Most labor market information lacks information on the talent that exists in communities without bachelor’s degrees (STAR talent). Leveraging STARsight can help uncover where pools of STAR talent exist in your state or particular community. Use this information to understand which communities to recruit within, and/or better connect with local organizations that serve the STAR talent pool. Employers can optimize talent sourcing by identifying and targeting roles that equip workers with transferable skills for new opportunities.
Understanding where talent resides can help employers:
- Strategically allocate resources: By identifying areas with higher STAR density, employers can focus recruitment efforts where they are most likely to find qualified candidates.
- Expand talent pipelines: Partnering with localized organizations and those supporting STAR talent ensures a broader, more inclusive talent pool.
- Hire candidates with transferable skills: Understanding source roles allows employers to recruit STARs who already possess the foundational skills required for the role, reducing training costs and time-to-productivity.
STARSight provides three dashboard tabs: Explore, Compare, and Assess. The steps in this guide will help you navigate between the dashboards used for this task.
Use the Explore dashboard to understand where STARs live and work
The first tab on STARSight, the Explore dashboard, features charts to identify areas with high STAR density and provides an overview of STARs' demographic information from the national level to a metro area. The interactive map enables data comparison among areas.
To improve talent sourcing, first, use the interactive map to find where STARs exist in your region.
Learn more about the functionality of the Interactive Map on the Explore dashboard.
Step-by-step details
1. Use the search bar on the top right to type or scroll and select a location. The United States will be the default location if one is not selected.
2. Alternatively, click on the map to select a location. Once a region is selected, you can view the region's workforce data on the panel to the right and refine the area by choosing a metro/county area using the dropdown or by clicking on a metro in the map.
Use the data panel on the right of the map to view data about the STAR density for the area, the percentages of unemployed and employed residents, and the income level distribution.
Note: Metro access will depend on the data available for that area.
3. The color coding on the map uses shades of purple to indicate the concentration of STARs in a region: darker purple represents areas with a higher concentration of STARs, while shades of purple with lighter transparency signify regions with fewer STARs.
Hover over a region in the metro area to highlight in orange and compare the data for that area with the entire metro selection.
Use the Compare dashboard to identify roles preparing workers with skills for a new role
Create opportunities for attracting STARs by using the Compare dashboard, the second tab on STARSight, to explore jobs with transferable skills and identify which roles to source STAR talent from.
Specifically, the Which roles prepare workers? chart can be used to identify roles with overlapping skills and the number of STARs in that role within an area. This bar chart will help identify source jobs where STARs may develop the necessary skills for a job title, supporting recruiters looking to target STAR candidates.
Note: The region selected on the Explore dashboard determines the data populated for the charts on the Compare dashboard. To select a new region, use the location search box in the top right of the page or return to the Explore dashboard.
Learn more about the charts available on the Compare dashboard.
Step-by-step details:
1. Use the search box in the first section of the Compare dashboard to look up the job title for the open role. STARSight uses occupations provided by the O*NET database in the job title search bar, which are informed using SOC codes to group related job titles. Type or scroll the dropdown list to select a job title for the job description.
2. If unavailable in the dropdown list, the O*NET Online tool can help identify the broader SOC job title.
- Navigate to the O*NET Online site and use the search bar to enter the job title you want to explore.
- On the results, click the blue How do they match? button to reveal the question mark icon next to each result and discover more about how the titles in the list relate to the search.
- Click the blue question mark icon next to the SOC job title best representing the role you are searching for to view more information. View the Alternate Occupation Titles to validate that the job title searched is included.
- Return to STARSight and use terms from the related O*NET-SOC Title in the job title search box.
For the example of Bookkeepers, note that the list of broader job titles in STARSight includes the best-fit option for Accounting & Auditing Clerks, which relates to the Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks title from O*NET. This is the option that should be selected.
3. Scroll down to view the Which roles prepare workers? chart to see source jobs with matching skills for the open role. The source jobs are listed in order of greatest skills match.
Source jobs are roles with an overlap of skills for an open role, where STARs are already using the same skills.
For the open role example of Human Resources Specialists, the top three roles with the greatest skills match include:
- Community & Social Service Specialists
- Other Personal Care & Service Workers
- Residential Advisors
Assess opportunities for talent sourcing using STAR density and origin roles
1. Use the map to identify areas relevant to the job opening with higher STAR density.
2. Seek out localized organizations that can support talent sourcing for that area. Additionally, identify organizations that may support STAR talent specifically.
3. Consider recruiting from source roles or interviewing STARs who have been employed in a source role.