The Future of Talent Management

In this episode of The Science of Excellence, I sat down with Kevin Bishop, Director of Talent Development at LinkedIn. He shared their workplace research on how careers are becoming increasingly non-linear and why organizations need to rethink how they develop and deploy talent.

We talked about their finding that 70% of skills will change by 2030, why pods and squads are replacing traditional team structures, and the challenge of keeping people engaged when you can't promise linear career progression. Kevin shared practical insights on talent marketplaces, skills assessment, and why human skills are becoming more critical than technical expertise.

These 5 insights stood out from our conversation:

• Focus on Skills, Not Titles
• Help People Redefine Their Identity Beyond Job Titles
• Organize for Change Work, Not Just BAU
• Build Talent Marketplaces to Enable Skills-Based Mobility
• Paint the Vision for Non-Linear Career Growth

1. Focus on Skills, Not Titles

In Kevin's Words: "Our data suggests that by 2030, 70% of the skills needed to do jobs will have changed. Organizations have to change the way they're thinking about developing their people. We really need to identify skills related to the jobs to be done in your organization and assess them with your people. We've gotta really think about what are the skills needed to accomplish the work to be done and think less about leveling of roles essentially."

When 70% of required skills change in five years, job titles can't keep up. The work transforms faster than you can rewrite job descriptions or update career frameworks.

This forces a shift from organizing around job architecture to organizing around capabilities. Start by identifying what skills you need to achieve business priorities. Then assess whether you have those skills internally. Focus on what work needs to get done and what capabilities accomplish that work. Roles and levels become secondary.

2. Help People Redefine Their Identity Beyond Job Titles

In Kevin's Words: "You can run into identity issues for people. I'm part of talent development. If you're gonna staff me on a project related to employee experience, who am I now? Am I an employee experience or a talent development employee? I'm already thinking about what that means for how I talk about myself. I'm a talent development professional—or am I creative? I solve interesting problems. I bring people together, let them have the spotlight in their domains in order for us to achieve a desired outcome. That's bigger than talent development."‍

Job titles anchor identity. When you ask someone what they do, they say "I'm a product manager" or "I'm in finance." When those titles become fluid, people lose their footing.

The shift is defining yourself by what you do rather than your domain. Not "I'm a talent development professional" but "I solve complex problems by bringing people together to execute."

Former consultants face this constantly—they've worked across industries but struggle to articulate their value because they can't point to a single domain. Organizations need to help people develop this vocabulary. Those who can describe their capabilities independent of job titles will adapt faster.

3. Organize for Change Work, Not Just BAU

In Kevin's Words: "Organizations are experiencing such significant disruption more and more regularly that it requires us to work in these more agile ways. Some of the BAU stuff will get outsourced to AI. Some of it we'll have to hold onto, but the bulk of the work is going to be around, wow, the context all around us has just shifted again, what do we need to do to adapt and flex into new spaces? Pods and squads in this sort of new agile way of thinking is gonna come in the most handy, as opposed to just relying on our traditional silos to take pieces of different projects."

The balance of work is shifting. AI handles more routine BAU. What's left for humans is constant adaptation—responding to disruption, launching new initiatives, flexing into new contexts. That's change work, not steady-state operations.

Functional silos don't handle change work well. You need cross-functional teams assembled around specific initiatives (what Kevin calls pods and squads). Bring together people with the right skill mix for the project, execute, then reassemble for the next initiative. This mirrors consulting firms where everything is project-based staffing. The challenge is most employees expect stable teams and clear reporting lines. Moving to this model requires rethinking both team structures and employee expectations.

4. Build Talent Marketplaces to Enable Skills-Based Mobility

In Kevin's Words: "At IBM, they're using AI to infer skills related to jobs to be done, as well as to infer skills that people have based on the work they've done to date. They feed all of that information into their talent marketplace. So they have a space where people can go out and look and say, I have this set of skills, I could apply it in a totally different role or a totally different project than what I'm used to. From there, the organization becomes more agile and more ready to deal with things as they pop up because they know what skills they have internally and where they may need to build skills they don't have."

Skills-based talent management sounds good in theory but breaks down on execution. The problem is data. You need to know what skills each role requires and what skills each person has. Most organizations have neither.

Talent marketplaces solve this by using AI to infer skills from work history and match them to opportunities. IBM's approach shows what's possible—employees see where their skills apply beyond their current role, and the organization knows its internal capability landscape. This creates agility. When disruption hits, you know exactly what skills you have and where gaps exist. You can mobilize the right people quickly rather than defaulting to external hiring or hoping someone in the organization happens to have what you need.

5. Paint the Vision for Non-Linear Career Growth

In Kevin's Words: "I'm worried about how you're gonna keep your people engaged while redefining how we're all working. Some people may not see the benefit of working in this new way right away, or they may want that linear, more traditional career path because that's what they expected. A lot of organizations are saying things like 'don't expect to get promoted every two years like people have in the past,' but they're not telling us what we can expect. Really work on that messaging so you're keeping your employees bought in—there are opportunities in working in new ways."

Organizations tell people what's ending—regular promotions, predictable advancement, linear paths. They don't explain what's beginning. That creates anxiety without offering direction.

The positive vision exists but requires articulation. In non-linear careers, you work with diverse teams across the organization.

You apply your skills in new contexts that accelerate learning. You develop capabilities faster through varied experience. You have more control over your development path rather than waiting for the next rung. These are genuine advantages, but people can't see them without clear messaging. Paint what career development looks like in this new world. Show how skills progression works. Make the opportunity visible, not just the disruption.

Until next time,

Vince

‍