When developing job & work skills, building sought-after skills is critical to get wherever you want in your desired career.
The skills your development will be what you can talk to for past success and point to how you are going to have guaranteed success in your next career step. It is through your skill refinement and specializations that you will get where you want.
How Work is Changing
Deloitte has found that work is being shaped by two powerful forces:
The growing adoption of artificial intelligence in the workplace, and the expansion of the workforce to include both on- and off-balance-sheet talent.
Deloitte
McKinsey also found that 25% more workers than previously estimated potentially need to switch occupations to due trends in remote work, e-commerce, and automation.
Work is beginning to focus on less repetitive and manual tasks. AI at the most extreme will be able to handle all the work, or more likely, will better enable a select few people to oversee the technology while it runs – alleviating the need to have 100s of people doing the same manual process that several pieces of technology could accomplish.
Plus, people are having to learn to be their own brand. Gone are the days of 40+ years with a company and the pension. Instead, people jump from company to company to get ahead. Plus, there is an increase in gig and freelance workers who support large corporations. Whether is graphic design help, article writing, or even customer discovery – any aspect of a business now can be outsourced to capable freelancers who will get the job done.
Need help developing your personal brand? Check out our guide below:
How to Adapt to the Changing Workforce
Firstly, these changes have been expedited by the COVID-19 Pandemic and they are already starting to permeate in the workforce before people have fully “returned to normal.”
Secondly, there is a lot of freedom in this new way of working. You are no longer defined by your company, title, or limited of your career choices by where you live. If we lean into and embrace this changing world, with a little bit of effort, we can make a unique career that would not have been possible even 20 years ago.
With a bit of self-reflection on what you want to do, developing relevant skills, personal branding, grit, shifting to a growth mindset, networking, a little luck, and having perseverance – you can make a good living doing just about anything in this new world economy.
Discover some of the below guides to help you orient yourself to making this dream career for yourself!
- Why You should treat Your Career Like a Start-up
- Questions to Find Your Dream Job
- How to Build Your Ideal Life
How I Picked the 8 Timeless Skills
After researching interpersonal, technical, and every skill in-between across industries – there are common themes between industries. Mostly showing that those who can do non-automated, creative jobs are going to have the most career growth.
That means companies are looking for people who can challenge the status quo, think on their own, bring their ideas to fruition, and present them succinctly – are going to be the ones who can make their career and ideas work for them. There is less emphasis on following the processes and rules – it is about doing the hard work of thinking critically and then executing well that will matter more than ever.
The 8 Timeless Work Skills for Any Career
1. Presentation
In any career, when you speak at a meeting or talk with a customer – you are presenting. A presentation is simply a way to convey information from a speaker to an audience. To inform, persuade, inspire, motivate, build goodwill, or present a new idea.
The average person’s attention span is about 12 seconds. The reason people focus for larger intervals (such as with an absorbing movie or Ted Talk) is that we choose repeatedly to re-engage with the content. It is those speakers or presenters who hook us with something interesting and keep the presentation engaging that get the most praise because they make whatever they are presenting easy to understand, interesting, and fun for listening to.
The common theme with these presenters is they keep their story succinct with techniques like the Minto Pyramid. The Minto Pyramid is where your main takeaway is said at the top and all the support is the rest of the presentation. Other presentation techniques include injecting emotion into the story and having a clear storyline.
By presenting information well – people will better trust you know what you are talking about and will appreciate that they were informed in such an attentive and empathetic way.
Check-out this guide on how to give a better presentation!
2. Public Speaking
Public speaking is the most challenging format to present information. It involves giving a presentation before a live audience.
Glossophobia, or speech anxiety over giving a public presentation, affects 73% of the population. With the fear stemming from concerns over being judged by the group.
It is okay to have the fear, but it’s not healthy to let it cripple you and hold you back from career and personal development opportunities. There are great guides online from the Mayo Clinic on how to better approach public speaking, and experts offer classes all the time to help with public speaking.
What is important is that making your ideas heard will often involve, eventually, a formal presentation. Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable will help you stand out and get ahead.
3. Data Analytics
Forbes found that 59% of enterprises are using analytics in some capacity. Most are using it for customer discovery, improving products, adjusting timelines, and even assessing employee performance.
There are whole careers devoted to data – mainly by Data Scientists, or Data visualization experts. You don’t need to become an expert in charts, numbers, or various analytics tools. However, you need to learn to understand the information presented, and raise intelligent questions about them.
Gartner found there is a trend towards presenting information visually through charts. Everything from FitBit fitness data, work performance, and even product information are going to be presented through charts.
If you are looking to get more familiar with data and data best practices, Tableau (a data visualization software) has a daily visualization that you can subscribe to see to learn how to interact with data in a fun way!
4. Creative Thinking
Companies and individuals who can think creatively are those most set to change the world. The world is so interconnected and globalized almost anything is possible. The Internet of Things (IoT) is putting the internet on watches, home security, and who knows what is next. It is people who can think ahead, and think from a user’s experience that will make ideas and products that people love to use.
If you need some inspiration, IDEO wrote the book on Design Thinking. Creativity isn’t something you are born with or without – it is simply following exercises and letting go of self-doubt that will enable you to have success in being creative.
5. Teaming
As the world becomes globalized, teams will begin to take new shapes. Enabled by work from home and the COVID-19 pandemic, teams from all over the world formed and saw it was possible for people to spread all across North America, Europe, and Asia could still work in a team effectively. The future of work is built in teams. Learning how to operate in group dynamics, and thrive with diversity will help you find success.
Check out this article for 7 tips on how to build more inclusive teams.
6. Problem solving
Getting to the root of the problem is critical. Through techniques like the 5 whys, fishbone diagrams, or causal mapping – you can better identify what went wrong and how to fix it.
Much like creativity, problem-solving isn’t something people are born with. It is something they develop over time through repeated use and using thought-provoking techniques like those above!
7. Self-Mastery
Understanding yourself is essential not only for your personal brand but understanding how you work. Do you get your best work done in the morning or at night? Do you like working alone or with people? What annoys you? What angers you?
By understanding yourself, you can set yourself up in situations that work best for you. If you are a morning person, move all your meetings to the afternoon if you can. If you get angry over someone interrupting you, you can better anticipate and regulate yourself when someone interrupts you.
Not only will people think you are calm under pressure, and produce high-quality work – you will also be happier since you are working in a way that benefits and enables you the most!
8. Personal Branding
The world is changing from titles and companies to having to be an individual. There is even a shift to being an individual in your own company. Where it is expected to pitch yourself to land on high-profile projects or tackle new development opportunities.
By branding yourself in a way that benefits you, you can shape your career to be what you want it to be.
Key Take-Aways
- You need to develop key work skills to achieve your dream job
- The workforce is shifting to automation and freelance workers
- By leaning in and developing skills, reflecting on what you want, and creating your brand – you are poised to better stand out from the crowd and make the career of your dreams
- Making that career means laying a strong foundation and developing skills, even if they give you anxiety because doing so will set you up for later success
Action Items
What work skills do you currently have? What skill gaps do you have? Pick a skill to develop and work on it every single day for 3 months to see how far you can develop!
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