The following transcript has been edited for readability. Timestamps have been removed and minor transcription errors corrected. Speaker comments and context have been preserved.

Opening Remarks

Rich Portelance

Why, hello everyone. This is Rich Portelance for the EdGate Powers Podcast. Today I'm with Will Markow. He is the CEO and founder of FourOne Insights. I'm excited about this interview. We're going to talk a little bit about what's happening in the workforce, data, and talking about different levels of careers and CTE. So, this is going to be a fantastic conversation. 

Just to remind everyone, EdGate has two products: ExACT and Journeys Map. ExACT is an alignment tool that's used within the education publishing industry, and within K12 districts for the authoring of educational and CTE standards, all the way through alignment and delivery. Journeys Map is a career-finding tool that is based on educational standards and skills that people need for jobs of the future. 

So, without further ado, Will, why don't you give us an introduction? 

Will Markow

Well, thanks, Rich. It's great to be here. I’m really excited to be chatting with you today. 

And just to give you a little bit of background on myself, I have been really analyzing the workforce now for about 13 years. I've been in this space since before anybody was talking about real-time data, job postings data, or anything along those lines. And so, I'm kind of geriatric in this world. But, you know, I started cutting my teeth at a company that, at the time, was called Burning Glass. Now it's called Lightcast, and it has really become one of the largest labor market analytics providers in the world. I was leading the research and consulting team and was analyzing the key trends impacting the future of the workforce. And about a year ago, I decided that having a consistent paycheck was boring. And thankfully, my wife went along with it, and decided to start FourOne Insights. 

We're a research and advisory firm that really focuses on the impact of emerging technologies in the workforce. So, think AI, think about what's happening in cybersecurity, and other fields that are really starting to reshape the types of skills and requirements that individuals need to learn and develop in order to be effective on the job. And we're trying to get ahead of those trends. And we really do that by quantifying anything and everything related to the workforce. Whether it's emerging skills, whether it's emerging tasks, whether it's the emerging roles of the future. We're trying to get a pulse on that so that we can really communicate with quantifiable evidence how the workforce is shifting and how individuals, educators, employers, and others should be adapting in response to those changes. 

Rich Portelance

Thank you for that introduction. That's a great framing of what we're going to talk about today. And I agree, having a regular paycheck is way overrated. 

Will Markow

It really is! They don't tell you that in school, but it's way overrated. 

Discussion

Rich Portelance

So, well, you spent years analyzing workforce data at scale. Can you give us one misconception that people have about the future of work? 

Will Markow

Well, I think we'll just start with the elephant in the room on that one: AI. Everybody is worried about the AI jobs apocalypse; everybody is saying the sky is falling. And you hear the layoff notices from CEOs who say that they're getting rid of, you know, tens of thousands of people because of AI. And you really start to think that the sky is falling because of AI. And the reality, as is usually the case, is a lot more nuanced than that. When we actually look at the data, we don't see mass declines in employment; we don't see mass declines in demand for most types of workers. The reality is AI hasn't led to massive job declines in most industries for most roles. 

What it has started to do, however, is that it has started to reshape the types of skill sets that people need to have in many different types of roles, and it's reshaped the types of tasks and responsibilities that people might be performing. So, to give you some concrete examples, you know, we're starting to see that in certain industries and in certain fields, people are less likely to need to focus on some of the rote generation tasks that AI is getting really good at, and they're really needing to start to build more critical thinking skills, and more soft skills, and some of those uniquely human skills. So, it's kind of counterintuitive that with the rise of AI, it's making work more human in many cases. And I think that's a story that really should be told more than the jobs apocalypse that many people are fearing. And we can get into the details of where we are seeing some more nuance around job disruption, but I think at a high level, we're not seeing examples or evidence of mass unemployment as a result of AI. In many cases, we're actually seeing that it is amplifying the types of work that people are doing, especially when it's used to augment the tasks that they're performing rather than just straight-up automating them. And I think that it's… I wouldn't necessarily call it a straight-up optimistic take on what's happening, but I definitely don't think that the widespread pessimism is borne out in the data. 

Rich Portelance

Well, there were a couple of things in there, Will, that really struck me. Making work more human and the idea of amplifying, you know, the type of things and work that we do resonate. And if we're talking about entry level versus more senior jobs are you seeing some differences in that spectrum? 

