LinkedIn: How to get a job in the age of AI – 01/04/2024 – Market

Daniel Shapero has been on LinkedIn since 2008, when the global financial crisis shook the job market.

He has since risen through the ranks to become the company’s chief operating officer (COO), guiding the platform through significant strategic changes.

Now owned by Microsoft, the professional network is undergoing its next big transformation: artificial intelligence.

What have you heard about AI, which is the topic of the moment?
The biggest unknown and probably the biggest change is that almost every job title will be rewritten in the context of AI.

From engineers to salespeople, marketers, finance professionals to lawyers — everyone will be leveraging AI in some way. So, how does the human resources team think about hiring people who know how to leverage AI? And how do they enable people to learn the new skills they need?

It can be argued that it is the biggest skills transformation we are likely to undergo in our lifetimes.

You could even say that one of the most important skills in any job will be just understanding how to unlock the power of AI in your everyday life. And that’s a pretty abrupt evolution of what it’s going to take to be successful.

What are the main skills in demand?
When it comes to implementing AI technology, I believe it will amplify trends we have seen for some time. So you already see an extremely competitive environment for data scientists or platform engineers.

Before, you might say, “Oh, these skills are limited to a set of companies at the forefront of these technologies.” I think we’re going to move into an environment where this is critical for any company that wants to implement effective AI technology.

Some companies are going all in and experimenting with AI, while others are holding back and watching how things unfold. What is the best strategy?
We are privileged to have seen some of these new technologies before they became widely visible in the world.

We got an early look at what was to come with ChatGPT, being part of Microsoft. We revamped our product roadmap as a result.

And the question was, how is LinkedIn going to become an AI-focused product, just like we became a mobile-focused product or a contact-focused product? The question of how AI changes every part of the LinkedIn experience has become an organization-wide mission.

Do you feel like there’s a side of generative AI that’s overrated?
From a technology perspective, the number of practical applications that will improve the way people work that are ready now is like nothing I’ve ever seen.

From writing a message to helping describe yourself in an attractive way to an employer — these are things that are already available.

Having a technology that we saw less than a year ago being used in practice across a wide range of areas is unprecedented. So I’m extremely optimistic, both about what’s available today and the greater possibilities in the future. But the value of generative AI in workflows in many professional environments is very real.

Jamie Dimon [CEO do banco JPMorgan] recently said he believes the next generation could have a three-and-a-half-day work week. Do you think we will start to see productivity gains materialize?
Whether all of these benefits translate into leisure time or a greater focus on the parts of our work that we enjoy and inspire us, I guess we need to wait and see.

But the promise of spending less time on mundane, repetitive tasks, or on things that don’t tap into our humanity — that’s a wonderful thing, and how we translate that into how we live our lives is a good question.

What advice would you give to a young person entering a world where AI is changing so much?
I would say learn to use the tools, try them out and see what they can do. People who are comfortable with these tools — as well as people who are comfortable with technology in general — will have opportunities.

And, just as there will be demand for technical skills, there will be an increasing demand for human skills: communication and creativity. Successful colleges will be those that promote this type of learning experience for people in a way that employers are looking for.

What’s the best career advice?
The best career decisions I’ve ever made had to do with the people I had the opportunity to work with. We are all more malleable than we think. We adapt to our environment.

And so the best decision I ever made was when I chose to work with people who would shape me into the person I wanted to be, rather than career decisions related to job or task details.