Our 2nd installment of the weekly podcast of “What the Tech Just Happened?” on the TechSperience podcast channel. Penny and Rob take a look at the emerging careers spawned by technology – A look ahead at the job market in 2020.
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This is the transcript for the Techsperience Podcast – Episode 30
Penny Conway:
Welcome to today’s episode of What The Tech Just Happened. I’m Penny Conway, your host, and I have our cohost here with me, Rob McIntosh. Rob, good morning.
Rob McIntosh:
Good morning Penny. How are you?
Penny Conway:
I’m good. Except, another snowy day (laughs).
Rob McIntosh:
We always pick these What The Tech Just Happened on snowy days. We had two feet last time and I think we have another two feet coming this time.
Penny Conway:
Oh, that’s excellent. I thought it was five inches (laughs).
Rob McIntosh:
It is only five inches.
Penny Conway:
So, last time, last week we covered the Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the top tech gift trends of the season and wanted to switch gears a little bit because a new year means new year, new resolutions, new personal, professional, and even corporate goals. And so, I thought it would be interesting today if we talked about the future of people’s careers because they’re changing, right?
Rob McIntosh:
(laughs).
Penny Conway:
How many episodes have we done around things like artificial intelligence? And I mean, when we talked about retail stores a couple of weeks ago and it was scary the kind of information that is being collected on us.
Rob McIntosh:
Yeah. We talked, we had that whole episode on AI, and we start thinking about how it relates to the job market too. And as AI evolves, what are those jobs that are coming out of it?
Penny Conway:
I always think about the job market because, you know, I have a background in K through 12 education and watch the whole STEM thing explode. Getting students into coding and different coding camps and different jobs that were all around mathematics and computer science. And-
Rob McIntosh:
They have Esports directors now. I mean there’s, there’s a new title. That is crazy.
Penny Conway:
That is nuts. An Esports director at a school?
Rob McIntosh:
Esports directors.
Penny Conway:
That’s like every kid’s dream.
Rob McIntosh:
They have it at the high school level. They have it at the college level. Those are like coaches for electronic sports.
Penny Conway:
And when you think like five, 10, probably just five years ago, titles like that didn’t even exist.
Rob McIntosh:
Right.
Penny Conway:
All because of technology advancement in consumption of technology creation and collection of data. It’s a whole new world out there and someone say a wild, wild West.
Rob McIntosh:
It is (laughs).
Penny Conway:
Or East or North wherever you may live (laughs).
Rob McIntosh:
Wherever you may live.
Penny Conway:
I picked up this week an article about the US top 15 emerging jobs of 2020 according to LinkedIn. This was published on Quartz Artwork. And I wanted to cover a couple because I thought, some of these were really interesting. We talked to that episode of AI that you mentioned, we kind of talked about AI taking over the world and robots costing people jobs and what the next revolution was going to be. But robots aren’t taking over tomorrow. So, we do need actual people to create and run and manage the robots for now.
Rob McIntosh:
That’s a no (laughs).
Penny Conway:
It’s like robots are the new people (laughing).
Rob McIntosh:
Westworld comes alive.
Penny Conway:
Right? So, a couple of things. So I wanted the, I think when you, I won’t go through all 15, but my first thought was if I go down this list, is there anything that doesn’t require you to be a genius around data analytics or artificial intelligence? Because Rob, what are people like us going to do (laughing)?
Rob McIntosh:
I’m retiring. I don’t know what you’re going to do (laughing).
Penny Conway:
So, the first one was an artificial intelligence specialist. And this has the highest annual growth rate of 74% in the job market for 2020.
Rob McIntosh:
Wow, okay.
Penny Conway:
So, skills unique to the job, machine learning, deep learning, TensorFlow, Python, and natural language processing.
Rob McIntosh:
Okay. So this isn’t something I’m going to go out and read a book and pick up on it and, and, and be able to get hired. This is, this is six years, eight years of education in order to qualify for a job like that.
Penny Conway:
Yes.
Rob McIntosh:
Yes.
Penny Conway:
That is correct. That’s correct. Unless you have started fully down this career path, it’s not something you’re just going to migrate to (laughs).
Rob McIntosh:
Got it.
Penny Conway:
I’m migrating over to an AI specialist tomorrow. But no surprise, those jobs are going to be most popular in the San Francisco Bay Area. New York, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles. When you even think about retail companies and healthcare, all of those industries are going to need some sort of AI specialty to process and build the next phase of their business.
Rob McIntosh:
When you look at that you’re not even just talking about the technology side of it too. You’re talking about the soft skills that have to go along with a job description like that. So, they need to have the leadership qualities. They need to be able to have the oral skills as well so that they can do presentations. There’s a lot of those other things that encompass this entire job.
