Working 9-5 eh? Have you finished school, survived college, made it through university and landed yourself a dream job that you pinch yourself daily? Think you’re safe and secure? Think again.
Multiple careers
Right now it’s a completely different world to the one your parents or grandparents thrived in. They would have landed themselves a job and have had a lifelong career, until they retired. However, that is no longer the case, merely a distant fantasy. I, like many of my friends, have already had numerous jobs and careers. From retail, hospitality to social media and marketing, today’s corporate culture is ingrained in all ‘millennials’ that there is no such thing as job security. Competition for jobs today is fierce. Job-seekers are impacted by several hurdles, competing with hundreds of other applicants off and online, CV screening software, discrimination, nepotism, the list goes on. But in the not too distant future, we’ll be competing with Robots too.
Are you ready for the Robot Revolution?
Scrap that, whilst it sounds armageddon, the robot revolution and automation stealing people’s jobs is happening as we speak. My current read, which should be yours too, is “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” by Klaus Schwab. It details, amongst other things, the top ten careers that are likely to be affected by the latest innovations that mostly originate from Silicon Valley. And guess what? A psychologist is up there with one of the roles least impacted by the advancements in tech innovation. Hooray!
Will your job survive?
A recent analysis by Cornerstone Capital Group suggests that 7.5m retail jobs – the most common type of job in the country – are at “high risk of computerisation”, with 3.5m cashiers likely to be particularly hard hit, as cited in the Guardian. With driverless cars, Japan’s hotel run solely by Robots, automated checkouts and speech dictation/ AI assistants replacing receptionists and customer service, redundancies will only increase. Although many technology innovations are still in their infancy and somewhat rudimentary, the rate of growth will soon be exponential, making Black Mirror episodes like Metalhead seem scarily plausible.
But what does all this mean for mere job seekers, hustlers and dream chasers now and in the future?! Well, first and foremost we all need to capitalise on what makes us inherently human and unique. When you are next job hunting or interviewing, what skills can only you do? What ideas can you generate and what makes you stand out? Can you be kinder, funnier or produce more thought-provoking content than a Robot?
Our dreams, aspirations, motivations, curiosity, argumentativeness, empathy and consciousness are what set us apart from others, even from generic robots.
At least for now.
Love Career Girl xo
Nirvana Wright 