Share your skills

On the one hand, you have millennials - young, newly educated and equipped with a strong knowledge of and theory on future working methods. Digital communication and modern working forms are deeply engrained in them combined with a strong sense of professionalism.

On the other hand, you have an experienced workforce with many in central positions and close to decision making centres. Their knowledge, which is based on business procedures and creating value, will start unwinding – due to the technological development. Their conditions for improving their competences will be under pressure because of too little time and a missing demand from customers and business partners. They are influenced by the Digital Hesitation.

This skill gap is not a problem. But it is a problem that so few manage to bridge the gap and unite the new and digital skills with professional experience in a business position. Some of you Cphbusiness alumni get the necessary further education needed to close the gap or make use of Cphbusiness’ other offers of updating your qualifications – but you are part of a very small group!

To properly close the gap, the market for further education and retraining should be tripled or quadrupled. But if that happens, it would be hard to meet demands because of the number of trainers, facilities, etc.

And this is where YOU come in. As a newly educated and digitally skilled professional, you possess a valuable knowledge that can help other more experienced professionals move into the digital presence – whilst maintaining a professional approach and application of digital skills. You can pass on the knowledge – and strengthen your career possibilities on the job market AT THE SAME TIME.

Does this sound interesting? Then get ready. Here is a quick guide to "reverse mentoring" - or "digital mentorship", as we call it here at Analog.

1. Find 50 LinkedIn profiles
   Search LinkedIn for professional profiles in your region. Your search criteria should be based on your subject knowledge. The company should have a maximum of 100 employees. This is where you have the biggest chance of a meeting, as companies of this size have fewer requests. Find people aged 45 and over that have not done much with their LinkedIn profile. There are LOTS of them.
2. Invite them to your network
   Write a small, but personal note, where you tell them that you find their organisation very exciting – and how you can offer them personal back-and-forth on the competences mentioned in your LinkedIn profile.
3. Follow up via email
   After a week, you will have heard from five people. Maybe 10. One or two have maybe said yes. You will visit them – but they are not the ones that need you! The others will receive an invitation from you. But this time it will be on their work email, where you offer personal back-and-forth in the digital field. (Notice: This is NOT Spam, because you are not selling them anything. It will look like an unsolicited application, if anyone wants to know).
4. Visit them in their office
   It can feel very intimidating to walk into a CEO’s office with a let-me-teach-you-something-attitude. But believe me. You got it. As preparation, focus on specific areas, such as diagrams in Excel, animations in Powerpoint, knowledge about Prezi, understanding Facebook pages and B2B sale on LinkedIn. When you have specified what you want to say, there is a valuable side effect: you now know, what you know, even better.

• ...But I'm already in a job
  If you already work in an organization, where your colleagues could benefit from your skills – then don’t hold back! In-house knowledge on how you can improve your workday by introducing new digital tools is a vital input for improvement.
  Challenge your colleagues and yourself by hosting a short session or two, where you train and inspire your colleagues to try new ways of working – and give them a "safe place" to learn and play with new programs – such as Slack, Salesforce, Podio or Prezi.