Penny Conway:
Oh, yeah. I think the, the engineer of yesterday and the analytics people of yesterday, even marketing people historically have, or I think we saw the opposite with marketing I should say. Is like marketing was super creative and thinking outside the box. And there still is that, but now there’s a huge data component to it that never existed before. So you see marketing people be more data minded.
Rob McIntosh:
Right.
Penny Conway:
And I think on the flip side with engineers and people who are in analytics, you’re going to start seeing more of that creative personality and what they do with the data and how they create new things from that data. Which is kind of interesting to see this, the whole shift in soft skills and hard skills.
Rob McIntosh:
Right. And, and with like you said, all that data mining that’s going on in the data pools that are being created. That they’re taking that information and they need to be able to utilize it in a way that’s going to help the company grow. And that’s why you’re seeing a lot of these new opportunities in these new job titles spawning from all of that technology so that they can take that and then be able to grow that business. And understand those analytics from marketing all the way up to the top C levels.
Penny Conway:
Right. Right. Because you want, even when you think within a company, you want your data and your marketing teams to all like Chief Data Officer is one of the emerging titles going on. It’s not on this list, but chief, maybe it is. But Chief Data Officer, I think of Fortune 500 companies, I’m trying to remember the stat I use the other day. I think there is 12% of Fortune 500 companies had a Chief Data Officer in 2012 going into 2019 96.7% I believe have a Chief Data Officer now.
Rob McIntosh:
Wow. Okay.
Penny Conway:
Yeah.
Rob McIntosh:
Well we’ll look, some of the other trends too, that some of the new titles that have already emerged in the last number of years. Like a Social Media Specialist.
Penny Conway:
Oh god yeah.
Rob McIntosh:
You know, go back.
Penny Conway:
The whole strategy.
Rob McIntosh:
Yeah, go back 10 years and there was no such thing as a Social Media Specialist. So now they have that and it’s just, again, that’s all based on technology and those analytics and you know, the need for that to in order for your company to grow.
Penny Conway:
Right. I actually, I remember being back in college and I knew a few people who are going to school for social media. I remember laughing at them-
Rob McIntosh:
(laughs).
Penny Conway:
… wondering as I sat with my retail, my retail marketing degree. I’m not quite sure who was laughing at who and who feels better now.
Rob McIntosh:
Now is ten four dinosaur, right?
Penny Conway:
Right, right. Looking at a couple of other these no surprise here, Cyber Security Specialists.
Rob McIntosh:
Okay.
Penny Conway:
We’ve covered this extensively. It’s a huge part of our technical technology solutions group here at Connection. And I think just having, this is where going back to that STEM and the coding and learning all of that at a young age, that is stuff that I think is becoming everyday… The way we know Microsoft Office will be the way that kids understand coding and getting into the cybersecurity and being able to write code, try to get into a network hacking for good. They call it testing environments, I think is going to be a huge career.
Rob McIntosh:
Ethical hacking. Yup.
Penny Conway:
Ethical hacking.
Rob McIntosh:
Yep. Yep.
Penny Conway:
Yeah. I want to say hacking (laughing).
Rob McIntosh:
Ethical and as we were told by the team, there’s a real gap in that right now. There’s a real void in those, those specialists. So if you’re out there listening to this right now, you may want to consider that because there’s a real need in the marketplace for those cybersecurity specialists.
Penny Conway:
Oh, totally. The other one that really stood out to me, I’ve got two more that stood out to me is Customer Success Specialist. As you were going, as I go down this list, you see the first one I said, and then Robotics Engineer, Data Scientist, Full Stack Engineer. And to your point, I’m not going to go and take a few online (laughs) courses and become something like this.
Rob McIntosh:
I have a certificate in that.
Penny Conway:
Right (laughing).
Rob McIntosh:
I’m ready.
Penny Conway:
I’m ready to run all of your data and your robotics (laughs).
Rob McIntosh:
Take your chance with me.
Penny Conway:
But, with all of that, with all the data, with all the cloud software and really everything is a service, software is a service. No surprise to see Customer Success Specialist.
Rob McIntosh:
Wow.
Penny Conway:
So, think of everyone-
Rob McIntosh:
User experience.
Penny Conway:
Exactly. So, you’ve got all of these big companies and you’ve got all of these technical people that are creating cloud platforms and product and processing data. But people like you and me, who could be the customer, we don’t understand the ins and outs of that. And so, you need-
Rob McIntosh:
So, they need to hire all these smart people and then you need somebody that comes in to dumb it down for us (laughs).
Penny Conway:
Right. And walks us through the process. And that’s something that we always say. We’ve had a ton of guests on here from HPE, from Microsoft, from HP, and all the others that some of their favorite words are proof of concept and pilot. And we have someone that can walk you through each of these steps and be your dedicated person to support you, to be that go between. So maybe the engineer isn’t talking to the end user.
