Problem
Changing Careers
As you begin your business career, one thing is certain: technology will change rapidly in your working lifetime, especially information technology. In 1965 Gordon Moore of Intel predicted that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double every two years. This prediction, which has held true since that time, is widely known as "Moore's Law". In a similar vein, Doug Stephen, senior vice president at CGS Canada says: "that business technology in general will follow Moore's Law where instead of only computer speed and capacity doubling every two years, business processes change at a comparable pace. This speaks to the deepening connection between business operations and technology evolution within organizations." One survey claimed that so much new technology is being introduced each month that it's hard to keep up. Flexibility and the willingness to learn will be key employee traits for success in this rapidly changing world. Even if you are not majoring in information technology, you will be expected to use it throughout your career. With today's advancement, so many tools that used to be only handled by the IT department can be handled directly by the end-user. Some applications can be developed with little or no computer coding. "Rapid developments in data visualization through tools such as Microsoft BI, Tableau, Domo, etc., have moved traditional business reporting functions from the dark corners of IT to the front of the business where analysts across the organization can now easily analyze data in real time and provide extremely sophisticated visuals to better understand the data." Says Steven Hall, partner and president at ISG So not matter what your major in college, in the future you will be expected to use these tools efficiently and effectively. Change will also happen with the adoption of artificial intelligence. Robots are not expected to eliminate jobs in information technology but help them with tasks such as writing code. "You might have used AI to write some of the software, ultimately humans will need to do the integration, modeling, and testing of these complex hardware/software configurations." Keith Strier, global and America's advisory leader for AI at consulting giant EY. One skill set that is important for future work is the business process view of the IT systems. With automation in various areas, humans will need to stitch it all together. Strategy of deploying systems and integration of different software will be skills critical to the future workforce. Understanding the business processes in your organization will give you an advantage over others in advancing your career.
Automation may be taking over jobs and some firms are working with their employees for just that. The firm Accenture is retraining workers whose jobs have been or will be done by automation. The retraining is taking their employees to higher levels than their previous jobs. The company spends about $1 billion on training. 60% of the money that they save by automating jobs is now funneled back into training those who have been automated out of their job. For example, take one employee. Instead of automation taking her job, it opened up an opportunity for her. This employee at Accenture had been working as a mortgage underwriter. With that job being automated, she was retrained. Instead of working in the back office, she is now a client advisor and feels that she has gained skills to apply to different jobs. Automation has also relieved the work force of the entry-level years of training and shadowing jobs. Jobs for the current graduating class are much more sophisticated than those in the past and employers expect their new employees to hit the ground running. "They almost get to skip a step of evolution in their career path because we're automating the least common denominator of lower-level tasks," says Kurt Rathmann, founder of ScaleFactor, an Austin, Texas-based software maker. "The employee comes in and they're doing a job that in the past it might've taken three or four years for them to get to." Get ready for employers are looking for workers who can learn fast and have excellent communication skills, and who can embrace change. Even with automation changing and eliminating some jobs, jobs in information technology are plentiful and are anticipated to stay that way. Since this is such a desirable field of work, many unemployed or underemployed workers are turning to classes like coding academies to get additional credentials to increase their marketability or to just get a job. Coding camps often have 20-30-year-olds, but some have attracted students as old as 70. As further proof that there are plenty of IT jobs, in a survey of 600 employees across a variety of industries, 50% were worried that there is not enough technical skill and 40% are looking to outsource some of their technical work since there aren't enough employees in house to do the jobs. There are many other changes for those entering the workforce that students should be aware of. One change that is being observed is the way that employees work and how they demand they work. "As almost half of U.S. employees already work remotely in some form, technology will enable a greater number to do so over the next five years," says Chris McGugan, senior vice president of solutions and technology at Avaya. "And for businesses to truly reap the benefits of such a workforce, project managers will be needed to ensure the distribution of work is met."
In addition, as college graduates begin to work, they will find that their colleagues are no longer just college-aged people, but co-workers from across generations. Good advice to these graduates is to not underestimate your co-workers because of their age. The observation that older workers do not welcome technology and change is wrong. "Age isn't as big a driver of tech resistance as many people believe, says Gerald Kane, lead author of 'The Technology Fallacy,' a book based on a four-year survey of 16,000 participants with Deloitte and MIT Sloan Management Review. Some 76% of people in their 50s say it's very important to work for an employer that is a technology leader. That's not much less than people in their 20s who say the same thing, the study shows. And older employees tend to outperform younger ones at seeing strategic ways to apply new programs, says Dr. Kane, a professor of information systems at Boston College." As you go out into the working world, keep in mind that everyone learns differently and may require different strategies to learn the newest technology.
Task
• Enumerate and explain the top skills that employers are looking for in prospective employees. How will you be able to fulfill those needs yourself?
• After reading this case, how might you need to change your resume to be more attractive to potential employers?