In the 1999 movie The Matrix, Keanu Reeves’ character Neo and Carrie-Anne Moss’s character Trinity need to move off of a roof during the rescue of Laurence Fishburne’s character Morpheus. Neo asks Trinity if she can fly a helicopter. Trinity responds, “Not yet.” She then makes a cell phone call. Their computer support, Marcus Chong’s Tank, taps some keys and thirteen seconds later, Trinity knows how to fly the helicopter.
This fantasy is a quickly arriving reality and reflects a necessary skill for employees today—rapid learning.
While core technical skills are important, the ability to quickly develop enhanced skills is vital.
I’ve been 3D printing as a hobby for two years. Recently, I decided to create my own designs. An early effort was based on a toddler toy car by Thump2010 on Thingiverse. I wanted larger tires and a body with an animal. I use Tinkercad not because it’s free—which I love—but because it’s used by children, so I figured I had a shot at learning it. After only a few video tutorials, I was able to design a rough prototype and refine it through some experimentation. It may look silly in the photo, but it was a hit with the grandchildren—the audience that mattered.
This personal example of a hobby is critical in employment today, yet it is often overlooked in hiring.
I’ll illustrate with an example from instructional design. The concept applies across the larger range of employment positions.
In job postings for instructional designers—whether for education or learning & development—standard requirements include understanding and skills in:
- Articulate Rise (content creation software)
- Camtasia (video creation software)
- Adult Learning Theory
- ADDIE (content creation model – Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation)
- Backward Design (another content creation model starting with the desired results and working back)
Here are some problems with simply posting for this, looking at portfolios, and asking general interview questions.
With programs like Articulate Rise, we are talking about a powerful program designed to make content creation accessible to anyone. It’s no joke that with fundamental computer skills, you can learn to create strong instructional content with Articulate Rise in a matter of a few hours, possibly less. Camtasia is not as simple to learn, true. Still, like Articulate Rise and even more powerful programs, such as the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, there are easily accessible tutorials that walk you through features step by step.
It also takes only a few moments of study, even without AI assistance, to get the basic gist of adult learning theories, ADDIE (and other instructional design models), backward design, and more. (Backward design is really just common sense. It’s how we approach most things. You don’t start tossing ingredients into a pot or bowl without some idea of what you are going for, unless you’re on a camping trip with a group making Whatcha Got Stew.)
When hiring, in addition to verifying core skills, assess the ability to quickly learn new skills, particularly in core areas. To go back to something like Photoshop, I learned early in professional graphic design, some skills I needed regularly, and had those down in my sleep. However, from time to time, a job needed something I had done infrequently or never. Instead of trying to force the project with my existing skills, it was much more efficient and effective to take a bit of time and find the proper tutorial, practice, and execute.
To evaluate this in hiring, we can review the portfolio or skill set and then throw something new at the candidate. Or, simply find out their process. “If you are tasked to do something outside of your skillset, how do you approach it?” If they stop or expect supervisor instruction in all cases, we likely have a problem in this area.
Ask candidates about their research strategies. Do they follow trend and innovation newsletters and social media channels? Can they quickly learn new enhancements and implement them effectively?
If we fail to hire for this ability to adapt and grow quickly on the fly, we will end up stuck with employees unable to meet the needs of the near future, let alone the needs further down the timeline. Organizations that thrive in the future will be those that hire learners.