How to discover your path to remarkable career success

The nature of work is undergoing a fundamental shift; one primarily brought about by new technologies including artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, and autonomous vehicles. In the process, jobs will be both eliminated and created. An independent task force, established by the Council on Foreign Relations, recommends that we need to provide better guidance and support to get young people on these career paths.

Don’t stop until you’re proud.”

I spend over 25 years as a corporate CEO. I often struggled with the fact, that a few employees were fully engaged, most just did their job, and a few were actively disengaged, given they had similar education and experience. When Engineers Canada recruited me, the selection committee used SuccessFinder. It is a career system based on the fact that high performers In a given role share a similar set of behavioral traits – behavioral DNA. Over the past year, I have discovered its power. If there is an excellent behavioral fit between the individual and the job — they are engaged. My passion is to help young people on their journey to find career success and satisfaction. I want to equip them with the insights they need to thrive in the gig economy. I now have the tool that can let them begin their journey with the end in mind. It provides them with guidance regarding the daunting choices they will be making.

In the past year being an entrepreneur has been very exciting for me. I enjoy meeting passionate entrepreneurs. I try to pass along my insights from the corporate world. Many are heads-down on their passion and focused on the product. They are often missing establishing the capabilities and setting up the management systems needed for execution and sustaining success.

In the long-term, there is a better way

The pace of workplace disruption is accelerating. Just with existing technologies, in about 60% of occupations, nearly one-third of employees may need to change jobs or develop new skills over the next decade, according to McKinsey Global Institute.

Emerging Trends You Need to Know About Talent

An excellent roadmap to address these challenges is provided in the task force's recently released report.

The task force noted that for more than 30 years the leading institutions in the US — governments, companies, and educational and training systems — have failed to equip many youth with the skills they need to succeed in the twenty-first-century economy. In the face of accelerating technological change and global competition, the crucial task facing industrialized economies is rebuilding the links among work, opportunity and economic security. Failure to address these challenges will amplify the increasing societal pressures.

We are not facing a jobless future. Many companies complain of labor shortages. We are increasingly facing the challenge “Jobs Without Workers and Workers Without Jobs,” a phrase coined by Rick Miner, a former Seneca College president, in 2009 when he took part in a federal labor market advisory panel. Almost a decade later his framing of the problem continues to ring true. Right now, in the U.S., more than six million jobs are unfilled – the highest number since the Department of Labor started tracking the statistic. Moreover, 7.1 million people are unemployed in America, and 13.9 million are seeking more work, according to the most recent unemployment report.

One major reason is the skills mismatch. The smarter machines will replace some kinds of work, but they will also open all sorts of new jobs. For example, there was no such thing as a Web developer until the early 1990s, and in 2016, 163,000 Americans did that job at a median annual salary of $66,000.

Data is the new corporate currency, as advancing digitization sweeps every horizontal and vertical market the world over. The impact on the data science sector is far-reaching and, as a result, a range of new roles and skill sets are in demand. ‘Data scientist’ was ranked as the best job across every industry, in the Glassdoor’s 50 Best Jobs in America report. It is a highly lucrative career. The average salary for a data scientist is more than $115,000.

Jobs in this field will continue to grow. However, a better future is only possible if we start building youth’s “talent stack” – the sum of their knowledge, skill, accomplishments, and behavioral traits, for the new economy. Linking education and training more closely to emerging careers, and with the growth of "gig" and part-time jobs, benefits must match the way we work.

The task force recommends measures to sustain U.S. technological leadership, boost job creation in struggling regions, streamline occupational licenses and other barriers to mobility, and offer more effective help — based on the best global models — for mid-career workers who lose their jobs. The task force noted that two pieces are especially important.

Clear Path and Lifelong Learning

The first is to make a more precise path from education to better work opportunities and make lifelong learning a cultural imperative. To support this transition, we need to move from recognizing education and experience to considering the individual’s full talent stack. U.S. success in the twentieth-century was built on education. It was the first country to make universal high school a reality. Millions of students advanced into the best colleges and universities in the world. Today, about two dozen nations provide free tuition or nearly-free tuition at public colleges and universities to their citizens.

Americans need more than just education. It needs learning that is better adapted to the changing nature of the labor market. According to Burning Glass Technologies, for example, the average four-year liberal arts graduate starts at a salary of about $43,000 a year. The starting salary jumps if that graduate has additional skills:

• social media skills — $3,500
• graphic design skills — $9,000
• computer programming skills — $18,000+

The Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce estimate there are 30 million good jobs in the U.S. for two-year college graduates with targeted degrees. These jobs pay a median of $55,000 a year. The task force also recommends more hands-on involvement by employers. The options outside the classroom include apprenticeships and internships to help students hone the skills they need for better-paying jobs. Better credentialing systems are essential to signal employer requirements more clearly, so that job seekers can plan and target their training.

I see that we will use the technology of the blockchain for micro-credential recognition of these learning and growth opportunities, streamlining occupational licenses and other barriers to mobility. I further explore How Blockchain-Based Technology Will Revolutionize HR Forever.

How Blockchain-Based Technology Will Revolutionize HR Forever

Better Support

Second, policies must better support the way Americans work. The United States created 10 million jobs over the past decade. However, nearly all the net job growth has been in part-time, contingent, and gig economy jobs. While many employers and employees appreciate these sorts of flexible employment, very few come with the benefits that work provides to most full-time workers — such as health care, retirement with a pension, sick leave and the other hallmarks of a secure job. Such benefits, in the future, need to be available to all workers and be portable. These benefits need to be tied to the worker rather than to the job. Gone are the days of golden handcuffs.

Succeeding in tackling these challenges requires a broader movement and a generational change in their approach; governments cannot do it on their own. The report calls for the creation of a National Commission on the U.S. Workforce to share best practices among states and recognize and reward companies that are training and preparing their employees for the future.

The defining economic issue of our time

The task force stated that helping more Americans adapt and thrive is the defining economic issue of our time. Many of the solutions are bottom-up and local, with governors, mayors, non-governmental organizations, business and educational institutions all playing significant roles. With such a broad-based movement, the United States can build a more productive, inclusive and resilient economy for all Americans — becoming once again a model for the world. Other economies will learn from this approach.

Systemic Change is Hard – Takes Time

Today, 80% of students change their college major. It takes on average about six years to get a four-year degree. Moreover, after all that time spend getting a degree over half the graduate believe they have graduated with the wrong degree! While I agree with the task force’s long-term approach, it will take 25 years before their roadmap is fully implemented. Being optimistic, it will it will take

• at least five years to debate if this is the right roadmap
• more than a decade to implement
• eight more years before the first cohort of high school freshman makes their way through the new system and into the job market

Individualism vs. Collectivism

Individualists mostly follow their own path, while collectivists let the needs or desires of the group determine their actions. For the most part, nations that promote individuals to develop one’s way are indeed happiest. If we emphasize personal fulfillment, it is best to have the financial means to fulfill. We can do better than the trial and error approach that work for half the college graduates and racks up over $100,000 in student debt.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” - William Butler Yeats

We have a generation of individuals where we need to light the fire.

Still curious to learn more?

We are incredibly passionate about Behavioral DNA and the impact this scientific insight can have on youth. We want to help all youth (from 16 to 35) discover their unique path to career success and satisfaction. This is possible if they learn about their behavioral DNA and leverage their strengths along their career journey. We offer our services worldwide. Send us an email today!