The key to sustained success in the future is maintaining an unrivalled ability to adapt to fundamental industry changes. As the global job market rapidly changes, so to should your skillset if you want to future-proof your career and resume in the years to come. Employers in the coming decade will be in search of intelligent, efficient employees who aren’t mindlessly undertaking repetitive, automatable tasks.
To ensure you’re a future-proofed team member, it’s vital to stay highly educated and on top of any significant workplaces changes. This could mean learning how to analyse data, understand effective ways to direct commercial interests or even improving passive and empowering communication skills.
In this article, we’ll take a look over a few things you can do to future-proof your resume and strengthen the skills you boast today.
Have The New-age Employee ‘Edge’
The days of learning one skill and sticking to it are gone. In the modern business world, it’s expected that you relentlessly adapt, and continue learning to understand changes in your workplace and industry. Employers are now actively seeking intelligent, empowered team members who are able to assist in every facet of their business – not just one area.
To get the ‘edge’ you’ll need to work on developing a few major skillsets as well as a few minor ones. Employers are now on the lookout for a ’T-shaped professional.’ These are team members who boast great basic skills like communication and critical thinking, though also have a deep understanding of two other major skills. In order to be successful in the future of employment, you’ll need to be able to showcase you have more than one skill and a background in two fields, rather than just one.
Take the initiative as soon as possible to enrol in additional fields of study and build these additional knowledge bases. If an on-campus university is out of the question, then certainly consider certified online degrees. This way you’re still building your skills and not losing any time at work.
Focus on Building In-demand Skills
In 2018, we all witnessed – thanks to Telstra and NAB– what happens to employees who aren’t adapting to the changing business landscape. More than 14,000 employees are expected to lose their jobs at Telstra and NAB, with 2,000 replacement employees being brought in for their expertise in data science.
This highlights the importance of finding, following the most in-demand skills and learning to be great at them. If you’re a team leader or just an employee, you’re able to utilise platforms like Lynda.com to build upon skills you may already have – or even build entirely new ones. The most common in-demand skills today rest in analytical sciences and cybersecurity. Although you may be an accountant now, you could soon accept a role in data analytics when accounting staff are reduced in your business – thanks to your newfound expertise in data science.
Stay Ahead of the Curve
An important step to remember that will profoundly help you future-proof your resume is staying on top of your craft. If you work in videography, for example, and you become accustomed to working with an older version of editing software, you’ll be a step behind everyone else. This leaves you vulnerable to be replaced by someone who is more adaptable and updated than you are.
With this in mind, when an industry moves or something new is integrated into your workplace changes, enrol in additional education courses and be ready for it. Become the best at adapting to change. When a software program updates, learn how to use it correctly or if a client prefers you use their software of choice, take the time to master it.
To help you stay on top, it’s always a great idea to sign up for relevant industry publications. These will give you a heads up about what changes are coming your way and that way you’ll have time to adapt before everyone else.
Build & Strengthen Professional Relationships
Since you never really know what the future holds, it’s beneficial to build professional business relationships with people in high or stable positions. In doing this, you’ll have a connection in the event your position does become redundant. These relationships will also mean you have someone authoritative to recommend you to other organisations.
One of the best ways to build and foster these business relationships is to utilise LinkedIn. You’ll be able to stay in touch with colleagues, build relationships with new people and even find old friends you’ve fallen out of touch with. Build upon these initial connections and you’ll be able to create a solid network that future-proofs your career by providing fallback options in the event your employer scales back your role.
Additionally, relationships with other professionals may provide opportunities for additional learning and skill building. This is great motivation to expand on your current resume and add the latest in-demand industry skills.
Develop Your ‘Uniquely Human’ Skillsets
Five years ago this sort of tip would’ve seemed ludicrous, however, in 2019 and beyond your job may very well be on the way to being replaced by an artificially intelligent software program. This highlights the importance of building your uniquely human skills.
The leading skill you should focus on developing is your ability to understand people. Whether these people are customers, co-coworkers or management, an understanding of how people think is essential. You’re able to utilise this skill in particular to better sell products, improve client relationships and effectively spot when your co-workers are feeling down and suggest ways to improve their outlook. In almost every industry this is a highly sought-after skill as it can be integrated into almost any business workflow.
A great way to build these skills is to undertake communication-strengthening classes and work on learning how to better understand people and how they work. Thanks to the fact that AI isn’t able to comprehend this (yet) you’ll likely have a secure job for the years to come.