Back end developers deal with the hidden processes that run behind the scenes, but what does that mean exactly? Generally, a website consists of two parts — the front end and the back end. The front end, also known as the client-side, is what you see in the browser. The back end, or server-side, is everything that happens “under the hood,” and its components aren’t immediately obvious.
Think of a website as a restaurant. When you first sit down, you’re presented with a menu, which may include pictures and descriptions of the items you can order. When you place your order, you might request something specific, like a salad with dressing on the side. This represents the front end.
Then, the kitchen staff takes your order, gets the ingredients from the refrigerator and pantry, cooks them together, and brings you your food. This represents the back end.
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Below, we’ll take a closer look at the back end, what Back-End Developers do, the tools they use, and how to become one. (Or if you’d rather jump into the back-end yourself, check out our courses on web development.)
What goes into the back end?
The back end is a combination of servers and databases. Servers control how users access files. Databases are organized and structured collections of data.
Here’s an example: When you log into a website and enter your username or email and password. This information is sent to the server-side software which validates the structure of your email and password. If everything looks good, it checks the data with the database to ensure someone with that username and password exists. If it does, the database will log you in and sends information back to you in the form of your user page.
What do Back-End Developers do?
In another post, Doug, one of our Senior Back-End Engineers, gives us an overview of what a Back-End Developer does. While touching on the role’s capacity for problem-solving, he provides a list of common responsibilities, including:
Creating, integrating, and managing databases.
Using back-end frameworks to build server-side software.
Validating data to make sure it’s formatted correctly before being sent to the database.
Integrating user-facing elements with server-side elements to make sure that information is being sent to the right place so the server can retrieve it.
Back-End Developers use a range of technology and software, many of which fall into three categories: databases, programming languages, and frameworks.
Databases
As we explained above, databases are used to store user information and other important data. Popular database management systems include:
Programming languages
Back-End Developers use query languages like SQL to manipulate the data stored in databases. They also use various programming languages to build applications that facilitate communication between servers and databases. Some of these languages include:
Python is a great choice for beginners. It’s concise and easy to read. It’s also extremely popular and has a large programming community behind it. Ruby is another beginner-friendly language that has an enthusiastic programming community behind it.
Frameworks
Frameworks make software development faster and easier, saving time that developers would otherwise spend writing code. Popular frameworks include:
How do you become a Back-End developer?
You can take a few paths to become a Back-End Developer. One option is to get a degree, but that’s not for everyone. Fortunately, you can become a back-end developer without a degree by taking classes and learning on your own.
From there, Carlos suggests learning how to work with servers, then learning APIs and HTTP methods. Next, you’ll want to connect to databases and learn how to retrieve data. Finally, you’ll want to build something on your own. This allows you to implement the server, database, and APIs and connect to a simple front end. This brings all your learning together and provides you with a project you can include in your portfolio.
How do you become a Back-End Engineer?
If you’re intrigued by all the happenings behind the scenes of websites, another career option is becoming a Back-End Engineer. Back-End Engineers tend to take a big picture view of the back end, essentially serving as architects — designing entire systems and overseeing entire projects.
If this sounds like the role for you, check out our Back-End Engineer Career Path. You’ll learn how to use tools like JavaScript, Node/Express.js, SQL, and more. You’ll also create Portfolio Projects, which will help you land a job as a Back-End Developer or Engineer.
You’ll also learn about web security, algorithms, and how to scale servers. We’ll even help you prepare for your technical interviews, which are on-the-spot demonstrations of your skills. Ready to start your Path? Sign up today!
This blog was originally published in September 2021, and has been updated to include more relevant back-end engineer information and courses.
Have you thought about what you will do after high school? Will you go to college or join the military? Will you attend a trade school to specialize in a field like cosmetology or mechanics? Will you take a gap year or start working?
Does your school encourage students to explore all of these options? Or does it primarily focus on urging students to apply to college?
What should schools do, in your opinion, to help students plan for their futures?
