The Most Valuable Career Trait for the Future

Wouldn’t it be great if we could just look at a reliable list of the guaranteed jobs of the future and plan our careers accordingly? We could make sure that education and training choices were cost-effective. Lifestyle stability would result from certain employment predictability. Anxiety stemming from career and work-related decision making could be dramatically reduced. Life would be so much easier!

Although well researched “the careers of the future” lists occasionally pop up in the media and credit should be given to the U.S. Department of Labor for trying to identify careers with “Bright Outlooks” the sad truth is that no definitive list exists and never will that conclusively points the masses toward precise long-term occupations. The world of work has become too dynamic of a place with far too many unpredictable twist and turns, many of which are yet to come, to expect infallible certitude.

Nevertheless, business and employment trends and patterns are emerging all the time, which should be tracked by the astute jobseeker. Even though selecting the direction of your career is not as limited and relatively straightforward as in the past, self-guiding your livelihood need not be an exercise of trying to be grounded within a vortex of random chaos. Although the top three career choices custom made for you will not likely jump off some list there is something which you can do that will benefit you for years to come. Adopt the right attitude for success. And to sum up that attitude in a word―adaptability.

The more accepting of and prepared for change you are the greater your chances for career success will be. Employees and entrepreneurs today and in the future can and will adapt from what is relevant to what will become relevant. And these changes will happen in very short time. You have to always be on top of changing technologies whether they be in software, new paint formulas, advanced infection prevention protocols in hospitals, or in mobile device marketing. There is hardly an industry that is not right now undergoing advancements, conversions, transformations, or variations. Knowing how to add value to this type of innovative environment is the task of each productive worker.

Remember, if a job can be automated or outsourced, then stay away from it. Look for careers that either have a skill legacy that can be reinvented for a rapidly changing world or look for one that is completely novel and didn’t exist a few years ago. Better yet, create a career for the first time. There are lots of jobs now that didn’t exist ten years ago. Whoever said in the 1980s that they wanted to be a search engine optimization specialist when they grow up? What need is developing right now that requires creative talent? Adaptable people are more likely to find the answer than those of us who are uncomfortable with a modulating world.

Part of the post-recession landscape is that more is being done with less. This isn’t just the result of technological innovations. It’s because of a growing and highly effective and efficient (and possibly overworked) workforce. Tom Friedman in a recent New York Times article pointed out that all of the employees of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Groupon, and Zynga could easily fit into the 20,000 seat Madison Square Garden and not fill it. Combined these companies are valued at $64 Billion. Let’s look at how these guys are working if we want some role models to follow.

Be smart, of course. That has always separated the winners from losers. But to that add, be adaptable. Complacency and inertia are out. Versatility and reliance are in. As the old nursery rhyme says, Jack be nimble. Jack be quick.