Mining Talent in Untapped Fields

 There are a lot of ways to learn a lot of skills. There are a lot of ways of gaining a lot of knowledge. consequently there are a lot of people who can do a lot of work. It just isn't obvious. That means finding this untapped talents takes time and effort. I believe this kind of talent is invisible to AI, as it does not appear in key words or phrases. As a pastor trying to find qualified volunteers to perform important work for our organization I had mine unconventional backgrounds.

In my experience the work done by these self-taught, self-motivated individuals was equal to or better than the work of mainstreams professional we hired out for. These people did the work because they were naturally inclined to it, and enjoyed it. Having someone who would do the job even if you weren't paying them changes the whole atmosphere of the office. 

The other observation I made was that when I was willing to take unconventional experiences, i could recruit for quality character. Character cannot be trained, but job specific skills can be. That training is an investment, and maybe to some organizations it is not worth it. To us it was, it enriched our culture, and helped us find innovative solutions from outside the standard practice. 

As a pastor i myself was a master of unconventional skill development. I arrived at one church to find it had not internet presence, and so int he space of a few months I taught myself marketing, branding, and video production. I combined my skills in writing from college and seminary, with artistic talents to craft a compelling image and launched a YouTube channel. The simple preaching and teaching content reached an audience several times larger than our membership, and drew visitors to travel two or more hours.

At another church I found myself taking my observation of course design as student reading syllabi and completing assignments to develop a training course for musicians, along with all the requisite materials that would fill out the course. 

I got good at getting competent in a wide variety of skills, from financial management, to policy writing; from A/V troubleshooting, to library science. Most of all i got good at finding good people beyond the clear signs of ability. 

I think if you enjoy something, and you have developed your abilities; put it out there somehow. Someone might be looking for you! I got fairly good at writing, and here I am casting words into the obscure reaches of the internet with hopes of someday making my living with this skill.