Five skills you’ll need for your 100-year career
You better not be getting too attached to your current job as it is probably facing extinction. And I don’t just mean your job title: 9-5 timetables, roles and responsibilities, linear career plans and incremental promotions will all soon be as outdated as a handwritten CV.
Education guru Rohit Talwar has painted a brave new world in which people will be expected to change jobs as many as 40 times and won’t call it quits till their 100th birthday. Kids will be mocking their parents for their single career paths and early retirements just as they do now for their taste in 70s music.
Read more: Still working at 100 and 40 jobs – the dystopian careers of the next generation
If you think this doesn’t affect you as a current professional, you’re wrong. As it turns out, up to 80 per cent of current jobs will be gone in the next 10 to 20 years – so the clock is ticking.
Worried? Develop these five personality traits, and you'll navigate those choppy career waters with ease.
1. Discipline
The job market ahead will be unforgiving, but that’s no reason to feel powerless. To stay competitive, you will need to become disciplined, diligent and focused; say "no" to distracting things, prioritise strategically and sort through the clutter of your diary.
2. Versatility
Coming to terms with the fact your job could soon go the way of the dodo, you will need to become comfortable with radical and frequent change. You will need to be able to “blend in” and contribute to the best of your ability, however different the environment or unwelcoming your peers may be.
3. Emotional intelligence
This is about you appreciating the only concrete and long-term investment you can make is in yourself, your values and your habits. The hard skills you pick up may or may not be useful. Besides, supply and demand will swing like a pendulum, and so will your usefulness. But the soft skills you own and develop really stay with you, so spend time building them.
4. Self-confidence
Rejection will be king. You need to have something to fall back on to ensure setbacks don’t get to you. Keep a confidence buffer between yourself and the punches you take.
5. Forward thinking
This world has no patience for romantics. Forget about your attachment to your job, your title and your prestige. Keep your eyes on the future and treat the past as nothing more than it is. Easier said than done, I know.