In “Why Some Schools Are Rethinking ‘College for All,’” Dana Goldstein writes about how some schools that once guided students toward a four-year degree are now offering more choices. The article begins:
For three decades, “college for all” was an American rallying cry. The goal inspired a generation of educators, offered a north star to students and united political figures from George W. Bush to Bernie Sanders.
Thousands of new K-12 schools were founded to achieve this ambitious vision, often focused on guiding low-income students toward bachelor’s degrees.
Even after decades of bipartisan effort and billions of dollars spent, about 40 percent of students who start college never finish, often leaving with life-altering debt. Across the political spectrum, higher education institutions are less respected and trusted by the public, whether because of sticker shock, perceived left-wing bias or doubts about their ability to prepare students for the job market.
In response, some high schools that once pushed nearly all students toward four-year colleges are now guiding teenagers toward a wider range of choices, including trade schools, apprenticeships, two-year degrees or the military.
Among them are schools that are part of KIPP, the nation’s largest charter school network.
For many years after KIPP’s founding in 1994, the network was known for its single-minded focus on getting low-income Black and Hispanic teenagers to and through four-year colleges.
“College starts in kindergarten” was a KIPP mantra. Classrooms were named after the colleges their teachers attended. On senior “signing days,” students proudly marched across auditorium stages, waving the banners of their future alma maters.
But over the past five years, KIPP has been part of a national rethinking of college for all.
KIPP is “broadening the celebration” of what students can do and achieve after high school, said Shavar Jeffries, chief executive of the KIPP Foundation, which supports 278 KIPP public schools across the country.
But, Ms. Goldstein writes, schools are trying to walk a fine line between encouraging students to strive for a four-year degree and introducing them to alternatives. She quotes Shavar Jeffries, chief executive of the KIPP Foundation, which supports 278 KIPP public schools across the United States:
“We have to be very, very careful, particularly for younger people of color,” Mr. Jeffries said, noting that many apprenticeship and job-training programs are expensive, and may not have a proven track record of placing students in well-paid jobs.
While KIPP is enthusiastic about directing students toward what Mr. Jeffries called “credible” job-training programs, “the data is clear,” he said. “A college degree opens up more opportunities.”
The article includes anecdotes that show how this move is affecting students’ plans for after they graduate from high school:
At KIPP Academy Lynn, in a working-class corner of coastal Massachusetts, almost all students still consider four-year colleges, and about three-quarters enroll. But now, the conversation does not end there.
In the fall of her senior year, Moriah Berry, 18, realized that her biggest fear, she said, was “being broke.”
To avoid that fate, Moriah has been working with her teachers and counselors to create plans — and backup plans — for life after she graduates from high school.
Her big goal is an undergraduate degree in biochemistry or physics. But Moriah is also considering an accelerated, three-year bachelor’s degree from a private trade school, which would qualify her to work as a radiology technician. And because the $56,000 annual tuition there could turn out to be prohibitive, even with aid, she is also looking at two-year programs that offer certification in the same field.
“I don’t want to have an outrageous amount of loans,” said Moriah, who lives with her mother, a nurse. “I want to be really realistic.”
Does anything in the article remind you of your own experiences planning for life after high school? Do any of the concerns from students or teachers resonate with you? Why or why not?
Do you expect to go to college right after high school? Do your parents and teachers expect you to? What’s the motivation behind that decision?
Do you have a career in mind? If so, do you have a detailed plan for starting it? Who is giving you advice or helping you plan for it?
Do you think your school prepares all students for life after graduation? Are individuals’ needs, concerns and interests taken into consideration? Or do teachers and counselors tend to guide everyone toward the same path?
