CHAPTER 1: STEM CAREERS AND THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: FILLING THE SKILLS GAP

[...]the literature on person-job fit identifies two main types of fit between the individual characteristics workers bring to a job and the types of characteristics a job requires of and reinforces in its workers. The first of these, abilities-demands fit (А-D fit; Edwards, 1996; Kristóf, 1996; Kristof-Brown et al., 2005), concerns the extent to which a person has the knowledge, skills, and abilities (i.e., the "abilities") that a job requires (i.e., the "demands"). [...]it addresses the question, "Does the employee have the abilities the job demands?" Organizations like to hire with А-D fit in mind, because employees who possess the abilities demanded by the job are most likely to be high performers; they have the raw material needed to complete job tasks. The second type of person-job fit, needs-supplies fit (also known as values-supplies fit; Dawis, 1992; Edwards, 1992; French et al., 1982), concerns the extent to which a job can meet (or, as stated in the Theory of Work Adjustment, "reinforce") a worker's values, preferences, and goals. [...]it addresses the question, "Are the worker's needs and values met by the job?" Edwards and Rothbard (1999) stated that needs "refer to the desires of the person and thus signify a general construct that subsumes interests [emphasis added], preferences, and goals" (p. 88). The U.S. Department of Labor (2020) offers a Career Profiler system that can provide a rather full mapping of a person's characteristics.