Will Markow

Yeah, I think that's a great place to focus because that is one of the areas where we do see some real disruption and some nuance, which may or may not be related to AI. I think AI is probably a piece of it, but I don't think it's the only factor. When you look across the past few years, there have been a lot of disruptions in the workforce. So, I always hesitate to say AI is the main culprit for anything that's happened since 2022. With that said, when we look at the entry- level market, that is one of the areas where most people are the most concerned about AI's potential impact, because you think about the types of tasks and the types of skills that AI is most primed to replicate. They're usually going to be more repeatable and less complex. Those are the types of tasks that, historically, were given to more entry-level workers. And we definitely have seen over the past few years that in many fields most exposed to AI, entry-level jobs have declined the most, and opportunities in that field have declined the most. And we're seeing a rise in recent graduate unemployment, especially, again, in fields that have been most impacted by AI, as well as some of the other macroeconomic factors, such as rising interest rates. 

So, what this is doing is potentially creating a long-term talent pipeline challenge, because if we don't have the entry-level workers coming through the pipeline today, where are we going to get those experienced workers five to 10 years down the road? And I think that companies are not close to automating more experienced workers with AI. Those are still the people who need to provide the guardrails on what AI is doing. And the more likely scenario, I think, over the next few years is that rather than AI completely automating large swaths of the workforce, we might see a decrease in entry-level opportunities as companies try to replicate some of the things that they historically might have done with AI. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but then they're still going to need those experienced workers. And if we don't have the next generation of entry- level folks coming through the pipeline, then we're likely going to have some talent shortages, especially at the mid and senior levels a few years down the line. 

And so, I really hope that employers are able to take more of a long-term view in how they're thinking about their workforce and their talent pipelines, so that they don't end up in a situation where they save a couple of dollars today only to have to spend $10 in the future, because they can't find the talent as a result of a talent shortage that's ultimately of their own making. 

Rich Portelance

So that makes a lot of sense. You know, especially if you're having the long view on what this can do, and how it can, you know, shift responsibilities within a company. 

I'm curious, do you see a correlation between traditional white collar jobs, some of which may be, you know, kind of repositioned, and so maybe there's less of those jobs available because of the automations that AI can supply, and an increase in folks looking at CTE as a better pathway for the future? 

Will Markow

It's definitely a possible scenario. 

So, when we look at the types of jobs that have been most exposed and most impacted by AI, there are a lot of those traditional white-collar workers. Now, we haven't seen massive employment declines, but we have seen decreases in growth rates and decreases in demand, which we typically look at by seeing how many jobs employers are actually asking for in those roles. And I think that is likely going to lead some people who otherwise would have looked at some of those traditional white-collar jobs to reconsider roles that are more aligned with traditional CTE programs. 

So that's also probably good news, because we do see a massive talent shortage in many pockets of the workforce that, for a long time, just weren't considered the sexiest fields to go into. Everybody was told to go and get a four-year college degree, look for white-collar work, go into computer science, or go into finance or business, whatever it may be. And now that we're starting to see the market soften for those jobs, we don't have enough people to replace the aging workers in all of those other fields that are still necessary in our economy. And I think that it would be very beneficial for us as a society to have more people go into those fields. But, you know, I'm not at the point yet where I can say I think there is a structural change in the market due to AI. It may be cyclical, there may be some structural factors, but if it is cyclical, then what we're, you know, seeing today as a talent shortage for those roles aligned to CTE programs and a surplus of talent for the white collar workers, if that shifts, then in another decade, we might be saying the exact opposite thing. Unless AI is able to get to the point where it can structurally reduce the amount of demand for some of those more traditional white-collar workers. 

But I do think, regardless of what happens, there is going to potentially be more interest in some of those traditional CTE programs, but then the onus is going to be on them to make sure that they're up for the challenge of both bringing in additional workers and ensuring the curricula align with the pace of change in many roles in the economy. 

Rich Portelance

Okay. 

And CTE has historically been positioned as an alternative pathway. Should that framing be shifted or changed? 

Will Markow

I would love it if that framing changed. I think that it doesn't necessarily need to be thought of as an “alternative”, because I think, whether right or wrong, that it is going to apply to a lot of people. It is a lesser opportunity in some way, shape, or form. I think that it should be considered on the same level as many of those traditional white-collar jobs because those roles are just as critical. The CTE programs are producing people for roles that are absolutely vital to our industries, to our national security, and to our society more generally. And I do think that there needs to be a reframing around the value of those types of pathways. And I would love to see them elevated to the same level that we see some of the more “traditional” white collar jobs that, for a long time, I think were, in the minds of many, elevated, whether rightly or wrongly. I would argue wrongly, but I think that, you know, there really needs to be a rebranding in many fields that historically were thought of as what your grandfather did, not what you can do. 