The author notes that, for various reasons, there is increasing doubt in the value of college. What do you think about that? Do you think that to have a fulfilling life, everyone should go to college? Or are there alternatives to explore?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
The word shenanigan has appeared in 159 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Feb. 20 in “The Best Second-Chance Romance Novels” by Tia Williams, a New York Times best-selling author. Ms. Williams’ list includes the book “Forget Me Not” by Julie Soto:
Wedding planning in real life? Stressful. But in fiction? Bring me all the Big Day shenanigans. In Julie Soto’s delightful debut, an ambitious wedding planner, Ama, and a curmudgeonly florist, Elliot, are hired to work the same high-profile wedding and must figure out how to juggle celebrity brides, a reality TV crew and their own angst-ridden romantic past.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word shenanigan in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
If you want a better idea of how shenanigan can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com. You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
Learning C++ is no small feat, but keeping all your new skills fresh requires practice. It’s one thing to learn about code fundamentals and syntax, but it’s an entirely different thing to use that knowledge to create C++ programs.
In this article, we’ll describe where you might use C++ in your next job and why it’s such a powerful programming language. To save you time looking for ways to practice putting C++ to work, we’ve got 11 code challenges for beginners that you can dive right into.
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What is C++ used for?
C++ is one of the most widely used programming languages. So, a better question might be, what isn’t C++ used for?
Most often, C++ is selected because of its ability to run large applications efficiently. You can also use it to fine-tune how a program uses its hardware. You can find C++ within operating systems, your favorite multiplayer games, powering databases, and even in emerging VR and AR technologies.
Many developers choose C++ because it can efficiently run their programs, even on relatively small hardware provisions. But they also like using the language because so many other developers are familiar with it, allowing for easier collaboration and getting help when you get stuck. In another post, we take a closer look at what C++ is used for.
11 C++ code challenges for beginners
While you were taking courses on C++, you may have used a built-in editor to complete your assignments. If that’s what you’re most comfortable with, then try these challenges in that editor. But, if you’re interested in challenging yourself to use an editor on your local machine, you can execute these challenges there too.
The main goal of these challenges for beginners is to keep you going. So, choose the editor that works best for you and set yourself a target. Maybe it’s completing one code challenge each day. Maybe it’s a challenge every weekend. Whatever you pick, make it realistic and schedule it into your calendar to make it a priority.
1. Print out a “Greetings!” message
In whichever editor you’ve chosen to work with, see if you can write a piece of code that displays a string. While this might be a simple task, think of all the ways you’ll want to display messages in future programs you create.
Printing error messages or confirmation messages for different pieces of code are important when you’re debugging a program. There may also be prompts or results you’ll want to print and share with the end-user.
Printing a message is a skill you’ll use quite frequently.
2. Create a program that adds two integers
See if you can create a C++ program that takes two integers and adds them together. The result should return the sum. While this may be a rudimentary calculator, imagine its power in a large database where you could use loops to add massive quantities of data very meticulously.
Bonus challenge: Expand on this program to add two columns of a matrix to produce an array of the summed elements.
If you’re interested in working in the financial industry as a developer, you’ll use programs like this to help your company calculate its figures.
3. Create a program that converts meters to feet
Unit converters are helpful little tools. Can you create a program in C++ that takes a measurement in meters and gives you the exact same measurement in feet as the answer?
If you’re considering a career in data science, you’ll need to be good at cleaning up and formatting data. Converting data to another unit of measurement is a good first practice test for your future role.
4. Program a temperature conversion tool
Similarly, converting temperature to another unit of measurement is a helpful program to build. See if you can create a program that takes inputted temperature in Celsius and returns the same temperature in Fahrenheit.
If you wanted to make this a more intermediate-level challenge, try making the input both a temperature and the unit of measurement. Have your conversion program return the same temperature but in the other units.
5. Calculate the perimeter of a rectangle
Similar to conversation tools, perimeter and area calculators are also helpful programs to know how to build. In this challenge, create a program that calculates the perimeter of a rectangle.
The perimeter of a rectangle is determined by the formula: P = 2 * (length + width), where length and width are the dimensions of the rectangle. Once you input the length and width of the rectangle, the program should then calculate its perimeter using the formula.
