People and robots trending in the job market….
What we are witnessing now are an overwhelming amount of people that are burnt out, lethargic with an apathy for life and their work…I call it the post covid syndrome or PCS. People do not really want to work, they say they do, but do they? if they do it has to be on their terms….it is a candidate market.
People are finding ways to make money outside the traditional way in order to maintain their work life balance and continue working remote, so they are turning to more creative ways to earn. How? The internet, get rich marketing schemes, influencers, start- up businesses, etc. Jobs are going unfilled in many areas, not just hospitality but in corporate America as well. Strange to see the carloads of people waiting in bread lines in the United States but yet have so many unfilled positions across the country.
People are willing to give up their jobs and their profession before going back to their jobs in offices. With more and more jobs becoming automated such as manufacturing, service industry/hospitality, transportation, education, medicine, banking, and law offices where many of their mundane tasks can and will be automated. You will start to see, and we have already noticed industries such as banking which touch the majority of us. There are fewer and fewer tellers and fewer real people in customer services…hardly noticeable at first and slowly and steadily more and more tasks are taken away from us and becoming automated.
Interestingly, an industry less likely to be affected…entertainment. With more and more people working or not working at home, there is more free time. Entertainment and the arts are trending… artistry, music, movies, and creatives…from books to movies to video games all in demand. Over the next few decades new jobs will become centered around supporting the robots that are doing the work for us.
For those of us that are hiring new employees, we need to change the way we evaluate our new hires. Instead of choosing who to interview based solely on their skills, instead take a chance on someone, take the time to have a conversation to assess…do they have the traits to make a good employee i.e., are they eager, hungry, professional, do they have a solid work history a willingness to be a part of a team?
With algorithms dictating whose resume we see and ultimately hire, it brings hiring managers down a slippery slope as to what really makes a good hire, the answer ultimately comes down to character. Let’s spend time really getting to know those we are interviewing; do they have the character that it takes to do the job…the rest can be taught. Let’s get back to behavioral interviews vs. interviewing those with all the right buzzwords from algorithms searches. We will find stronger employees that really want to work and will add real value to the company.
It is a difficult job market because we are allowing algorithms to dictate the resumes we see. Let’s bring the human back to human resources and get creative as well, by developing our new hires and not just handing them a laptop.