Rich Portelance

So, all right. So, if you were to redesign a modern CTE program from scratch, what are the two or three non-negotiables for that program? 

Will Markow

Well, you know, I think some of these things are not necessarily unique to CTE, but at the very least, you have to be keeping up with the pace of change. Virtually all fields that we track are seeing skills evolve more rapidly than what we've seen in the past. And if you are going to be preparing people for some of these roles in the future, then you're going to have to start bringing into your curriculum new technologies and new skill sets. 

Ideally, you're also going to be bringing in employers to help inform the curriculum. I know that sometimes it's a tough nut to crack. Everybody wants to bring employers in, but to the extent that you can do that, I think it's going to be much more likely that you're not only able to adapt your curriculum more rapidly, but you're also going to be able to find employment opportunities or at least work-based learning opportunities for your folks. And so I'd say that the second non-negotiable is ensuring that you are keying your students up for success by giving them hands-on experience. Whether that is finding more opportunities for internships, whether that is finding more opportunities for apprenticeships, or even just project-based learning opportunities. I've seen some interesting opportunities in some CTE programs where they actually find real employment opportunities for their students to work on, you know, for example, you know, construction project sites or other areas where they're really building some hands-on knowledge while producing an output that they can then point to and put on their resume as real experience, not just something they've learned in the classroom, which I think is also going to help employers have more faith in in the folks that they're hiring out right out of school. 

The last thing I would say is that, because AI and other automation technologies are reintroducing the value of traditionally human skills, that also means you need to be thinking about not just building people in your CTE programs who have a few point skills that will get them a job right now, but you also have to think about how do you then build into your curriculum opportunities for them to develop some of those critical thinking skills, or traditionally human skills that can give them more sustainable employment opportunities? Now, obviously, there's only so much you can accomplish in a limited time frame. So I'm not saying you need to have everybody reading thoroughly in a CTE program. But I do think that, if you can emphasize ways for people to develop some of those critical thinking, communication, and just traditional human and business enabling skills, then that's going to make for better-rounded, more adaptable students who have more sustainable career opportunities. 

Rich Portelance

So, you know, you're talking about the rise of a skill-based organization, right? So, I'm looking at, you know, what does that really look like in practice versus theory, and then, the idea of durable skills versus the more volatile skills? Can you kind of talk about that a little bit? 

Will Markow

Yeah. Well, in practice, a skills-based organization is nothing like it is in theory. I think that in theory, it sounds great, but in practice, it is tough to do. It is a massive change management endeavor, and I think a lot of organizations have historically tried to become skills-based with the best of intentions, but they get tripped up, largely, I would argue, because people have told them they have to start by building out this massive data set and it becomes kind of a glorified database project as opposed to something that is really tethered to business imperatives. 

And so the first thing I would say for organizations is that if you really want your skills-based efforts to deliver value and to stick, don't think of it as a data play. Don't think of it as an infrastructure play. Think of it as a business value driver. and figure out what you are actually trying to solve for with skills-based organization practices. Are you trying to, you know, solve your talent acquisition problems? Are you trying to solve some retention problems? Are you trying to ensure that your workforce remains future-ready in the face of rapid change? Whatever that may be, start with that. I think that when companies are able to do it right, though, they are really able to build out systems and data sets that really give them more flexibility and more insight into the types of workforce changes that are occurring that they need to get ahead of. 

So, you know, I’ll give you a concrete example. We recently released some research with Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS), where we were looking at the highest value talent practices that organizations could be adopting within the context of their cybersecurity teams, but this extends beyond cybersecurity as well. And what we found is that the highest value practices that companies could be investing in were skills-based and talent-friendly, which meant that they were using skills to unlock more opportunities for their individuals to grow. So the highest value practices, for example, were things like mentorships, where you're connecting somebody with someone in your organization to help them build new skills and new connections to advance in their careers. The other highest value practice was giving people personalized opportunities for skill development. And for personalized learning pathways. So, the idea there is that if you can tell each individual what skills they have and what skills they need in order to grow and advance within your organization, then, A, they're going to get more productive because they're going to be more highly skilled. But then, B, they're also going to be much more loyal, and they're going to be more productive as a result of that, because when you invest in your people, they become more invested in you. And so I think there's a lot of promise to skills-based approaches to talent management. 

But the problem is, we've also seen that a lot of companies are not actually adopting them with much rigor or with much efficacy. So in that same research, we found that although there was a lot of value in these practices, both for companies and for individuals, we also found that companies are very uneven in how they're adopting them. Only about half of the companies that we surveyed had adopted the highest value practices. And when they actually did adopt some of these skills-based practices, the vast majority of companies were still relying upon subjective managerial assessments of people's skills, which, you know, if you're a manager and you think person A is good and person B isn't, it doesn't really matter what their underlying skills are if you've already built that biased opinion. 

