Large organizations are desirable employers

Start-ups make for lots of sexy-sounding headlines because of a ping-pong and Red Bull culture, and when a start-up goes public, it makes its founders zillionaires. Beyond the headlines, start-ups have other pluses: They often allow you to wear many hats in the service of a cutting-edge product and offer the prospect of a big-buck exit. Just remember that most start-ups quickly go bust, leaving employees jobless and with stock options worth zippo.

Sure, working for a large company has some disadvantages: Your role may be narrow, and you may be forced to follow procedure and the chain of command. But a solid structure can help a company be greater than the sum of its parts. Combine that concept with the deep pockets, refined processes, and good products associated with larger companies and it’s easy to understand why many graduates of prestigious colleges continue to want to work for category killers like Apple, Google, Citibank, Johnson & Johnson, Goldman Sachs, 3M, General Electric, and Procter & Gamble. Similarly, people who prefer nonprofits are attracted to major players like UNICEF, Planned Parenthood, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And, people who prize job security and a prosocial mission gravitate to the largest employer: the government.

Rigorous hiring practices

Today’s job seekers are likely aware that candidates applying for good jobs are often invited to apply: They’re “referred in” by colleagues, or recruiters find them by trolling professional forums and speakers’ lists from professional conferences. (For a database of professional associations, check out www.directoryofassociations.com.)

So, participate in your profession’s community. That makes you more employable and competent and, in turn, feeling better about the work you do.

In recent years, job seekers have come to expect multiple rounds of interviews and tests of their technical skills, from typing to coding. That will continue. It means that job seekers will continue to need to show, not just tell. For example, today’s winning résumé should usually include a professional development section that lists key learning outcomes from career-specific trainings: from an in-person workshop to an online certificate.

The good news is that hiring practices involving multiple interviews help ensure that merit, and not other factors, drive hiring decisions. That benefits not only good candidates but also coworkers and customers.

Home work

More and more people are working from home. Because of the ever-growing traffic in many cities, more employees are asking to telecommute, or work from home, at least for part of the work week. Many employers support telecommuting because it saves the expense of providing office space. In addition, cheap, reliable videoconferencing makes video meetings more acceptable than in the past.

Gigification

Many employees will continue to be needed full-time — 52 weeks a year. But employers will continue to replace other employees with “gig” employees, or just-in-time employees, who are contracted to complete specific projects.

Employers are sometimes tempted to replace full-time employees with these “giggers” because it’s ever more expensive to hire U.S. workers. That expense includes not just salaries but also government-mandated benefits and protections: increased Social Security and workers’ compensation limits, employee lawsuits, and employer-paid healthcare, for example.

Some people lament America’s gigification. They prefer stability over having to look for new work every few months. They prefer working with the same people for a long time — it can feel good to experience life’s key times together. On the other hand, some people like the gig economy’s flexibility: They benefit from the novelty of the experience, the option of taking breaks to complete that dream project or travel destination, or perhaps even a chance at a fresh start after a financial meltdown, for example.

Yes, the robots are coming — but not so fast

Sure, more jobs are becoming automated, but the worry that robots will entirely take over the workforce may be overblown. Yes, though repetitive work will likely be automated, for at least the next decade, most jobs requiring judgment will be augmented by — but not replaced by — technology. For example, physicians will have sort of a Dr. Watson to aid in diagnosing patients and choosing a treatment — though we’re a long way from having to hear the online receptionist say, “The robot will see you now.”

