Job Seekers Find New Skills in Tight Labor Market

A recent Wall Street Journal featured a compelling piece on how the COVID-19 pandemic has forced workers to reinvent their skills and career paths. The authors, Kathryn Dill and Lauren Weber, discuss the trends in the depleted labor market and how both the employed and newly unemployed are using this time to pick up new skills and possibly reconsider their career trajectory. With platforms like EdX that offer reduced rates for college-level courses, job seekers have a variety of options for certifications or coursework to develop new skill sets.

The article quotes Brad Hershbein, senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, saying that, “the best advice I can give is don’t try to predict what skill is going to be most in demand, but have a mindset where you demonstrate that you can learn and adapt. Businesses always want someone who can adapt to different circumstances. If you can demonstrate that in your work or education history, that’s marketable and is probably the most resilient skill set you can have.”

Personally, I believe that the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally altered the business landscape. Businesses are reconsidering their core models in almost every industry, like restaurants shifting to pick-up intensive models, dating sites pivoting to video, or academic institutions moving to remote learning. Remote work has become the norm for almost every office worker, with businesses looking to reconsider their physical office footprints and hefty downtown leases if traditional office workers can be essentially as productive in their homes.

That being said, with respect to the job seekers at the center of the article, I certainly agree with the authors that flexibility, adaptability, and the willingness to learn new skills will prove to be a critical focus in today’s tight job market. As companies look to predict demand for their goods and services in both the short and long-term, their hiring strategies are likely to reflect this uncertainty. I believe that companies are looking to combine roles and responsibilities into hybrid positions, given that economic uncertainty is putting pressure on companies to reduce their overall headcount. This may bode well for job seekers who show an aptitude for pivoting their expertise and working cross-functionally. Positioning oneself as a generalist with core functional skills may offer an employer a multi-faceted hire option to offset any AI or machine learning resources in their business model.

It is important for job seekers to lean in on the value-add of their versatility, and then wrap it in a package of multiple industry and sector experience to position themselves as innovators and continual learners. As always, there is fundamental value in education and commitment to continuous learning, so it is wise to use this pandemic time to sharpen skills in new areas. In today’s business environment higher level thinking is more important than rote task management. Talent is learned and acquired, not coded.