So I think there's a long way to go for organizations to build more objective measures of the skills of their people for the value of skills-based approaches to talent management to really produce their full benefit. 

Rich Portelance

Okay. 

So if you had to give some advice to companies, what are the top two things that they could do to transition to improve the way they upskill workers and measure competency? 

Will Markow

The first thing I would say is pull back from subjective measures of skills or competencies, such as managerial assessments. Those are notoriously subjective. It's going to be a garbage-in-garbage-out scenario, and it's just going to lock in existing biases and challenges within your workforce. So look for, you know, better assessments of skills which could be lab-based. It could be giving somebody actual on-the-job tasks that you can then evaluate them against so that you're measuring their output, as opposed to just relying upon either individuals or managers to assess their skills. 

And then from there, I would also say, you know, aside from just the measurement piece, look for opportunities to give people growth opportunities on the job. So that could be, for example, stretch assignments. When we were looking through the data, stretch assignments, actually, on average, when companies were offering them to cyber security workers, companies were wringing over $110,000 of additional value out of workers who were given stretch assignments throughout the course of their employment with a company, because it's helping them grow more skills. It's helping them to continuously evolve, and people appreciate when companies place that trust in them. And it's a very simple thing. You don't have to have a companywide mandate; you can do this as an individual manager and just say, like, "Hey, I'm going to go give Sally over there an opportunity to grow by offering this stretch assignment." Anybody can do that. It's easy, it's a high-value opportunity. 

And so I'd say look for those quick wins. You don't need to wait for some massive skills-based rollout to come out of your HR team or take a long process. You can look for simple ways to help people evaluate the skills that they already have and build on them through additional on-the-job experience and opportunities. 

Rich Portelance

So, I think that's really great advice, you know, for companies looking at their employees in a more holistic way and let's see how we can upskill and improve what we have. 

If I switch the lens a little bit to someone entering the marketplace, let's say a 17 or 18-year-old, what am I spending time learning versus what I shouldn't spend time to learn at this point in time? 

Will Markow

Yeah. Well, I, you know, I usually break this into two different types of skills that people should be learning. 

There are what I call the stable skills. These are the foundational capabilities that are going to benefit you throughout the entirety of your career. So these are some of the human skills we talked about, things like critical thinking, things like communication, collaboration. But they're also what I would call digital building block skills. We find that digital tools are pervasive across almost every industry, across almost every role. And so, at least having some foundational understanding of things like how software works, what data privacy and information privacy is, and other baseline literacies in those tools that are increasingly pervasive. Now obviously AI is one of those, and I think is also useful, as well as what I would call business enabling skills. These are the skills that really help you connect what you're doing to why you're doing it. And regardless of what field you're in, even if you don't think you're in business, you probably are in some capacity. And so, understanding how you can deliver value to a diverse set of stakeholders is always going to be useful regardless of what you find yourself in in terms of your field. 

So, those are what I call the stable skills. Everybody should learn those. Now the other set of skills is what I call the “sexy skills”. These are the emerging skills, the high-growth skills that often align with in-demand, emerging technologies or other fields. Right now, everybody's talking about AI, but in a few years, we might be talking about something else. Quantum computing, who knows what it is? And these are really skills that, you know, pop on your resume, they help you stand out. And they can help you get your foot in the door in a variety of different types of organizations. And so if you have a good mix of those foundational stable skills that are always going to be useful throughout your career, as well as keeping a pulse on some of the sexy emerging skills that really help your resume pop, I think that's how you maximize the employment opportunities as a young individual. And the more that you can demonstrate those skills with actual either on-the-job experience, or project-based learning, or something else that you can point to as a tangible example of your proficiency in those skills, then the easier it's going to be for you to convince companies that they should hire you, even though you're early on in your career. 

Rich Portelance

I like the breakout of staple versus, you know, the sexy skills. If I'm a young person– and as an older guy who's been in the workforce for a long time, I have some opinions about, you know, the type of jobs that I wanted my kids to take on that would provide some of those staple skills. I'm curious from your perspective: what are those jobs that are accessible to 17 or 18-year-olds that you would say are great for staple skills versus sexy skills? 