Rob McIntosh:
Right. But that really is an interesting specialist that is emerging so.
Penny Conway:
And that has a 34% annual growth rate for 2020.
Rob McIntosh:
Oh, wow. Okay.
Penny Conway:
It’s pretty decent one. Skills unique to that job, software is the service. Obviously, you have to understand that, because that’s what you’re going to be doing. So you could get a certificate in that. Sales force, a customer relationship management, account management, and customer attention. So that’s actually a job that I think a lot of people could transfer skills to just by bulking up their knowledge of software as a service.
Rob McIntosh:
Right. Okay.
Penny Conway:
And then the last one I picked. This one’s a little out of left field but stick with me for a second.
Rob McIntosh:
Oh, I’m ready.
Penny Conway:
Well, I mean not in write the list (laughing). Just thinking off the list. Behavioral and this is also the one mind you, I think the only one on the list that does not require as of today an advanced degree.
Rob McIntosh:
Okay.
Penny Conway:
Which I maybe I don’t agree with because the Customer Representative or Account Manager I don’t think did either. But Behavioral Health Technician.
Rob McIntosh:
Behavioral Health Technician. Okay. And what is that?
Penny Conway:
So that is basically, so the skills you need to the job applied behavioral analysis, autism spectrum disorders, behavioral health and mental health.
Rob McIntosh:
Okay.
Penny Conway:
So, with all of that, and I’m going to make a correlation that they don’t make here in the article. But my own correlation is the rise of technology, the decline of potentially publicly funded mental health help. There’s a lot of organizations and nonprofits that are popping up. And people are, I’m going to get into it again, I did this on our last episode. People are sad. People are disconnected from one another.
Rob McIntosh:
Yup.
Penny Conway:
And I think we’re going to start seeing that has a 33% annual growth rates are right below that customer success person is… I think people are reaching out for more support, more mental health support, more resources. As kids come up through the ranks, there’s more specializations through schools. I think the mental health industry alone is going to get a boost. And the pure access to health care that we wouldn’t even think 10 years ago, but like being able to remotely have a therapist talk to a doctor-
Rob McIntosh:
Step on a scale.
Penny Conway:
Step on a scale (laughs).
Rob McIntosh:
And have all your biometrics.
Penny Conway:
Have all your biometrics (laughing). But when you think about the future of healthcare and that more tele-health and interactive experience that’s not onsite, you’re going to need more people that are basically a customer liaison for a patient.
Rob McIntosh:
Right.
Penny Conway:
And that’s what a behavioral health technician can do.
Rob McIntosh:
Okay. So, it’s interesting that you have those high end really technical jobs that are emerging from AI machine learning. And then you have some of the support staff that’s evolving and emerging from that as well all the way down to those. I shouldn’t say all the way down, but the-
Penny Conway:
I think every single year over the past decade or so, we’ve seen sort of the, for lack of a better term, the de-evolution of jobs like marketing, psychology, those pillar college career tracks. Because the market is just inundated with those people.
Rob McIntosh:
Right.
Penny Conway:
And now we’re in that valley of everyone creating the robots, creating the technology and running it all before, hopefully not by 2021, but maybe by 2030 the top jobs are now the creation of the automated robot and no one’s running them anymore (laughing).
Rob McIntosh:
Awesome.
Penny Conway:
(laughs).
Rob McIntosh:
There’s a world I want to live in.
Penny Conway:
It’s just around the corner (laughing).
Rob McIntosh:
Well, this has been an interesting episode of What the Tech Just Happened. Looking at 2020 and the emerging job industry and some of the new titles that are coming out there. If you guys are interested in it, talk to your counselors and your advisors at the college level or even at the high school level if you’re there. And consider that because that, this is where it’s headed guys (laughs).
Penny Conway:
Right. Or if you are early on in your career, like some of us, not all of us. I’m not early on in my career either.
Rob McIntosh:
Nor I’m I (laughing).
Penny Conway:
But it, it’s a good time. I think it’s a good time to evaluate what the next 10 years looks like for you. And bumping that up against what’s happening in technology. Because if you aren’t having that comparison, you could be one of those people that’s left, no pun intended, with the snow outside, left out in the cold.
Rob McIntosh:
Right.
Penny Conway:
When a job group is eliminated.
Rob McIntosh:
Yeah. So, don’t be stuck in a rut. Really take a look at the trends that are coming up and, and see where you fit in.
Penny Conway:
Yeah.
Rob McIntosh:
Yup. Cool.
Penny Conway:
All right, well that’s a wrap for today’s episode of What the Tech Just Happened. Tune in next week to hear an all new episode about what’s going on in tech and What the Tech Just Happened.
Rob McIntosh:
Thanks Penny.
