The Future of Work and the Resume 3.0

We millennials are in the midst of fundamental changes in the way we work and live.  I don't know if self-driving tractor-trailer trucks will materialize, or if the new hot careers will be bio-engineering and robot repair, but I do know things will change.  The future of work is fluid, and your future resume will be influenced by external input and AI. 

The Baby Boomer generation was told to go to school then get a good job.  If you finished high school you could get a job that earned a living wage.  If you were frugal and prudent, you could save enough to buy a house and a car, perhaps even send your children to college.  Once established in your career you may work for the same company for 20-30 years, then afford a modest retirement.

For Boomers, if you had a resume with contact information, work history and references you had a leg up in a job interview. The resume, and now antiquated cover letter, showed you were prepared, professional and perhaps you had access to a typewriter.

Generation X was told if you don't get a college degree, you will probably not earn enough money to own a house, a car and afford a modest retirement. For Gen Xers, your resume was now expected to be typed on a word processor. Your contact information included an email address.  There was a large section on your academic performance, perhaps even a section showing you as a well-rounded including volunteer experience or additional language skills.  

Gen Xers were the last generation to grow up without the internet and the first to use the internet as part of their job searches.  Back then, the internet was essentially a library or an information dump.  We now refer to the internet of static pages as Web 1.0.  The resume was also a static document. The question of what do you want to be when you grow up still applied.   

The internet has changed.  The way we work has changed. The resume has changed and it is about to change again.   

The internet evolved from static webpages to dynamic and interactive webpages, with complex applications, marketplaces, and social media.  This is known as Web 2.0. 

For Millenials, college debt is a given, but a good-paying job after is not. Not only do we now expect to change jobs and careers at least 7 times, but we expect entire industries and career fields to be disrupted, automated or even disappear within our working career. We could characterize this as work 2.0.

For many of us, the printed resume is now merely a formality. Our real resume is our LinkedIn profile.  It is interactive, with recommendations, skills verified by former coworkers, links to articles and projects.  If your LinkedIn profile passes muster, then you will be Googled to see if you are tops in the world.  Your Facebook and Twitter profiles will be scanned to see if you are the type that posts cute cat pictures or the type that goes off on angry political rants. Resume 2.0 is more than just your information, it is the aggregate of your digital profile(s).  It is interactive, yet, it is still largely curated and controlled by you.  This is about to change.  

Web 3.0 will be some mashup of virtual reality, the internet of things and artificial intelligence. My Amazon Echo will tell my Nest thermostat to cool the room because my Fitbit realized my body temperature was increasing as a result of the overly realistic virtual reality Fortnite game I am immersed in. 

Work 3.0 will definitely not be a linear career path for many people. Not only will we change jobs more often, but we may also supplement career(s) with side gigs, freelancing, independent projects, more education, and entrepreneurship. In 2018, 30% of working Americans did some freelance or gig work. Work 3.0 is not just getting a job, it is keeping a side hustle and creating your own niche.    

     

Resume 3.0 will include aggregate data about you such as your credit score, customer feedback rating from gig economy apps such as Uber, Airbnb, Facebook market place.  If I google someone today, one of the first sites is "mylife," which claims to have criminal background reports and reports on property, licenses, property and driving history.  It gives a 1-5 reputation score also represented a red to green dial scale. Red being "bad and green being "good."  

It is not hard to image fortune 500 companies developing AI that review all potential employee job seekers for a comprehensive reputation and rating and fit for the open position.  This AI will compile a profile of prospects with data coming from social media, credit reporting, and various gig economy platforms, and other aggregated data and rankings. This AI will learn over time if employees it recommends do well on their performance reviews and are retained or promoted.  The AI will use this data to make better hiring recommendations in the future. Perhaps it will even flag potential employees for promotion or termination.  Perhaps the AI will also be the recruiter, scanning the internet for the right person to hire.  Maybe based on budgets and hiring targets the AI will automatically seek and make offers to potential employees it finds.  

This article is not a pitch for the show Black Mirror.  Even though privacy is dead and the robots are coming to take our jobs, this article will have a positive ending, not just a silver lining but a message of hope.  

If you are smart, hard-working, honest, and affable, the internet will know this.  The Big Data trolling AIs will aggregate this and mark you green/good.  If you are constantly learning and improving yourself, and creatively trying new things, the internet will have a record and the artificial intelligence will mark you as green/good.  Even if you mess up, you may not be able to hide your mistakes, but you can reform and showcase your redemption.  Besides if your digital profile looks too perfect no one will believe you are a real person.  

If your chosen career field is disrupted, your job automated and robots replace you, but your soft skills are on point and you have a totally unrelated side hustle to fall back on then, so what.  You are now taking a sabbatical,  retraining or starting your own business. Get on with your vision quest, build your own brand.  Because you are not your job.  You have other interests and skills.  You have value beyond your business card.