Speaker
but I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing. That's just what's happening. So every every every institution has to face that and find their way through it. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's really challenging right now to to kind of work through those things. And I mean, I will say it is a very complex environment and it will and there is a ton of noise here.
00:54:49
Speaker
And I think it's really hard to do it. um You know, someone was pointing out to me that they don't necessarily think that CEOs jobs are necessarily to run companies so much as Menorists or do social hits. And, you know, I can't dispute that. But, you know, it's really hard to figure out what to to do right now and and necessarily also have you know, be able to do the lift in terms of getting people there. So like, you know, if I had to give any advice to anyone in higher ed right now, which is one, I think you're going to have to really invest in your career services account.
00:55:20
Speaker
I mean, career services through staff and really focus and rethink how you do that work and maybe do a little bit better. Like, you know, I'll tell you the honest God truth. The, you know, I went to a very good law school. I'm very proud of where I went to law school. I think, you know, I got hired out of my law school because of my law school. um I feel pretty good about it.
00:55:39
Speaker
The career services they got I got at my law school compared to Harvard Law are completely different, like in terms of how much they match made, how much they help people get places, how much they do it. And granted, you're Harvard Law. You've got a different sort of degree of pedigree there that, and law only cares about pedigree sometimes, so it's there. But I had classmates who you know will not donate to my law school now and have made it clear to them like not because they got virtually no career help.
00:56:06
Speaker
And like, I think that's ultimately the cost for you long term is that it's not necessarily just, hey, we got to get these people a job or hey, it's a nice thing to have. It's part of your advancement sort of, you know process now because, you know, we are in a period where jobs may be a little bit rarer depending on AI, if you know, AI works out a certain way. And also at the same time, you have this enrollment cliff that's coming up. We're really already into the demographic sort of issues and changes right now as there are fewer college kids coming. So like you have to stand out right now so that you can, one, you know attract those people now and and fill in those tuition gaps, but also in the future, have that sort of loyalty built up to have those sort of degree ah have those sort of folks there who can be your donors of the future. And I don't necessarily see that type of vision right now, including some from some places that I think are are you know who I normally bank on to have that level of vision. But it is definitely something that i think needs to be built out. And there's probably to degree of urgency here in the next three to five years for it.
00:57:15
Speaker
Yeah. Great point. Well, Nick, it's been great having you on on the podcast today. We really appreciate the time and and you know helping us kind of unpack these different things. And and hopefully we can have you back yeah in the in the near future as well, I'm sure, with our, you know, with different things going or happening within our our federal government and also at the state level too. I'm sure there'll be other things for us to pay attention to signals that things are changing because they are changing. And hopefully we'll have some we'll have some more things to talk about it in terms of this bigger topic about workforce development and and what higher ed could be doing to better align with the needs of
00:58:05
Speaker
the evolving job market. So thanks again, Nick. Appreciate you. Absolutely. This was blast. Thank you.