Future-Proofing Your Career

Throughout your career, but especially when starting out, it’s wise to future-proof your career.

Mindset

Value work in all three sectors. No one has a crystal ball, but demographics and society’s mind-molders’ (colleges and media) bias suggest that the U.S. will, over your works pan, move leftward. That means that a growing proportion of GDP will be in the non-profit and government sectors. So while the private sector—especially category-killer corporations—will thrive, the future-proofed person will be open to opportunities within all three sectors.

Prioritize work. Today, work-life balance has become cliché but many contented people would rather spend hours 40 to 60 on worthy work than on the vaunted sports, yoga, meditation, shopping, cooking, and yes, even family. Not only do these people find long work hours rewarding and contributory, it increases their competence, income, and future employability.

Decide to become an expert. If you had a serious disease, wouldn’t you go to a specialist rather than a general practitioner? Too, most employers usually want to hire specialists. Sure, you might find dabbling fun but it reduces your employability. True, senior executives and employees at startups wear many hats, but those are just a tiny percentage of jobs. Decide to become an expert at something that some employers or customers would value, and stay with it until you’re darn good at it. A side benefit of that it’s that it will avoid the imposter syndrome: despite degrees, feeling you’re far from an expert.

Resist the temptation to eschew networking. Even if you’re an already well-employed, top-performing introvert in a high-demand field, networking should be part of your life. It can yield fresh knowledge to improve your performance further, get you leads on even better work, and allow you to teach others, which benefits them and you—Teaching helps solidify your expertise. Of course, networking comes in many forms. For example, introverts needn’t be schmoozers; they could share their expertise in articles, presentations at conferences and in YouTube videos, and by participating in online forums.

Future-friendly careers

The following careers are future-proof or at least future-friendly. That is, they reflect major societal vectors: biotech/genomics, big data, deep learning, aging population, environmentalism, and redistributed GDP in the non-profit and government sectors. The selected careers also are likely to be offshore- and automation-resistant over your work span. Too, I’ve curated them to focus on careers that many people find rewarding, not just financially, but personally, including that they’re clearly contributory and without major ethical liabilities. They are drawn from the 340 in my new book, Careers for Dummies.

Grantwriter. The government, foundations, and other large nonprofits distribute billions of dollars based on grant proposals. The grant writer, working for a government agency or nonprofit, reviews databases of Requests for Proposal to find those that their organization might win. Then, s/he reviews the relevant literature and talks with the organization's employees and the grantmaker to craft a proposal.

Program evaluator. This is the flip side of a grant writer. After an organization grants money, it usually wants to know how well it was spent. Enter the program evaluator. It’s a rewarding career because you’re always seeing innovative programs and helping to decide which should be continued, expanded, or cut.

Data Scientist. This is and likely will stay among the most in-demand careers, especially if you specialize in deep learning: multivariate, recursively self-teaching software. Your job is to create paradigms for making scientific, business, government, and nonprofit decisions and then the mathematical and statistical models to derive practical implications from massive databases. The most in-demand data scientists will, in addition to statistical and mathematical chops, have content expertise, especially in consumer and non-profit donor behavior.

Genetic Counselor. Scientists are learning that ever more of who we are is genetically mediated. In the era of 23-and-Me, for just $199, people can decode their genome to assess predisposition to disease in themselves or progeny. That can lead to thorny decision-making around prophylactic treatment as well as whether to get pregnant. Genetic counselors help people make those decisions.

Genetic researcher. It’s a safe bet that there will be an ongoing need for Ph.D.-level scientists to explore the genetic basis of major physical and mental illnesses and perhaps—if society deems it ethical—augmentation of normal cognitive functioning and altruism.

Optometrist. Aging Boomers need optometrists to deal with declining vision. While ophthalmologists (MDs) require a decade post-bachelor’s for licensure, ODs (Doctors of Optometry) are licensed in just four years after the bachelor’s, yet make a solid income, can diagnose and treat many eye conditions, and have regular work hours—Few patients will call with a contact-lens problem at 2 AM.

Orthodontist. This is another medical specialty that isn’t offshorable or automatable. Many orthodontists like the profession because they get to see and know patients over months after which patients’ appearance is much improved, something many people care deeply about.

