LinkedIn's Top Three Secrets To Getting Hired In 2016
LinkedIn's Eddie Vivas has a front-row
seat to the changes reshaping the job market. Here's what he says you need to
know.
Pop quiz: How many
companies were looking for people with a background in cloud computing in 2014?
So few that it
didn’t even make LinkedIn’s list of the most sought-after job skills by U.S.
employers. Just two years later, cloud computing tops that exact same list.
So how can you possibly prepare to stay ahead
of changes you don't even know are coming—changes not just in the skills you
need to be competitive but also in the way we work, search for jobs, and get
ourselves hired? For everything else that's shifting unpredictably, a few
things are staying pretty consistent, and some of that may surprise you.
Not too long ago, I started a company that
focused on using data to help people get hired, and I'm now head of product
here at LinkedIn Talent Solutions. I’ve had a front-row seat to some of the
latest shifts we've seen in the job market and a few others that are on their
way. Here's what you need to know in order to stay ahead of the competition in
2016 and into the next few years.
Our latest
research shows that the number of professionals
actively looking for jobs has increased steadily during the past three years,
from 25% in 2014 to 36% this year. At the same time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 5.5
million jobs remained open in May 2016.
You may choose a well-researched major or
what looks to be a stable career path, but there’s no guarantee those skills
will be in demand in 10 years’ time—sorry!
That suggests many companies are holding out
for "A" players with all the right skills at the same time that more
and more professionals are looking to change employers. But they don't seem to
be finding each other—which means we may need smarter ways to get connected.
As ever, companies
love hiring people who were referred through someone they trust. Even if you
don't know someone directly at a company, chances are you know someone who
knows someone. We’ve learned it’s
not necessarily your best friend who’s going to help you land that next job.
It's more likely to be your best friend’s former coworker, or even that
coworker’s neighbor.
When we surveyed more than 500 people in
North America who changed employers between February and March this year, 40%
said they were referred by one of the company’s employees. But only a little
more than one-tenth (11.7%) of respondents had one or more first-degree
connections on LinkedIn at the company six months before they started working
there.
That means most of
these professionals scored that referral from second- and third-degree
connections, not from people they were connected with directly. As our
economist Guy Berger puts it, "It looks like it’s not who you know, it’s
who you know knows."
So while I wouldn’t downplay the value of a
first-degree connection as a valuable "in," it's important to pay
close attention to that second layer if you're in the market for a new
opportunity: Who you know who may be linked to a company that interests you—albeit
by a matter of several degrees. A former colleague from a big accounting firm
might not be able to offer you a direct path to the tech company of your
dreams, but they may know someone who knows someone on the inside who’d be
willing to make an introduction.
The top two
hottest skills in 2016—cloud computing and data mining—didn't even exist a few
short years ago. The world is simply changing too quickly for even young
professionals to rely on the hard-won skills from their college years. You may
choose a well-researched major or what looks to be a stable career path, but
there’s no guarantee those skills will be in demand
in 10 years’ time—sorry!
But there's an
upside to that. Today, a number of once-steady careers face the threat of
automation, from well-documented declines in manufacturing and certain facets of
health care (a
growth field overall) to retail and education. Still, many of the
same forces that are automating some jobs out of existence are creating new
fields and industries out of nothing—like artificial intelligence, the Internet
of things, self-driving cars, and virtual reality to name just a few.
In such a world, it’s difficult to predict
which industries and jobs will face decline and which will be the next wave.
How many companies employed a chief data scientist or an economist in 2011? Now
some companies (LinkedIn included) have both.
For employees,
that means everyone should be thinking about developing new skills right
now in order to keep up, or how they could adapt their existing skills
to a new specialty. Job seekers who will come out on top will be those who stay
curious and are lifelong learners. For companies, it'll mean arming existing
workforces with new knowledge, getting creative with job requirements, and
keeping an eye out for skills that could transfer well into newly imagined
roles.
3. YOU'VE GOT MORE POWER THAN
YOU MAY THINK
We're about to see more power shift away from
companies and into job seekers' hands as technology makes it easier than ever
to find or change jobs. The rise of gig-economy players like Uber, Lyft, and
Upwork is just the latest evidence of a trend that's set to continue, with
technology empowering people to take more direct control over their careers and
livelihoods—even if the world that ultimately creates isn't something we'll
still call the "gig economy," as though it's something distinct from
the job market overall. Because increasingly, it won't be.
Professionals need to keep doing what they've
always had to do: Work your connections. Keep learning. Stay flexible.
In the process,
job seekers will not only enjoy more connectedness and company transparency
than ever before, they'll also become savvier about promoting their professional
brands online. We’re already seeing these trends today, so if you're in the
market for a new gig, it's worth polishing
up your online profile right around now. And as the gig
economy and remote work options expand, professionals are finding more and more
opportunities available to them. Traditional 9-to-5 work is no longer the norm;
it’s just another option.
Finally, the most
powerful job seekers in the market will also usher in a new era of reduced
complexity, as technology continues to advance and employers, hard-pressed to
find great people, leverage those advancements to simplify their hiring
processes. Soon, job seekers will have new ways to signal their interest in a
job, sending companies to them rather than the other way
around. What will be more important is that those employers can readily find
you online and see an accurate snapshot of what you offer, making it easy for
them to knock on your door.
Beyond that, professionals need to keep doing
what they've always had to do: Work your connections. Keep learning. Stay
flexible. And always keep an eye on the market, because new, never-before-seen
opportunities will be waiting around every corner.
EDDIE VIVAS
http://www.fastcompany.com/3061654/hit-the-ground-running/linkedins-top-three-secrets-to-getting-hired-in-2016
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