Tomorrow's jobs require impressing a bot with quick thinking

1. 5/7/2018 Tomorrow's jobs require impressing a bot with quick thinking | Reuters
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Tomorrow's jobs require
impressing a bot with quick
thinking
Beth Pinsker 5 M IN R E A D
NEW YORK (Reuters) - When Andrew Chamberlain started in his job four
years ago in the research group at jobs website Glassdoor.com, he worked in a
programing language called Stata. Then it was R. Then Python. Then PySpark.
“My dad was a commercial printer and did the same thing for 30 years. I have
to continually stay on stuff,” said Chamberlain, who is now the chief
economist for the site.
Chamberlain already has one of the jobs of the future - a perpetually changing,
shifting universe of work that requires employees to be critical thinkers and
fast on their feet.
Recruiters are looking for those nimble enough to constantly learn new
technologies and apply their skills on the fly - and some are now using
automated software, or ‘bots’, to weed out candidates. They are not necessarily
FILE PHOTO: Job seekers line up at TechFair in Los Angeles,
California, U.S. March 8, 2018. REUTERS/Monica Almeida/File
Photo

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looking for knowledge of certain software. They are looking for what most
consider soft skills: problem solving, effective communication and leadership.
“The human being’s role in the workplace is less to do repetitive things all the
time and more to do the non-repetitive tasks that bring new kinds of value,”
said Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown Center on Education and
the Workforce in the United States.
So while specializing in a specialized STEM (science, technology, engineering
and mathematics) field can seem like an easy path to a lucrative first job,
employers are telling colleges: You are producing engineers, but they do not
have the skills we need.
It is “algorithmic thinking” rather than the algorithm itself that is relevant, said
Carnevale.
FINDING GEMS
Out in the field, Marie Artim is looking for potential. As vice president of
talent acquisition for car rental firm Enterprise Holdings Inc [ERACR.UL], she
sets out to hire about 8,500 college graduates every year for a management
training program, an enormous undertaking that has her searching campuses
across the country.
Artim started in the training program herself, 26 years ago, as did the
Enterprise chief executive, and that is how she gets the attention of young
adults and their parents who scoff at a future of renting cars.
According to Artim, the biggest deficit in the millennial generation is
autonomous decision-making. They are used to being structured and
“syllabused,” she said.
To get students ready, some colleges, and even high schools, are working on
building critical thinking skills.
For three weeks in January at the private Westminster Schools in Atlanta,
Georgia, students either get jobs or go on trips, which gives them a better
sense of what they might do in the future.

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At Texas State University in San Marcos, meanwhile, students can take a
marketable-skills master class series.
One key area hones in on case studies that companies are using increasingly to
filter prospective candidates. This means being able to answer hypothetical
questions based on a common scenario the employer faces, and showing
leadership skills in those scenarios.
The career office at the university also focuses on interview skills. Today, that
means teaching kids more than just writing an effective resume and showing
up in smart clothes. They have to learn how to perform best on video and
phone interviews, and how to navigate gamification and artificial intelligence
bots that many companies are now using in the recruiting process.
Norma Guerra Gaier, director of career services at Texas State, said her son
just recently got a job and not until the final step did he even have a phone
interview.
“He had to solve a couple of problems on a tech system, and was graded on
that. He didn’t even interface with a human being,” Guerra Gaier said.
When companies hire at great volume, they try to balance the technology and
face-to-face interactions, said Heidi Soltis-Berner, evolving workforce talent
leader at financial services firm Deloitte [DLTE.UL].
Increasingly, Soltis-Berner does not know exactly what those new hires will be
doing when they arrive, other that what business division they will be serving.
FILE PHOTO: A poster showing a Mars lander is seen at a job
recruiting booth for SpaceX at TechFair in Los Angeles, California,
U.S. March 8, 2018. REUTERS/Monica Almeida/File Photo

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“We build flexibility into that because we know each year there are new
skills,” she said.