6. Create a floating-point multiplier program
Given two floating-point numbers, create a C++ program that gives you the product of the two.
Looking to take things up to an intermediate level? Build upon this challenge by allowing for any number of inputs (or an array of them) and returning the product of all input floating-point numbers.
7. Convert a string to all uppercase letters
You can decide how long or short your input string will be. This program should take inputted lowercase letters and convert them to uppercase.
Just like the challenge above that was well suited to data science, imagine how useful this tool could be for managing databases or cleaning data.
8. Create an average calculator
Write a C++ program that takes an array of numbers as its input and provides the average of the entries in return. If you wanted to build upon the array input, you could make another average calculator that takes a matrix as its input and provides the average of each row or column.
9. Create a function that trims a string down to 10 characters
Can you construct a function that accepts a string as input and returns a shortened version? There are many applications for data trimming, but consider how a tool like this would help eliminate errors in a database.
For example, in customer address data, any zip code greater than five characters would be incorrect. Trimming entires using a program like this can help keep databases clean.
10. Program an array sorter
Given an array of, let’s say, 10 numbers, can you create a program that returns the array in numerical order? Sorting data is a powerful way to use C++. If you’re comfortable with a small array, try working with a larger one — or even a matrix.
11. Create a program that counts duplicate array entries
While cleaning data, Data Scientists need to eliminate duplicate data. So, in this short code challenge, you’ll create a program that returns the number of elements in an array that are duplicates.
More ways to practice C++
There are many places you can find additional code challenges online, but you might already have plenty of options within reach. Along with these suggestions, go back into your C++ course notes and repeat the same exercises and assignments. Or, if you need a refresher, check out our Learn C++ course.
You can also contribute to open-source projects online if you’re looking to keep your C++ skills fresh. And no matter which option you choose, you’ll be preparing yourself for your next job and possible technical interview questions.
Remember, just do a little each day, keep your goals manageable, and have fun solving challenges with C++.
This blog was originally published in September 2021 and has been updated to include new beginner projects.
Whether you’re looking to break into a new career, build your technical skills, or just code for fun, we’re here to help every step of the way. Check out our blog post about how to choose the best Codecademy plan for you to learn about our structured courses, professional certifications, interview prep resources, career services, and more.
Use your imagination to write the opening of a short story or poem inspired by this illustration, or describe a memory from your own life that this image makes you think of.
Tell us in the comments, and then read the related article to learn more.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
The word augment has appeared in 119 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Jan. 6 in “Where to Find Great New York Slices in 2025? You Might Be Surprised” by Ed Levine. The article is about great New York-style pizza that can be found across the United States:
Mr. De Leon had been making pizza at restaurants in his East Los Angeles neighborhood since he was a teenager. He spent parts of the next 25 years making a living as a photographer, while moonlighting as a pizza maker when he needed to augment his income.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word augment in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
If you want a better idea of how augment can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com. You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
Anti-aging products are meant for people in their mid-to-late twenties and early thirties, not teenagers. However, many teens like to use these products because social media influencers promote them. Additionally, social media portrays aging skin as negative and unrealistic expectations of wrinkle-free skin. Thus, to fit in with this social media ideal, teens use these products to prevent wrinkles early.
I think an age limit on anti-aging products is reasonable, seeing as so many young girls are being brainwashed by social media into thinking they need these products to be pretty. I’ve heard of girls younger than 15, even younger than 10, buying these anti-aging products — I think it’s silly because they’re still children, they’re not even adults yet and are worried about aging, but it’s not their fault. They’re given technology from a very young age that tells them they need to be flawless, smooth and glowing to be valued, which isn’t true. Of course, much more needs to be done to dismantle these beliefs, as it’s very typical of the beauty industry to push them to women, but marketing to under-18s is especially harmful. Having this kind of mentality since childhood is going to make it harder for these girls to free themselves from it.
They told us about the pressures they face when it comes to their looks, and how those can vary by gender.