Will Markow

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that there are a couple of different ways to think about that question, because you could think about it in terms of the jobs that you could target that might be your career. Although you might argue that with the pace of change, who really knows what jobs could, you know, offer you a fulfilling career for, you know, 30 plus years these days. But you could also think of it in terms of the jobs that are stepping stones, and maybe they're not what you're going to do forever, but they help you develop some of those skills that will benefit you later on. 

So, I can speak to this one, actually, from personal experience. When I was 17, I was working as a retail salesperson selling athletic shoes. And I would argue that although I don't actually do anything related to retail, I don't actually sell shoes, but I was developing skills that I still use to this day. I was learning how to talk to customers. I was learning how to prioritize whether I should be, you know, stocking this shelf versus that shelf. And I was developing, you know, sales and business enabling skills that I think formed a foundational set of competencies that I was able to build on from there. 

And so I think that if you are in that position, if you can look for either the jobs that might provide long-term opportunity, which I think, you know, right now, many of those might be aligned with CTE programs, although it's hard to really peer into the crystal ball and know exactly what is or is not going to be disrupted five to 10 years down the line. But I think that you can also look at some of those stepping-stone jobs that, maybe it's not what you want to do forever, but you can still get a lot of value out of it if you take a learning mindset to it and figure out what it is that I'm doing today. What are the skills that I'm building that will stick with me and that I can build on top of throughout the remainder of my career? 

Rich Portelance

Excellent. I agree. I had the same experience with waiting tables and, you know, you pick some of those great skills up and they stick with you if you learn how to interact with people, engage, and have the ability to manage whatever it is and isn’t in front of you, like you said, stocking shoes, and understanding how things flow from… That those skills don't go away. 

Now, you know, we've talked about lifelong learning. It's kind of one of those things that people talk about, but I don't know if everybody really understands the implication of that, or what it really is, but most systems are still built for really one-time education. What needs to change or break within the system to make lifelong learning more accessible and realistic for people? 

Will Markow

Well, I would argue that a lot of it actually has to occur on the employer side. I think that employers need to recognize the value of continuously investing in upskilling and reskilling their people. And this sounds like a “nice-to-have” for some employers, and they say, “Well, yeah, that's nice, but, you know, we're not going to invest in that when we can invest in something else”. But I think with the pace of change that's being brought on not just from AI, but other technologies as well, it is now a business imperative if organizations want to remain future-ready. 

We see that skills… They're evolving incredibly rapidly. So if you hired somebody even just a year or two ago, the skills they had might already be outmoded. And if you're not continuously investing in their development, then a couple of things happen. One, they become less productive relative to your peers and you as a company start to fall behind. Two, if you're not investing in your people, then they're less invested in your company. If you are giving them opportunities for growth and they're going to say, "Well, hey, this company, they really seem to believe in me. They're giving me opportunities to develop my skill sets. Maybe I'll want to stick around”. And we see that in the data. The companies that invest in learning and development, companies that invest in helping their people grow, especially with some of those skills-based best practices that we talked about by providing more personalized learning opportunities, those companies are rewarded with longer tenure rates, higher productivity, better cultures, and it really has a lot of spillover benefits for these companies, as well as the individuals. 

And so, I think of it as an ultimate win-win when companies are actually recognizing the value of supporting continuous learning. That means giving them time, that means saying, "Hey, we're going to block off the time for you to build these skills." Maybe it's, you know, where possible within the flow of work, but if it has to be through another means then we're going to enable you to do that. And I think that employers are really the first step in fixing that system and rearchitecting the system to enable lifelong learning. 

Now, the other piece of that, of course, is on the educator side. They have to be able to rapidly adapt themselves because if they are going to be able to support lifelong learning, then they are going to need to keep a continuous pulse on how the market is evolving, what employer needs are shifting, and they need to be able to rapidly adapt their curriculum and their program offerings in response to that. And so I think that there needs to be both a mindset shift on the employer side, and there has to be a velocity shift on the educator side, so that they can rapidly adapt to the needs of employers, and employers need to be able to recognize the value of continuously investing in their people. If the educators and the training providers are continuously offering high-value training and development opportunities to employers and their employees, then that's also going to help with the company's perception of the value of investing in training. And so I do think there's a bit of a virtuous feedback loop baked within that. 

Rich Portelance

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. 

So you're putting an onus on the employers, obviously the individual. I'm curious about if we're building out an ecosystem. You have lots of employers within, let's say, you're from Massachusetts. What is the state's responsibility or the region's responsibility as it comes to a high-functioning reskilling ecosystem? What do they need to do to get these employers going? 

Will Markow

Yeah. Well, you know, it's an interesting question. Especially right now, given some of the challenges we're seeing with entry-level workers, because I think there are a few levers that the states have at their disposal. 

