4 career tips to successfully ride the technological wave
Let’s accept the facts, technology will advance and jobs will become obsolete and disappear. Here are 4 career tips you can use today to ride the technological wave and benefit from its endless stream of opportunities…
There’s been a trend over the past few years in the types of jobs that have been disappearing. Starting in the industry of course but moving slowly into more and more white-collar jobs. As new pieces of software simplify and automate repetitive tasks, people become more productive and then less of them are required to do the job and in some areas, such as accounting for example, one person can produce today what 10 people would do in the past. The job in itself still exists and we might not feel it disappeared, but in the numbers, you can see it clearly.
With AI now it’s a completely different game. You can clearly see that some jobs will disappear altogether in the coming years. More and more people talk about AI replacing software developers and if they can be replaced then where’s the limit? Or is there a limit?
So the first tip to stay on top of this game is to realize that no job is safe from technology advancement, not anymore. Whatever your field of work is, in this first AI phase, there’s a chance the work you do in front of your computer, on your own, that is repetitive to some extent, could be done some day by an AI, and sooner than you think.
Realizing this leads to the second tip which is to stay open minded about the future of your job and about how you will continue to add value, even if technology takes away part of your job. Things can and will be different in the future. It’s an opportunity to move forward in your career. To do so, you need to stay current with the evolution of your field of work, learn about the startups that will likely change its landscape. Ask yourself how you can leverage those new opportunities within your company and how you can embrace that change and move to more value-added activities as you delegate the grind to the machines.
But also learn and grow as a professional, that’s the third tip. I’m an author for LinkedIn Learning, but I’m also a student there. I watch courses all the time, in Finance but in many other fields as well. I watch marketing courses, sales courses, leadership, management, HR and even Software Development courses. I’m not looking to become an expert in those fields, but I want to understand them and the more I learn about them, the better I become at my own job.
No one can say where the professional landscape will be in 20 years but in the short term, AI will most likely take over entry level jobs in more areas than we can think of. So being a well-rounded professional and being able to connect the dots beyond our own field of work is a great way to stay on top of that technology wave.
The last tip I believe is to choose a field of work and stick to it, and the earlier the better. Any professional who’s been working in a certain field for a long time and who’s been developing his skills along the way will tell you that, at some point, doing the job becomes less of a science and more of an art. When combining your extensive knowledge with a long experience, a continued education and some life skills you gained along the way, doing your job becomes an entirely different game. Your added value increases exponentially, and that’s not something that can be automated, or at least not today.
Using those 4 career tips you can hope to see the wave coming in your own field, get on top of it and ride it masterfully, or at least that’s my plan to not be replaced by an AI in the coming years 😊
What would you say is the 5th tip I should have added here? What have you learned that’s not mentioned here and can help ride the technology wave? Looking forward to reading your comments…
About the Author: Rudolph is a Chief Financial Officer specialized in the tech industry and author of Finance and Business Management courses on LinkedIn Learning… More articles and online courses from Rudolph