Physical appearance is definitely a big role in today’s society. At times I do feel pressured to look a certain way. When I used to do cheerleading, we had no choice but to put makeup all over our face and wear red lipstick because it made us “look better.” Instead of keeping the makeup minimalistic and more natural, they made it seem like they wanted us to hate our natural features.
I think that this problem affects more girls than it does boys, as the culture around girls and looking their absolute best is not something that translates across the gender gap, as most boys are not too fussy over how their skin looks.
Yes, girls, boys, and nonbinary students often face different pressures regarding their appearance due to societal expectations, media influence, and cultural norms. Girls are frequently pressured to conform to beauty standards that emphasize thinness, clear skin, and fashionable clothing, often reinforced by social media and advertising. Boys, on the other hand, may feel pressure to appear muscular, tall, or traditionally masculine, with fewer socially acceptable ways to express themselves through fashion or grooming. Nonbinary students can face unique challenges, as they may feel pressure to conform to either masculine or feminine standards or struggle with finding representation and acceptance of their authentic selves.
Note: We will host a live-moderated discussion of this graph on March 26. There will not be live moderation on March 19.
In 2018, Dr. Yinon M. Bar-On, a geophysicist, and his colleagues synthesized data from numerous sources plus some educated guesstimates to calculate the Earth’s mass of “living stuff” (biomass) and the earth’s mass of “man-made stuff” (technomass). In 2024, Brice Menard and Nikita Shtarkman visualized this research, as shown in the above three-dimensional bar chart, which displays the masses of seven main categories of living matter and six main categories of man-made matter. The animated version of this graph is available here.
The volumes of cubes are proportional to their total mass on Earth.
The research determined that there are 1.1 trillion tons of biomass and 1.3 trillion tons of technomass.
1. After looking closely at the graph above (or at this full-size image), answer these four questions:
What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
The questions are intended to build on one another, so try to answer them in order.
2. Next, join the conversation online by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box. (Teachers of students younger than 13 are welcome to post their students’ responses.)
3. Below the response box, there is an option to click on “Email me when my comment is published.” This sends the link to your response which you can share with your teacher.
4. After you have posted, read what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting a comment. Use the “Reply” button to address that student directly.
On Wednesday, March 26, teachers from our collaborator, the American Statistical Association, will facilitate this discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time.
5. By Friday morning, March 28, we will reveal more information about the graph, including a free link to the article that includes this graph, at the bottom of this post. We encourage you to post additional comments based on the article, possibly using statistical terms defined in the Stat Nuggets.
Reveal
We’ll post more information here by the morning of Friday, March 28. Stay tuned!
• Learn more about the notice and wonder teaching strategy from this 5-minute video and how and why other teachers are using this strategy from our on-demand webinar.
• Sign up for our free weekly Learning Network newsletter so you never miss a graph. Graphs are always released by the Friday before the Wednesday live moderation to give teachers time to plan ahead.
• Go to the American Statistical Association K-12 website, which includes teacher statistics resources, Census in the Schools student-generated data, professional development opportunities, and more.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
1. After looking closely at the image above (or at the full-size image), think about these three questions:
2. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)
3. After you have posted, try reading back to see what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting another comment. Use the “Reply” button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.
Each Monday, our collaborator, Visual Thinking Strategies, will facilitate a discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time by paraphrasing comments and linking to responses to help students’ understanding go deeper. You might use their responses as models for your own.
4. On Thursday afternoons, we will reveal at the bottom of this post more information about the photo. How does reading the caption and learning its back story help you see the image differently?
The Reveal
We’ll post more information here on Thursday afternoon. Stay tuned!
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
As you know, nowadays, there are many places where talking, discussing, exploring, and pushing a narrative can lead to all types of information and disinformation.
No one platform is immune from it.
On the professional side, you see it with LinkedIn and that thread you still can’t figure out how you are seeing this and, better yet, how you can stop it.
Those ads. Dear G-D.
I would pay an extra $2 to remove them.
I think this is a skill.
Writing is a skill.