One is, you know, just making it as incentivized as possible for employers to invest in reskilling and training their workers. There are already a lot of good opportunities out there that different states are offering in terms of training grants or tax rebates or things of that nature. There's some, you know, I think it's Ohio. They have a good program that helps organizations that are looking to reskill workers in tech-related fields. And other states have that as well. I think the problem, though, is that not a lot of people know about them. And making it more obvious and promoting and shouting from the rooftops that, “Hey, we have these great opportunities for employers to leverage these state programs to invest in reskilling”, I think is one piece of it. 

The other thing I think that states can be doing is really getting creative in how they think about their role in the early career ecosystem. So, I'll give you an example of this. One of the things that we've started to see is some local municipalities, or even state-level governments, considering programs where they are actually bringing on entry-level workers, either for state jobs or at least to support state programs. So, we've seen this in cybersecurity for a while, in cybersecurity clinics for example. The idea there is that you take students and recent graduates, and you actually have some kind of a public SOC, or a Security Operations Center, where they are learning on the job by actually protecting state agencies, and other, sometimes small and medium-sized businesses, sometimes nonprofits. The idea is that you're helping these agencies and these organizations that otherwise don't have as many resources as the large employers in your region, and you're giving them more support while also giving opportunities for early career development for these students. And I think you're going to start to see more of those programs either at a state level or at a local level, coming out of these governments, because people are trying to figure out how to ensure that we have a strong pipeline of early career talent, especially in the age of AI? How do we ensure that people are still developing that on-the-job experience? And these kinds of hybrid approaches that combine government support plus– support for the government or for other traditionally undersourced organizations, I think is a potentially novel way of solving that “chicken and egg” problem of employers only wanting to hire someone with experience, but if there are no early career opportunities, then how do you build the pipeline of people with that experience? 

Rich Portelance

Yeah, exactly. And every state has its own kind of focus on different workforce needs, etc. 

But I want to touch on decisioning with data, because that's, you know, core to what you do, right? And you've worked with workforce data at a national level for years. How should educators actually use that data in their decision-making? 

Will Markow

This is a good question, and you know, this sounds a little counterintuitive coming from somebody who is a data nerd– I love data, I built my company on data– I actually don't think everybody should start with data because they don't always do it effectively. Now I do think data is a huge piece of this process. I do think that it helps you to validate your assumptions. But I think the problem is that we have a glut of data, and a lot of people are not actually able to derive the insights from it because there's just too much out there. 

And so, I would say to start with some very clear questions that you want to answer. Don't start with the data. I think too many people say I have data now, I'm going to go answer some questions with it. That's a “boiling the ocean” activity. You have to start with a clear idea of the problem you're trying to solve, or the hypothesis that you're trying to test, and then work backwards from that. And from there, you can figure out, “Okay, what are the data points that can actually help me validate or provide more insight into this question that I'm trying to answer?” And I think for educators in particular, a lot of the data sets that we like to use when we work with them, for example, boil down to looking at how different types of jobs are trending, how different types of skills are trending in the market, we also like to look at not only what skills are in demand or growing, but also which ones offer salary premiums, right? You want your people to make as much money as possible, and the skills that are both high growth and high value are where you want to focus. 

And then obviously, we also like to say, you know, look at the supply and demand. If you are preparing somebody for a field that everybody's talking about, but we also already have a surplus of talent in, then maybe you want to focus on a more undersupplied area that you should be looking at. 

And so, you know, I think those are just some of the common metrics that we look at, but I think that, you know, there's a broader philosophical shift that needs to happen for a lot of educators where it's less about just using data for data’s sake, and going back to basics, starting with the questions that are most important for you to focus on and then working backwards from there and figuring out, “Okay, what are the data points that can actually help me validate this?” And you know what? Don't forget about the need for human judgment, right? Data is inherently backwards-looking. And so if you only rely on the data, you're never going to build something fundamentally novel. And I think there is still a role for human ingenuity to come into play alongside the quantifiable evidence that helps you support some of those anecdotal hunches that you might have. 

Rich Portelance

And, you know, in that space of data… And I understand and appreciate what you're saying that you need to have the hypothesis before you apply the data. Is there something… You know, a piece of a metric or a signal that schools should look at that they don't, and it mystifies you as someone who's in that space, like, you know, look at that, because it's really is going to help to provide an impression or some kind of value to that school? 

