2. COMMIT TO LIFELONG LEARNING
In today’s rapidly changing employment landscape, it’s easier than ever to fall behind, especially if you haven’t recently updated your skills.
“There’s this delineated ‘learning time’ in our lives, and then we move into a position, and if you choose to take some courses to get ahead, you may do so,” explains Raycroft. “I think that’s changing: Learning is and will continue to be an ongoing process with a degree of propensity that we haven’t yet experienced in our lifetimes.”
Raycroft believes that in order to stay ahead of the changing needs of the talent marketplace, employees need to be proactive in updating their skills. “That ability to learn and use judgment has been and will continue to be necessary for success,” he says.
3. NEVER STOP NETWORKING
The worst time to start building a network is when you desperately need one. Professional relationships are typically stronger when they’re built on mutual interest, rather than urgent need. “A lot of people only do a lot of networking when they need a new job, but on a daily basis, we don’t invest enough time in people, building a relationship based on trust,” says Temple. “It’s all about relationships with people, because people will recommend us, promote us, or let us go.”
Not only do those who take a break from networking risk weakening some of their existing relationships, but they can also begin to lose their networking skills. Temple emphasizes the importance of keeping those skills sharp and those relationships strong by building them in the low-pressure periods of career stability.
4. WORK ON YOUR SOFT SKILLS
Building that network often requires strong interpersonal skills, something that Temple believes is sorely lacking in most of today’s workers. “We really need to work on our warmth, our charisma, how much energy we give to people, because those things will make a difference between those who have a chance for a better career and those who don’t,” she says.
Furthermore, if our most robotic and repetitive tasks are bound to be automated, those quintessentially human traits may soon become our greatest assets.
“Young professionals understand that soft skills will be critical to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” says Michele Parmelee, Deloitte’s global chief talent officer. “According to Deloitte’s seventh annual Millennial Survey, young professionals identified softer skills like confidence, interpersonal skills and—particularly for gen-Z—ethics and integrity aptitude as skills they feel are important to develop in order to succeed in the future.”
5. FIND A MENTOR
Not only can mentors use their experience to help their mentees navigate a quickly changing employment landscape, but they can also help them develop some of those vital soft skills in a low-pressure environment.
“It’s a safe place, so you won’t feel embarrassed asking your mentor questions that you might be embarrassed to ask in a group setting,” says millennial and gen-Z engagement expert Ashira Prossack. “You’ll also get that practice, and they’ll give you immediate feedback and one-on-one attention, because you can’t just read about how to communicate, you need to actually do it.”