The truth of the matter is that every time a new technology has been developed — from the steam engine to the search engine — it was predicted that the technology would kill jobs. More jobs were created, however, including many that couldn’t even have been imagined. Plus, in selecting the 340 careers to include in Part 2 of this book, I’ve considered the risk of a career being automated. There should be ample options, both technological and not, that would capitalize on technological advances. Here are a few examples:

• The fashionable future: It shouldn’t be long before you can visit a clothing website, pick a fabric and style, and enter your body measurements — and then print the perfectly customized item at home on your 3D printer. Yes, this system will eliminate repetitive clothing manufacturing jobs, but those are low-paying and not fun, anyway. The replacement jobs will inevitably be more interesting. For example, people will likely buy more clothes, given how easy and (eventually) inexpensive it will be to purchase what they’re in the mood for. That will create jobs for everything from fabric designer to image consultant and from fabric-ink manufacturer to repairer of those printers eternally cranking away in 3D.
• Future (Data) Farmers of America: In this increasingly ever more data-centric world, people will be hired to collect and interpret the information that companies, nonprofits, and government are acquiring. Consider merely how much data Google and Facebook alone already have on each of its users. Artificial intelligence will enable ever more personalized ads to be presented; it will even infer your moods and send you just-in-time ads. That will increase the number of jobs that are available, for example, as data scientist, market researcher, marketing manager, social media marketing specialist, nonprofit fundraiser, and donor database manager.
• The future of love: Even advances in dating will create jobs. Dating already has evolved from the old-fashioned matchmaker to Match.com and a bevy of similar dating sites, from Tinder to J-Date. New jobs will likely be created because of next-generation dating sites: An algorithm will infer your essence from your social media posts and then suggest good fits. Swipe right and you’ll see a 3D holographic video of the person introducing himself. (Or herself. I rotate the terms in this book.) Swipe left and you’ll teach the algorithm to improve its predictions. Jobs will be created not just for designers of dating sites but also for coaches, for example, to guide your journey to your prince or princess.
• Acme Robotics: And, of course, the more robots that are coming, the more people will be hired to design, build, install, maintain, and repair them.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the robots. Hey, they’ve been trying to sell us robotic vacuum cleaners for almost 20 years now, and most of us are still pushing around our Hoovers.

Education, reinvented

Campus-based higher education is under increasing scrutiny. In addition to the daunting cost, many people complain that courses are too theoretical or too biased or too saddled with content of little interest to too many students. Those critics cite the Academically Adrift study, which found that more than one-third of college students grew little to not at all between their freshman and senior years in education’s core outcomes: analytic reasoning, critical thinking, and writing. Other criticisms include a residence hall culture that too often is, let’s just say, not conducive to studying. And of course, with ever more students graduating, the bachelor’s degree no longer confers a large advantage in the job market. A Northeastern University analysis of federal data found that more than half of college graduates under age 25 are unemployed or doing jobs that require no more than a high school education. And that result assumes that they’ve graduated. Only 59 percent do, even if given six years to complete their studies.

There has been a move to online education. Thousands of undergraduate and graduate courses are available via just two sites: www.coursera.org and www.edx.org. Alas, because many of those courses are similar to the in-person version but without the in-person interaction, the average completion rate is low.

But moving forward, colleges are attempting to compete with short and full-length courses offered by generally more practical providers such as Lynda (www.lynda.com), Udemy (www.udemy.com), and Udacity (www.udacity.com). That competition should result in larger numbers of shorter courses based on interactive videos and led by transformational instructors, including luminary practitioners. For example, MasterClass (www.masterclass.com) offers online courses in filmmaking by Martin Scorsese, writing by Judy Blume and James Patterson, comedy by Steve Martin, fashion by Diane von Furstenberg, architecture by Frank Gehry, singing by Christina Aguilera, jazz by Herbie Hancock, drama by David Mamet, tennis by Serena Williams, and environmental science by Jane Goodall. And each costs just $90. Harvard, let alone No-Name College, needs to respond, lest traditional higher education venues become dinosaurs.

Kindergarten through 12th grade, or K-12, education will progress more slowly toward online education because of its custodial function; the perceived need for a primarily high-touch (rather than high-tech) education; and the heavy unionization and need to protect teachers’ jobs. But the United States has largely abandoned ability-grouped classes, especially in grades K-8. Instead, a class today may include special-needs students, gifted students, native speakers of English, and newcomers from many countries. Those diverse needs can be addressed only by technology, using individualized, self-paced instruction taught in multiple languages. Of course, because such classes could be taught primarily on video, the most effective teachers could teach them, enabling rich and poor, from Beverly Hills to Harlem, to obtain a world-class education. The live teacher, or at least a paraprofessional, would still be needed, for example, for classroom discipline, getting kids unstuck, providing emotional support, and presiding over socialization activities.