Will Markow

Yeah. I mean, every school is different. Every school is looking at, you know, some similar metrics and some different ones. I will say that I don't always see schools effectively bring in both supply and demand, which sounds very obvious, but I think most of them are attempting to do that, but a lot of the data providers out there, although they might provide some of the building blocks to look at both what's trending up in terms of demand as well as what supply looks like, they don't really connect the two very effectively. And so, I think that finding more ways to effectively assess both sides of the supply-demand equation is one piece. And in some cases, you can get that data. In some cases, looking at salaries is a great proxy for that. Looking at salary growth, looking especially at skill level salaries to help you prioritize which of the in-demand skills are really most valuable in the market, I think it can be a very useful tool to help identify the types of skills that are necessary. 

So again, there's a lot of nuance to that question. I wouldn't say there's just one metric everybody should be looking at, but those are a couple of the areas where I think schools, they… Just because it's difficult to have the resources or the expertise to know how to look at these things effectively, don't always incorporate data with the efficacy that I think they could be. 

Rich Portelance

And if you're kind of switching the lens to the edtech publishers and edtech providers out there, if we want to avoid chasing trends, and instead focus on signal over noise, how do we do that? 

Will Markow

Yeah. Well, you know, I again think that it is useful to use the data in that context, because one of the things we often see is that the exciting buzzwords of the moment are usually pretty small in terms of absolute demand. There are only a few exceptions. In the, you know, 13-ish years that I've been doing this, there are only a few cases where a buzzword actually was aligned with a massive amount of demand. It's usually, you know, something that punches above its weight in terms of how much people are talking about it versus how much demand there really is. AI is an exception; we have seen very rapid growth and strong demand. Cybersecurity is another one, and data science back in the day was another one. But, when you hear people talk about, like, blockchain, or, you know, even back in the day to some extent, some of the green technologies people were talking about, or others. It's not that they're not growing fast, but it's that they're growing fast, but still very small. 

And that doesn't mean we shouldn't be investing in those areas. It doesn't mean they won't continue to grow. But I do think that there is a need to both look at how things are trending in the moment, as well as just contextualizing how large an impact they are already having and are they likely to have in the future. Is it that they're going to continue to expand exponentially throughout the market? Or are they going to remain a pretty niche area? And that doesn't mean you can't still focus on those niche areas, but I think it does mean you need to rightsize your investments to ensure that you're not placing massive bets on areas that fundamentally have a smaller growth cap than others. 

Rich Portelance

Okay. I want to switch because we're kind of getting close to closing, and I want to talk about future-focused items. So, what job or career path today do you think will disappear or fundamentally change in the next decade? 

Will Markow

Yeah, you know, I think it's always difficult to predict out into the future too far, but some of the things we are seeing are that I think there is a fundamental difference in a lot of tech jobs, and that's where I think AI is disrupting roles. Now, I'm not one of those people who say that tech jobs are completely going away, but I do think that they are going to fundamentally shift, and they're going to be much more augmented than they have been in the past. You're still going to need people who understand the technical intricacies, and you're still going to need people who know how to code. You can't just throw– no matter what you say about vibe coding, I still don't think we're anywhere close to being able to just throw a vibe coding tool at some Joe Schmo on the street, and they're going to be able to build a beautiful website. But it is going to be a much more augmented experience than it has been in the past. I think that will have implications for early career opportunities in the field, and the people who are going to thrive are the ones who are able to pair traditional computer science experience with other domain expertise. And so, I think you're going to start to see a lot of computer science programs now become more interdisciplinary in nature. And so it'll be “CS plus X”, not just “CS” as a standalone. 

Beyond that, you know, there are some fields that like… Computer service, or excuse me, customer service, that has, you know, been declining, and I think is largely being automated. I don't know whether that's a good thing, but that was something that started before LLMs or ChatGPT were a thing, so I hesitate to pin it all on that. 

But, you know, I think those are the types of fields that have high exposure to the existing automation technologies that are going to be fundamentally reshaped. And time will tell exactly what they look like five to 10 years down the line. But I do think that we're all already seeing a very different mix in terms of the types of skills that are required and the types of tasks that are being performed. And you'll start to see more of a blended workforce in some of those fields. 

Rich Portelance

Okay. So, conversely, do you see a career path that doesn't exist today, but will exist in 10 years? You see something that's, you know, probably going to take off? 