Listening to History Podcast from the BBC is an interest, that could lead to a new skill.
Because it continues to grow, with new ways to push out the content around the context of it, using AI forgetting though of another piece happening on a global business and government scale.
Onboarding plus Employee Development or is it the other way around?
You see it in systems that have been around, systems that have tapped into what they see as a growing market, systems that are new, or systems that try to play both sides of the coin – customer training here, and hey, employee development and onboarding there.
What you don’t see, or perhaps realize, is that today, many systems are going this way.
The narrative is heavily pushed, not necessarily on their website, although you can find it if you look around.
Sometimes, it is very visible, and sometimes, it is like playing Waldo and then saying, ‘Why am I wasting my time here?’
Onboarding isn’t new.
It is not for learning systems; you are using the platforms for it.
Every system on the planet can be used for onboarding.
The content is the crucial part here – often ignored – because a lot is downright boring, and I guarantee if you, the person overseeing the whole onboarding process, read it, you would want to see what that bird is doing on your tree rather than continuance.
Functionality is the secondary part, usually seen as the primary.
The metrics are the last part when, in reality, they should be in tandem with the content and what output can be extracted by using the functionality, tapping into what is a need to work versus a need to know versus a need to know but you don’t know, so you see it as a maybe I should know, but do I really need to know?
Moving away from the content side – for the record, nobody wants to read a PDF that is 15 pages long, nor a video that looks like you pulled it from those rotten VHS tapes nobody watched.
For those new to this, the VHS tapes with onboarding – thank your lucky stars.
I one time fell asleep watching one.
I woke up just right before they came in, and then I said, ‘Yes, very informative, or some other nonsense.’
Don’t worry; those metrics will say I read it, and I’m all good.
Skills get tricky here because everyone, if those heavy on customer training, includes it.
Those who see the employee development and onboarding piece as a crucial step – wrapped around that nice warm blanket of employee development, perhaps are unaware of the following:
Skill ratings can be a deceiver.
Likert Scale Skill Rating establish falsehoods, and when used with AI – tied as part of those skill ratings – the output is skewed
Skills tied to content for the opportunities angle only work if they truly reflect the person’s strengths, areas for improvement, and the manager’s perception, which may or may not be 100% accurate and, therefore, without validation.
Skill mapping is a benefit, yet many systems ignore it because the system does it for you rather than having you do it yourself—which is a long and awful process. It’s just like watching those DVD onboarding videos, especially the ones with the CEO welcoming you—hey, thanks. Is it too early to get a raise?
Skills taxonomies, skills this and that, skills assessments – the best in the business isn’t one you may have heard of – but you should
If just the word “upskilling” entices you, it’s because systems from day one were about identifying skill gaps and improving them—thus upskilling. Yep, back in 1999. Wow. Who knew?
That is a lot of skill pieces here.
A Likert scale of 1-5, whether a smiley face or just 1-5, without context on what each number means, is worthless.
On top of that, not showing a box of expectations/definitions is another step in misinformation.
If I see 1, the box would say, “no knowledge of the topic,” and it is basically a beginner level.
Then, #2 is the next step and what is defined as number two.
In addition, it is rare to find words that identify as 1, the lowest/beginner, or at the bottom, and 5, the best.
The assumption is that everyone will know this, and yet, what if I, the human looking at the data, believe one is the best and five is the worst?
How is that going to output actual data? If the vendor is using AI to push out content recommendations and skills to improve instantly if you are not aware of them, is that wrong?
The manager sees the same numbers, and the assumption is that the manager knows the employees, meets with them weekly and is aware of their actual skills.
If I have 50 employees under me, will I really know all the above information? Or will I just rely on the system’s ranking based on how the employees see themselves?
Honesty is the crucial step here.
Explain what each means. This gives me a baseline. However, it doesn’t guarantee accurate information unless the system leverages some assessment beforehand.
Best System for Skills Assessment
You are not buying it for all the UI or assuming it has content—because it doesn’t.