Physical Therapist. This is another career in which demand will increase as the Boomers age. The job is more interesting than it used to be because it now primarily involves liaising with other medical practitioners to develop a treatment plan and then educate the patient and physical therapy assistants and aides on how to implement the often repetitive and pain-inducing exercises. Licensure requires a 3-year post-bachelor’s doctoral degree.

Occupational Therapist. This under-the-radar cousin of physical therapist requires only a master's degree and typically involves helping accident and stroke patients to reacquire basic life skills, from buttoning a shirt to driving a car.

Next-generation online education developer. Society has long looked to education as the most likely cure for the persistent achievement gap between Blacks/Latinos and Asians/Whites. But despite a half-century and $22 trillion dollars, the gap remains as wide as ever. And despite the U.S. near the top in per-capita education spending, its achievement is near bottom. So it’s pretty much back to the drawing board—Mere tweaks won’t be enough, especially as good jobs become ever more cognitively demanding. Substantive improvement in education probably lies in highly motivating, individualized, immersive lessons. That’s tough for even a top teacher to provide, let alone the nation's teachers. So, ever more instruction will likely be provided by next-generation online learning: rich in simulations and individualized, often gamified.

Energy engineer. Most people believe that climate change is affected by humans and is a net negative. Energy engineers are key to addressing this: squeezing more energy from fossil fuels, solar energy, and developing safe-enough, compact-enough nuclear power, that unlimited source of pollution-free energy.

Heavy-equipment technician. You can’t offshore maintenance and repair of robots, MRI machines, nor industrial printers (including 3D.) So, for the hands-on person, this career should remain in-demand.

Graphic designer/artist with business expertise. So many people love to create art that many artists struggle to make a living, the reason “starving” and “artist” so often adjoin. But society is moving from text to the visual. So the graphic designer/artist with expertise in what drives consumer behavior and non-profit donations should have a shot at making a living from their creations.

Producer of short videos. Similar reasoning applies here. The job market should be reasonable for scriptwriters, producers, and directors of short videos that induce behavior change: buy this, donate to that, stop doing drugs.

Training

Students in degree programs tend to spend much time learning the theoretical and practically irrelevant, or so much content that by the time they need it, they’ve forgotten it or, in our fast-changing world, the material has become obsolete.

The future-proof career prioritizes just-in-time practical learning: self-study, tutoring, individual courses, and perhaps certificate programs in what you most need for competence or to excel in your target career or job.

Mastering Best-Practice Job Search

Of course, the days of landing a job just by answering ads with a decent resume and cover letter are long gone. To consistently have good work through your work span requires best practice:

Automate notifications. Sign up for automated notification of on-target job openings. Yes, use the major job sites such as LinkedIn and Indeed but your field may have a specialty site(s.) Those are more likely to contain on-target job openings and fewer people applying, a felicitous combination.

Apply right. Have a master resume, which inventories your accomplishments and abilities that would impress your universe of target employers. In applying for a job, prune that master resume to fit that job opening. You can only have one LinkedIn profile, so cast your lot with your best-fit job, dream job, or go middle-of-the-road: the content likely to boost your chance of getting any of the range of jobs you’d consider.

In applying for a position, in addition to that pruned resume, include a point-by-point letter: For each of the job opening’s major requirements, explain not only that you meet it but, if true, that you were good at it. For example, a job opening for a counselor might ask for three to five years of experience. So you might write, “3 years as a counselor at Kaiser Permanente. Average client rating 4.6 on a 5 point scale.” If the job’s online application form doesn’t have a space for a letter, append it to the beginning of your resume.

Often, it’s wise to include a piece of collateral material—It’s more potent to show than tell. So you might include work samples and, especially if changing careers, a white paper that demonstrates knowledge in your target field, for example, “Five New Best Practices in Anger Management Counseling.”

Precision networking. Unless you love schmoozing, your networking time is better-spent identifying a few people with whom you’d like to create an ongoing relationship. Then, for each, pick an appropriate way to initiate the relationship: an email, phone call, invite them to a party, or “run into them” at a professional meeting. Usually, it’s best to start with a simple request, for example, a question s/he could quickly answer. After getting that, in addition to expressing appreciation, it’s often wise to ask if there’s something you can help the person with.

Another form of precision networking is to write or speak to your target audience: comments on your professional association’s forum, an article for its publication, a talk its conference, perhaps the local chapter, perhaps the national one.

