You may think that you’re familiar with the tech revolution, but you’d be surprised at how sophisticated algorithms are drastically changing the employment horizon for MBAs — no matter what year you graduated. Innovative technology not only is creating new jobs, but can also provide more efficient ways to find them. Here are a few tips on how to navigate the continually changing landscape.
Locate growth industries.
If you’re not familiar with technology platforms like Blockchain, your cellphone may not be the only item in need of an update. Blockchain is a peer-to-peer digital ledger poised to change financial transactions to the extent that banks and clearing houses may be rendered obsolete. Extend your education. The emergence of Blockchain and similar companies translates into job openings in the growth industry of financial technology, or fintech. Even if you’re not a computer programmer, there are myriad more traditional job openings needed to support this burgeoning industry.
Finance is not the only profession set for an upheaval.
If you’ve kept your eye on robotics, you’ll know that the driverless car will change the way we live. Digital technologies will be supplanting engineers, journalists, and teachers in the not-so-distant future. Even economists will be replaced. Where are the new companies and job opportunities that will spearhead these changes? In addition to expanding your reading list beyond the financial pages, technology trade shows can quickly get you up to speed. SXSW in Austin, Texas, in March is a good introduction to interactive technologies and has additional expos focused on sectors such as med tech, virtual reality (VR)/augmented reality (AR), and online education. It’s a great place to assess professions, to network, and to help define your next move.
Build an online reputation.
Increasing your Internet presence can help you market your experience and enhance your appeal to an employer. Contribute articles to newsletters or write blog posts that focus on your industry and demonstrate knowledge of an innovative aspect of your profession. You can also build a website of your own. Wordpress is a free platform used by small businesses as well as large organizations such as Time and CNN. If you haven’t built a website before, you’ll be pleased at how sophisticated you can make it look with turnkey design templates, links to industry research, and features such as videos and audio posts. Wordpress sites are engineered for search engine optimization (SEO), which will increase your visibility to potential employers who might be researching you on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.
Up your LinkedIn game.
LinkedIn has been online since 2003, but there’s advice to be had on how it works and how best to use it. The site now has 400 million users and includes a job search tool that connects job seekers with open positions posted by employers. When applying to these positions, keep in mind that LinkedIn Corporate Solutions provides recruiting and headhunting clients with enhanced search tools and management software to find the most qualified candidates. Résumés laden with keywords describing skills specific to the job opening are pulled from thousands of candidates. One strategy is to locate skill sets requested in a job description and liberally repeat them throughout your résumé so they are picked up by the search engine. Another tactic is to take advantage of your networked proximity to the job poster — that person may be only one or two degrees of separation away, meaning you can seek a personal introduction. Recruiters and headhunters — who account for more than 100,000 of the site’s members, according to LinkedIn — also want to fill openings with “passive candidates” who aren’t actively looking for a new job, so keeping your résumé current has its benefits.
Expand your job-search options.
Although LinkedIn is arguably the most popular job search site, there are additional valuable online resources. Indeed is a search engine that aggregates postings from job boards, news sites, and employers. You can search by location, salary, and keywords, as you can at SimplyHired, which also allows you to search for any LinkedIn and Facebook connections you might have to each job. You can combine resources with JobMo, which aggregates postings from sites such as Indeed and SimplyHired to allow you to target openings by location in over 20 countries. Even Twitter has entered the job-hunting fray. Employers and recruiters are posting jobs through 140-character tweets. You can search Twitter by employer name, tagging with “jobs” or “career” and adding job titles and other specifics.
Other job-search sites let you drill down on your area of interest by specializing in certain professions or positions. Dice concentrates on tech careers while FinancialJobBank targets accounting and finance. Check out SmartRecruiters’ list of the Best 50 Niche Job Boards for more. Not full time? No problem. If part-time employment or project-based work is more feasible for you, sites such as Upwork and Freelance specialize in this area.
Before an interview, it’s useful to know as much as possible about the employer and what kind of money the competition pays. Learn from people who work on the inside. For company information and salary research submitted by the employees themselves, try GlassDoor.
The job market is being reconfigured in ways that were unthinkable not too long ago. Technology can help, not hinder, a new career if you use it to your advantage.
Kimi Puntillo ’86 (also a 1984 graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism) is a principal at KP Communications, a NYC-based marketing, consulting, and media firm. She is also a professor of multimedia communications and journalism.