Changing jobs might be easier than you think!
The pandemic certainly didn’t hit all of us fairly. While some businesses need governments to throw life jackets and save them from drowning, others are just flourishing! Changing jobs has become more daunting than ever before. But if 2020 has taught us anything, then it is the power of digitalization. Even in times like these.
The global labor market will create space for 150 million new tech jobs in the next five years.
With technology intertwining into every aspect of our economies and going far beyond its sector, this is good news for all of us. The acceleration of technological advancement paired with the ongoing pandemic caused workers to lose jobs at a drastically fast pace. By 2025, companies will displace 6% of their total workforce. 1 in 2 workers will need reskilling. And the ones that will remain in the same jobs will need to update 40% of their skillset. To stay in the game, we need to play smart. Here’s how to turn things to your advantage and master changing jobs.
After all: a job lost is a job gained, only when you know where to look.
Changing Jobs: Top 10 skills for the future are soft skills
Remember when only a university degree could secure you a well-paid job? Well, yeah, the times have changed. The requirements for future high-earners shifted towards particular skills. Unsurprisingly, those skills are mostly related to problem-solving, self-management, social skills, and technology use.
Top 10 soft skills of the future:
- Analytical thinking and innovation
- Active learning and learning strategies
- Complex problem solving
- Critical thinking and analysis
- Creativity, originality and initiative
- Reasoning, problem solving and ideation
- Technology use, monitoring and control
- Technology design and programming
- Resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility
- Leadership and social influence
Securing these universal competencies would be considered a bonus in comparison to the competition. The skills required are applicable in just any environment, which is highly useful when changing jobs. But, how to practice these skills? Some of the traditional educational schemes can suppress creativity, originality and ideation.
Yet, the internet is full of courses and practice games relating to these topics. So do not hesitate to be your own teacher. Or even easier – play brain games, read, ask questions, think about your decisions. Or try learning something new, however small it might be. As your speed of embracing new things accelerates, so will you be more capable to adapt to any environment.
The sectors that will give us the warmest embrace
Workplaces welcomed the technology to automate processes, cut costs and boost efficiency. We witness the creation of new job descriptions every day – and they are usually an upgrade of traditional roles, but with required technical skills. The good news is that the majority of transitions into jobs of tomorrow come from non-emerging jobs!
Certain job clusters are extremely open to workers coming from different spheres. And, the most representative ones are Product development and Data and AI, where around 70% of people being hired come from a different previous profession. It is really important to mention sectors such as Sales, Cloud Computing, Content Production, and Marketing. Let us put it this way: if you compete for a role in these industries with someone who has already been a part of the same job family, you both have equal chances to get the job! So if you think about switching careers, you might want to think about going in some of those directions.
For those longing for easy career switches, we’ve got some good news: the sectors which show the biggest openness to newcomers, such as Cloud Computing, Data and AI and Product Development, are not requiring specific skills accompanied by the proof that you demonstrated them throughout your previous employment. Contrarily, job families such as HR and Engineering are on the opposite side: if your previous job experience does not highly match the job description you’re applying to, the chances you will get a thumb down are pretty high.
Reinventing your career starts with your CV
Your biography and online presence could be your ticket for changing jobs, so here’s how you can improve it. Create a website that would depict your projects, who you are, along with all the necessary information one would found in your CV. And for anyone thinking LinkedIn profile and CV are enough, well think again, because they are not sufficient to land that job you want.
However, besides a personal website, it is always good to have a CV ready to show. Considering the current environment, we should all be aware that our potential employers may not be working from their offices. That means that they will be going through your job application on possibly smaller screens or even their mobile devices. That’s why you should make your CV mobile friendly. Try to make it an easy skim, with lots of white space and clean font. In the studies published by Ladders, scientists used heat maps to determine what is the most efficient presentation of documents and biographies.
How long should it be? Well, if you’re not a highly skilled professional, maybe it’s the wisest to keep it to one page. Short, concise and aiming directly to the point! Anyhow, it’s not a good idea to make it more than two pages. Could you imagine the look on the face of a traditional HR recruiter who has to read through 300 CVs, each having 3-4 pages? Going through ‘Anna Karenina’ page length of biographies is just a short horror story. Nowadays there’s a solution for that. Have you ever heard of applicant tracking systems?
Read more: Let’s Not Panic – Explaining the Process of Job Application
Beating applicant tracking systems
ATS, to be short, is software used by recruiters to scan, sort, and rank job applications. Large corporations usually use these, so if you aim to change your job and work in, for example, some of the companies on the Fortune 500 list, be aware that there’s only a 2% chance that your company doesn’t use ATS. They can automatically disqualify candidates who aren’t the best fit. Meaning the recruiters can focus only on top candidates and evaluate them. Unfortunately, it means that an incorrectly written and formatted CV might never pass this mighty six-second review test.
Here are some of the crucial things to pay attention to when writing your resume:
- File format: contrary to general belief, PDF is not compatible with all the ATS software. If the job advertised notes that the formats that the company accepts are: .doc or .docx. or plain-text, it might indicate that the company is using ATS.
- No important details in header and footer: it’s in some cases the equivalent of not listing that information at all, as the system tends not to recognize it.
- Charts or images: If you insert a chart or image to showcase your top skills, the system will not be able to read it.
- Design: use a clean and simple one, as too complicated biographies can possibly annoy the recruiters.
- Keywords: represent the soft and hard skills you possess and the expertise you acquired, which can qualify you to be the right fit for the job. If unsure about which keywords to put, try collecting several job descriptions similar to the one you’re pursuing. Then, using a free tool such as Text analyzer determine what terms are most in use. If you possess those skills, make sure to incorporate them into your resume.
Fasten your seatbelts! We’re landing in: The Jobs of Tomorrow
Recent research done by the joint efforts of the World Economic Forum, LinkedIn and Coursera, identified 99 emerging professions that keep growing in demand. On the top of the list are Data Analysts and Scientists, AI and Machine Learning Specialists, Big Data Specialists, Digital Marketing and Strategy Specialists, Process Automation Specialists and Business Development Professionals.
A conclusion that is hard to avoid is that the top requested roles are the ones that require humans to conquer the technology: to know how to use it or, have the ability to interpret and analyze the information produced by the software.
The jobs which will gradually decline in demand involve Data Entry Clerks, Administrative and Executive Secretaries, Accounting, Bookkeeping Clerks, Accountants and Auditors, and Factory Workers.
Workers who will be able to keep their heads above the water are the ones who will learn to use the system for their benefit. The position of power here is extremely important: we aim to master the software – not the other way round.
Pro tip: As remote working flourishes, the chances to acquire a job just anywhere in the world skyrocketed. In case you shortlist, your future employers would love to find out as much about you. Incorporate your professional social network link in your CV, or even better – list your own personalized domain. Virtual identity is more important than ever, and mastering the art of representing yourself in the most efficient way online can significantly aid your career and help you when changing jobs.
Disclaimer: This post was written by a TA in Accounting, which is one of the fastest declining professions – as we just learned. Luckily, she loves digital marketing, learning programming languages and extremely enjoys creative writing. Perhaps, she wouldn’t be aware of any of those, if she didn’t need to possibly change her job.
