Jobhop Jobhop's blog : Stay Ahead of The Robot Who Wants Your Job

You’ve probably heard by now that the robots are coming and they’re after your job!

One thing you must know is that the robots will take jobs so you must be prepared.

Automation has been happening for a long time now; it’s not new, would it surprise you if I told you that there used to be bus conductors on buses! There would be a bus driver and then another person to collect the money for the bus tickets, now they’ve gone, and it won’t be long before the bus drivers are gone too, self-driving buses will be next! Supermarkets are becoming automated, banks, hotels, airports, the list goes on, and as I write this something else has just become automated.

The good news is technology will create new types of jobs, just look at the jobs available today that didn’t exist yesterday, social media manager, ethical hacker, smart electrician, UX designer, cloud specialist, content creator, drone operator and of course, robot designer.

When you understand that technology creates new jobs, you’ll also have a “penny drop moment” when you realise that if you don’t keep up, you’re going to lose out to the competition who will keep up and who will embrace change.

Remember these wise words from Charles Darwin

It’s not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

So, first accept that you are going to have to adapt to the change that is happening. Here are a few other things you do to stay ahead of your main competitor, the robot!

Agility

Technology is creating change at an alarming rate you’ll only survive if you can adapt to change. That means you must be agile enough to use different skills when required and not complain if it isn’t in your job description (There won’t be job descriptions soon) You will also need to be agile enough to slip into another role effortlessly if or when your job role is no longer required.

Emotional Intelligence

Robots will be intelligent but they will lack emotional intelligence if they have any at all. Please note that they are working on emotionally intelligent robots after much success with Pepper the first Emo Robot. Many humans are considered to be “emotion-blind” which is not good news because currently, that's the Ace card to stay ahead of the robots. The ability to read facial expressions, understand body language as well as the different tones in the human voice, know when to try and cheer up a situation or just to put an arm around someone or to be quiet are qualities that currently only humans possess.

Stay Healthy

Robots don’t get sick which is brilliant for employers. Why should they employ someone who’s going to be taking time off due to chest related illnesses because they smoke? There might be a time when you will have to agree to show your Fitbit dashboard at an interview! Employers will want to see why they should employ you instead of paying out for a robot and your fitness will be part of that consideration.

Social Capital

Titan the robot currently has 7,113 followers on Twitter. He has a great job travelling the world and providing entertainment for some big events, such as the Saudi International Motor Show, The Royal Cornwall show and a few supermarkets! This robot understands the power of social capital; he can tweet he’s going to appear in Covent Garden and guess what, there will be lots of people there to greet him. Most robots haven’t got social capital yet so compete with them and build yours now. An employer will sit up and listen when you say you have a massive amount of subscribers or followers who hang on to your every word.

Upskilling

There’s no resting on your laurels, to compete with robots you will need to constantly upskill, retrain when required, learn to learn fast, aka micro-learning. There will be no five-year courses because, by the time you’ve finished the course, it will be out of date. Learn fast and action it just as fast.

A report by the consultancy firm PwC suggests that around 30% of UK jobs could potentially be at high risk of automation by the early 2030s, make sure you’re not surplus to requirement when the time comes for your job to be automated.

There are benefits of having robots around though: you could befriend one and get them to wait in queues for you! That’s got to be worth it’s weight in gold, especially when you have to queue all night for a Yeezy release or the new iPhone in the rain!