As you may know, I was recently laid off from my job of 19 years in the aviation industry. I’ve quickly made the jump into entrepreneurship, but I’m still tuned-in to anything oriented toward job-seekers and they finding the work they love (nod to Dan Miller). Here are a couple things that jumped out at me recently…
First, The Economist opines that a lot of the white color jobs lost over the past few years are lost forever, thanks to artificial intelligences that can do the work for them. Here’s a snippet:
This is unlike the job destruction and creation that has taken place continuously since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, as machines gradually replaced the muscle-power of human labourers and horses. Today, automation is having an impact not just on routine work, but on cognitive and even creative tasks as well. A tipping point seems to have been reached, at which AI-based automation threatens to supplant the brain-power of large swathes of middle-income employees.
I would agree that this is the trend and that well-paying jobs at large corporations will continue to decline. However, the article mentions nothing about the opportunities these new technologies provide an individual. Today an average person can leverage their home computer in amazing ways to create new products and find customers all over the world. My blog and novel readers come from all over the world but find me all in the same place… their screens. In much the same way, we have the opportunity to become micro-industries servicing the whole planet. The secret is to figure out what we love and how to solve people’s problems with it.
Okay, moving on to the second job-seeker eye-grabber; this week I saw an infographic resume on Flowing Data. Pretty, eh? High paying jobs might be shrinking, but why can’t you have one anyway? I think this would really stand out in the slush pile, at least for a while until everyone is doing it. Can you make your resume into an infographic? Do you think it would give you an edge? EDC
Edward D. Casey 