If you're an early–mid career knowledge worker in 2024, I think it is extremely important that you take seriously the possibility that you will need to differentiate yourself versus the billions of other people participating in the global labor market—and that on the other side of this process of radical retooling, which includes getting really good at "hiring" computers to do things for you, building digital-first relationships (e.g., making contributions to the social media commons and getting invited to private group chats), developing deep self-knowledge in re the things that give you energy, cultivating a unique worldview, and embracing remote/asynchronous/fractional work.
I've had a lot of conversations recently with peers and gen Z'ers who are struggling to find a full-time role via traditional hiring channels (at the salary level they expect given they took on a bunch of debt to go to school(s), have a mortgage, etc.); the truth is that the era of plentiful, safe, reliable, tracked careers (and the FTE rungs in the ladder) is over. Straight up.
But—the new way of working (one where you cultivate a digital footprint; do more high-stakes & project-based work; come together with lean & diverse liquid teams to solve big problems; and can find that super energizing fit between what the market needs and that intersection of strengths, relationships, & experience that makes you an n of 1) is way better.
All of a sudden you're able to perform a "global" search for opportunities vs. imposing self-limiting restrictions to a "local" search, whether that's by geography, role, industry, or any other dimension we've grown to take for granted as we got used to particular ways of working through the 20th century.
The 21st century is, in some ways, emerging 25 years behind schedule (you heard a lot of the same assertions/predictions in the late 90s), and, of course, given what we've learned from the last 1–2 IT supercycles, maybe we should assume a base case where it takes another decade or two for these changes to pan out.
Or, maybe this time actually is different.
Curious about how you can take steps to get ahead of these changes?
Tag me in a comment, and I'll share what I've learned going through this process myself over the past ~5 years.