Of course, this situation has career implications: Would-be teachers or course developers might want to learn the art and science of creating and delivering transformational online courses. Regardless, it will likely be a decade or three until most high school courses (let alone lower grade levels) are delivered online by these “superteachers,” so jobs for teachers — especially in science, math, bilingual education, and special education — will likely remain viable.

Whatever your career, in your own education, career preparation, and personal learning, consider the full range of options — on campus and online. (For more on the topic of degree training, see Chapters 11 and 12.)

Changing health care

Baby Boomers’ aging as well as other factors will result in downscaling medical care. Increasingly, the doctor won’t see you now; the physician’s assistant will. The physical therapist won’t help you return to your athletic self, the physical therapy assistant will. These intermediate-healthcare providers, sometimes called allied health professionals, should find the job market felicitous.

Cost pressures will also incentivize pharmaceutical and imaging companies to develop more cost-effective diagnostic tests and treatments for patients with acute physical conditions, mental disorders, and chronic disease, driving the need for these companies to bring in more medical researchers.

Cost-control pressures will also boost the need for self-monitoring wearable devices. It won’t be long until the concept of today’s insulin pump, which continually dispenses the proper amount to the diabetic patient, will be used more widely. Imagine, for example, that instead of your taking a daily fixed amount of birth control medication, your wearable would dispense more of it only when you need it. I can envision a day in which healthcare will center around the mobile phone. One end of a wire will plug into the phone, and the other to a sensor you tape to your skin, perhaps under your shirt or blouse. The sensor would read your health status, automatically dispense any drugs you need, and, as appropriate, contact your healthcare provider.

Becoming a parent also may well change. Prospective parents have long been able to use in vitro fertilization (IVF) to get pregnant and to choose the baby’s sex. In the future, embryo selection and repair may enable prospective parents to help ensure that the child is born without serious disease and, if society deems it acceptable, to have genes predisposing to altruism and high intelligence. That would boost the demand for reproductive-choice services.

Of course, all this bodes well for medical researchers, especially those with expertise in the math and physics that undergird people’s understanding of medical diagnosis and treatment. But such initiatives also require a wide range of employees, from test tube washers to technicians and from clinical trials coordinators to grant writers.

More East–West

Some Asian countries — notably, China and India — have a long tradition of valuing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM.) Combine that with their large populations, low salaries, and increasing focus on innovation (rather than on simple replication) and Asia will provide ever more formidable competition to U.S. companies and workers. So, subject to political constraints, U.S. businesses and governmental entities will likely increase mutually beneficial collaborations with the East. It will widely be decided that it’s wiser to join ’em than to simply try to beat ’em.

To leverage the trend of mutual collaboration with the East, learn how to facilitate such partnerships and joint ventures, whether you’re an accountant who understands international rules, a scientist who’s bilingual in Mandarin, or an entrepreneur who understands the variations in countries’ sales techniques and ethical norms.

Terrorism 2.0

Small-scale terrorism, such as slamming cars into pedestrians and machine-gunning shoppers, will likely lose impact, causing too much bad PR for any perceived increase in power. So terrorists may turn to weapons of mass destruction. Both groups will find it easier to do so as the cost of developing communicable bioviruses and “suitcase nukes” declines.

More spiritualism, less religion

The Pew Center for the Study of Religion reports that the fastest-growing religion is no religion. But many people will undoubtedly continue to seek inspiration and comfort beyond day-to-day life. Hence, many people have replaced religiosity with non-deistic spirituality: for example, Buddhism and offshoots such as yoga and meditation. This should result in continued growth in spiritual teachers and leaders of spiritual communities and yes, yoga instructors.