Mastering webcam interviews. Increasingly, job interviews are conducted remotely and/or by a panel. Keys to a successful remote interview are to “make love” to your webcam. Look right in its eye (the lens) and be conversational, relaxed, intimate. Yes, that requires practice but it’s worth the effort, even if you never make the camera swoon.

Be sure that the lighting is right: no shadows or glare on your face. Try raising and lower the shades and the room light’s dimmer switch. Don’t sit with your back to a window—That fools the webcam’s light meter and so you’ll appear in shadow.

Mastering group interviews. Whether on video or in-person, when a questioner asks you something, look at his or her eyes and after you begin to answer, move your eyes to the left-most panelist. After a second, move your eyes to the adjacent panelist. Keep doing that and it ensures that you’ve made the eye contact that, while irrelevant to the job, makes interviewers like you.

Memorable interviewing. Interviewers generally interview three to five candidates, sometimes more than once. After a while, candidates blend together, and you don’t want to be blended. So if you have an option, request that you be the last person interviewed. And in the interview, tell two or three PAR stories: a career-relevant Problem you faced, the clever or dogged way you Approached it, and the positive Result. Also contributing to memorability is when asked how you’d solve a complex problem, go the whiteboard to diagram how you’d approach it.

Post-interview best practice. Instead of a thank-you note, write an influencing letter: what impressed the interviewers, a second shot at a question you flubbed, and new information that would bolster your case. Also, even if your references don't know anyone on the hiring committee, you might ask a reference to call the employer, even just HR—leaving a voicemail is fine—saying something like, “I hear Jane Jones is applying for the fundraising director position. I know her well and I thought you might like to know that (Insert an attribute that is key to the job or that the employer thinks might be a weakness of yours but actually isn’t.)

On the Job

Of course, after all that work in finding a good job, you want to keep it and, better, for it to be a launchpad for even better work, within or outside that organization. The following should help:

Take care of #1. I know, I know, your employer, indeed the larger society stresses collaboration, teamwork, and slogans such as “There’s no I in ‘team.” But from what I’ve seen, you better take care of #1 if only because the same employer that says, “Our most important product is our people” often axes plenty of people. What does taking care of #1 mean?

• Before accepting a position, your negotiation leverage is maximum, so instead of settling for promises of what you might get in the future, try to get a good deal now.

That, by the way, includes resisting getting overly seduced by stock options. The vast majority of them end up worth zippo. Sure, if the employer has just gotten its C round from Kleiner Perkins, and Goldman Sachs has been retained to help the company go public in 18 months, yes, your stock options—given a reasonable strike price—could be worth serious money. But if it’s a company that has gotten just a Series A from some starry-eyed individual investor or is bootstrapped by the founders, and the company’s product is years from seven figures, take the cash and benefits now. Let them keep their likely toilet-paper stock options.

• Don’t pay excessive dues, for example, agreeing to do crapwork, which you find boring or doesn’t enhance your skills in exchange for some vague promise that you’ll get to do interesting work in a few months.
• Yes, occasionally, you need to take one for the team, for example, allowing your boss to get most of the credit for work you mostly did. But if that happens more than once or twice, speak up.
• Keep networking. That’ll keep you learning and pave the way for your next job should you or your employer decide to say adios. Having other irons in the fire will also give you the confidence to resist taking too much crap from boss or coworkers.

Get expert. As mentioned earlier, dabbling is generally a career-retardant. Pick something you’re good at, interested in, and that your employer needs, and become a go-to guy or gal in it.

Manage procrastination. Dabbling may be a career retardant but procrastination is often a career killer. You may have gotten away with it in school—grade inflation. But there’s less of that in the real world, especially at the sort of workplace you’d like to work. So it’s time to chuck the adrenaline-fueled brinkmanship. Of course, entire books have been written on managing procrastination but what has worked best for my clients best boils down to:

• Embracing work: recognizing that being productive is core to the life well-led.
• Getting comfortable being uncomfortable: Even dream jobs often aren’t as pleasurable as recreation—Accept that or risk career failure.
• When overwhelmed at the thought of starting a task, ask yourself, “What’s my next one-second task?” Often, a few one-second tasks are enough to get and keep you rolling.

Don’t be annoying. Whiners, drama kings and queens, and long-winded people tend to find themselves atop the layoff list. Be low-maintenance.

The takeaway

These ideas should boost your chances of finding career contentment throughout the arc of your career.