It can be deeply integrated into your learning system or used as a standalone with integration alone.
I looked at it solely from the talent, i.e., employee development side.
I hate the word talent – because it is a double-end word jumble.
It implies superiority, and aren’t we all talented? Wait, Jimmy, who plays video games on his phone all day, is talent?
Thus, when I looked at the platform, I only considered it from the employee development standpoint, not the recruiting or hiring aspect—because that isn’t employee development.
On the employee dev side, I liked it.
Is it perfect?
No.
But no system is – not one.
Ability Map uses several skills frameworks and competencies, including SFIA9.
Here is an example of the output, data-wise: ignore the candidate profile and focus on the skills.
If I were to look at this data and focus on, say, Setting Goals, then I would need to provide skills content to improve it.
They showed me some other items, which their site shows, a bit of what it shows -nevertheless, I came away quite impressed.
Why did I think that other systems, such as LMS, LMS/LXP, and so forth, couldn’t have a type of skills assessment that identifies at a far better level than, say, rating myself?
As with anything, honesty has to be in play here.
I would feel a whole lot better using something like this for skills outputs and areas to improve than my manager or my peers (yes, I’ve seen systems that do this—maybe the worst idea since your boss forcing you to read “Who Moved my Cheese,” and then afterwards you realize your boss doesn’t follow the mantra).
I will go a step further here because a skills validation program, even within your system, without having to use or purchase a 3rd party such as above.
Yours could go far beyond because you could leverage lots of data that had never been viewable. That would help your employees, benefit them, and empower them to do what training’s goal is: synthesis.
Bottom Line
Skills are a great push.
People want to improve themselves.
They want to learn new skills – not just for the job, but for personal growth.
And they want to have an engaged approach that should befun.
Fun it seems is left out in the learning of new skills.
And with employee development tied to skills, it usually lacks personal and professional growth.
This is often left out of any skills platform I’ve seen, whether it is standalone or built into a learning system that taps into skills for employee development and onboarding.
You won’t find it in any ERP, HRIS, or HR system that spins the whole narrative around skills development as though the holy grail is right before your eyes.
I tested out BambooHR, for example.
The skills thing was an utter joke.
If you want to take some content, there is no problem – just put a link to it.
Yes, it is an HR platform with HRIS too, but it is the next “vendor to watch” in the HRIS side, with a lot of folks in HRIS pointing to it as such.
Yep, the next Workday, before Workday became this bloated entity.
Workday has skills development.
SAP SF does too.
Oracle – well, let’s move on from them – like so many have – Boom! Drum Roll, please! (No doubt Oracle will disagree with me, and yes, you make a lot of money, but I wouldn’t use anything around learning in your system)
But as I wrote in this LinkedIn thread, would you really want to use any of these for skills development—upskilling your employees?
I am confident HR folks aren’t be all over the idea of personal development data.
It is skills for the job.
Skills for the job we just or are going to lay you off. Skills for reorganization because we found out AI can do your job for you.
That is the reality of skills for employee development.
It isn’t about the ratings, recommended content, or suggested content on skills based on variables that lack any real context—you, the person looking at this information, need to be able to extrapolate it rather than rely solely on the system to say it is this or that.
Validation, when used in the right format, is based on multiple skills frameworks, ideally with a validation, certification, or verified statement from the entity or entities that these frameworks for skills are worth having for your organization’s employees.
It is, however, a combo of moving parts that is a must here.
This congruence shows that it isn’t only about skills development around the job under the premise that they will always have that job or always be at your company.
Instead, it is about dreams.
Possibilities and the opportunity for each of those employees to better themselves.
Not just those who work in the office environment, whether physical or remote.
Something to remember the next time you focus on skills – for employee development.
Otherwise, what’s the point?
E-Learning 24/7
FWIW – My new biz site is being developed – launch date end of March. A new piece will be my Resource Center – lots of cool content And the launch of my app available on Apple and Google Play. (that’s coming in April)