Will Markow

You know, I think that… And this isn't exactly one specific career path, but I do think that a lot of career pathways are going to become more interdisciplinary in nature. I think that, you know, with tools like AI, it is easier to rapidly learn about a subject and apply that knowledge, even if you don't have a significant amount of prior domain expertise. Now you can argue whether you’re, you know, just creating a bunch of dilettantes who still aren't producing high-quality work in that scenario, but I do think that you're going to see a lot more blending of different domains as people are being asked to do more work. Partially because of AI, partially because this is actually what we always see in periods of economic uncertainty, which I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue we haven't over the past few years with inflation, with rising interest rates, with geopolitical instability, and all these things. So, whenever there are periods of economic uncertainty, employers usually tighten their belts, ask people to do more things, and wear more hats. 

So, I think you'll start to see a blurring of lines between career pathways, and that means that we're going to need more adaptable folks who can, you know, rapidly learn “field X” even though they're trained in “field Y”. And it also means that there may be more discontinuous career pathways, where you start to see people make leaps that you wouldn't have thought possible in the past, but with the blurring of the lines, maybe more likely. So, I think this comes back again to just the need to develop lifelong learning opportunities and skills that enable adaptability, such as some of those stable skills we were talking about earlier. And I think that the individuals who build that adaptability are going to be best primed for these increasingly blurred career pathways in the future. 

Rich Portelance

Well, I thank you, because this is a really fascinating conversation and very insightful. You know, I wanna– I want to give people a vision of… Alright, if we get this right, because we talked about education and educators, we talked about the workforce and what employers' roles need to be, we talked about the state, and we brought in some edtech. So, we've covered a lot of different ground here, but all of that goes towards a cohesive thing, right? And if we get it right, education plus workforce alignment, what does it look like from your perspective? 

Will Markow

Yeah. Well, I think that it is an ecosystem where everybody is working in tandem. Where you have employers rapidly signaling to educators what their needs are, you have educators rapidly adapting their curriculum to meet those needs, and you have policymakers coordinating across the disparate stakeholders in the ecosystem, and where needed, actively providing more opportunities and incentives for individuals to build on the job experience, or for employers to have incentives to invest in continuously reskilling their workers. 

So, I don't know that there's a magical tool that does all this for anybody. So I wouldn't say it's definitely a tool that enables this, but I do think that you have to have an adaptive ecosystem where everybody is working in tandem, and with increased velocity than what we see now. So, you know, I usually bring this back to saying that these workforce problems are multistakeholder problems that require multistakeholder solutions. And if we could reach a future state where we have all of those stakeholders working in concert with the coordination and velocity necessary to enable workers to continuously adapt to a rapid pace of change, then I think that's going to go a long way towards solving some of the potential workforce, and frankly, broader societal challenges that could flow from a scenario in which we don't do that. 

Rich Portelance

Alright. Thank you for that. 

And I would say, I'm just going to add one question to the backside of that. If we talk about educators, employers, and policymakers, they're listening. Alright, Will, we want to do this. What's the first action? In the next 90 days what do they do to make this reality something that we can actually do? 

Will Markow

Yeah. Well, I would say ideally, have a shared understanding of the problem you're trying to solve. That means if you're an employer, go talk to educators, tell them what you need. If you're an educator, go out there and find every employer, bang on their door, or find some data if you need to, on what employers are actually asking for. And if you're a policymaker, get out there and try to listen to anyone and everyone you possibly can, and then share your lessons learned, so that you can build a common foundation of understanding around the problem that you're trying to solve. We often find data is very helpful in that, because then you can facilitate the conversations between stakeholders based on that shared quantifiable understanding of what's happening in the market, and then you can more likely build solutions that actually solve problems and marshal resources as efficiently as possible. 

So I'd say get out there, connect, talk to people, look at data, whatever you need to do, just, you know, don't sit on your hands and expect the solution to come to you. You need to get out there and be an active participant in the solution-building process. 

Rich Portelance

So this has been Rich Portelance with Will Markow, founder and CEO of FourOne Insights. Today was a great conversation for the EdGate Powers podcast. I encourage everyone to check out  EdGate.com and look at the products that they offer for augmented standards research and alignment, and career pathing with Journeys Map. Check out FourOne Insights online.

Will, I'll let you give the final sign-off. Any last thoughts that, you know, something I didn't ask or you think is important for the listeners to hear before we close it out? 

Will Markow

I think we covered a lot of ground. I think this was a great conversation. I just say thank you again, Rich, for having me on. And I'll also mention that if anybody wants to learn more about the research that we're doing, we produce a lot of public-facing research that's completely free, accessible to the public. Feel free to go to FourOneInsights.com. We have an insights page up there that anybody can go and access and learn more about some of the things that we're tracking, which hopefully can help facilitate some of the solution-building that is so sorely needed. 

Rich Portelance

Fantastic. Thank you. Have a great day. 

Will Markow

You too. Thanks, Rich