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How To Adjust Your Professional Development Strategies To The Job Market of Today?

The job market constantly morphs and changes. Day after day, year after year. To self-navigate well, you need to adapt and adjust your career development strategies to the current demand.

In this article, we list four of the main trends shaping the job market of today. For a professional searching for a new specialistic position and your professional development, it is a must-know!

Would you like to learn more strategies that will allow you to adjust to the changing job market in the long term? You are most welcome to join us at our intensive online career transition workshops! Please find all the information and registration links HERE.

Trend #1: Companies Put Their CEOs Forward. And Not Without a Reason!

People work with people. And, companies of all sizes, from startups to corporations with mindblowingly-high offices and Walkable Skylights, have finally realized that.

For this reason, they put their CEOs forward. They present their faces and speak to the public in the name of the company. 

More and more CEOs start their own YouTube– and other social media channels to present the inner workings of the company to the public. In turn, this attracts more leads. 

As an example, the CEO of Oodie, Davie Fogarty, has recently started his own YouTube channel. In this channel, he shows his daily life as a CEO. He tells the whole story, including his career path from the very start of his entrepreneurial journey to where he is now.

CEOs also eagerly take part in online conferences and discussion panels, for example, on Clubhouse. There, they can present their point of view on a broad range of topics, from the nitty-gritty details of their business to the economy and the future of their field in general. As such, they attract interest from potential new clients and potential employees.

As a result, one method for finding jobs is gaining in popularity right now. It involves joining online discussion panels, and getting in direct contact with the speakers.

Yes, CEOs are happy to chat about opportunities and career options. Especially if during the discussion it turned out that you share many views!

This might also be a sign that recruitment as we know it, is coming to an end. In the future, companies will likely prefer to recruit all their employees without the involvement of middlemen. Just food for thought!

Trend #2: The Definition of “Loyalty” Is Changing: Employers No Longer Expect Employees To Stay Around For Years and Years.

An employee’s loyalty to the company can be defined as their commitment and enthusiastic approach to the employer. This usually means being proactive toward his responsibility and acting with the development of the organization in mind. Such an employee identifies with the company and does not think about looking for a job. 

Companies depend on employees loyalty, it is important for business success. In the past, there was the concept of employment for life. Employers offered job security in exchange for commitment and loyalty. 

Currently, employers are under pressure from shareholders to perform well. As a result, they are not always able to ensure job security.

Some companies lose around a third of their employees each year. So, employee loyalty may seem like a thing of the past.

One of the reasons is the lack of loyalty among millennials. Young people have grown up with apps like Twitter and Facebook. They are constantly informed of new job openings through their networks.

Companies will need to hire more and more millennials to function and will have to accept declining loyalty. 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median number of years that wage and salary workers had stayed with their current employer fell to 3.9 years in January 2024. That’s down from 4.1 years in 2022, and the lowest figure since 2002 — hard evidence that job tenure keeps shrinking.

Why Do Employees Now Switch Jobs More Often?

In fast-developing industries such as IT, it becomes a standard that employees are “travelers” of sorts. They sign a contract and come to the company for one project, and complete it within a year or less. Then they move on to the next project in another company, following some career options.

They know that with every successful project under their belt, they become more competitive. This means they can ask for a higher salary in yet another company.

And, employers learn to accept that. Now, they see “loyalty” differently than they used to in the past. Namely, they no longer expect the employee to stay around and build a whole career in the company.

Is Job-Hopping Actually More Profitable Than Staying?

They accept that most employees will decide to go at some point, regardless if they are happy or not. And that’s for a good reason. According to Forbes, employees who stay within the company for two years or more, earn 50% less than those who “travel.”

Therefore, there is no point in trying to persuade the employee to stay. Now, a “loyal employee” is a person who still picks up the phone whenever there is a problem. This holds true regardless of the fact that their contract expired and they are now working somewhere else.

If you want to hear more about “loyalty” in the eyes of today’s employers, please watch our discussion panel “The Job Market of Today, The Job Market of Tomorrow” posted on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-bviTorxEM

Trend #3: Why Is the Number of Jobs for Semi-Qualified Employees Going Down?

The relationship between the level of competence and the available number of jobs used to be flat. There was an abundance of jobs for physical workers without any higher education. The same was true for “boring, white-collar” jobs for office workers, and specialistic jobs for the best-educated and most experienced workforce. 

Today, we see a process in which society slowly divides. The white-collar jobs become more and more specialistic and require more and more in-depth knowledge and know-how. 

Since many traditional “safe jobs” – such as an accountant or an expert in logistics – are slowly getting automated. As a result, the relationship between the level of competence and the available number of jobs is slowly becoming u-shaped.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the labor market has grown increasingly polarized over the past two decades. Employment has expanded at the high- and low-skill ends, while routine, middle-skill positions have steadily disappeared.

What is the conclusion? Well, as long as you don’t aim to become a physical worker, you need to find your niche and build a brand around it. And you need to never stop building your specialistic skills and know-how.

You need to make sure that your professional development never stops. Gradually, you need to shift toward the far right side of the population as a person with cutting edge professional skills. The following trend might be one good reason to do so:

Trend #4: The Salaries of Highly Qualified Employees Grow Quickly, Fueled By the Synergy Between Human Skills and Technology.

The salaries for specialists grow quickly not without the reason. Automatization and synergistic collaboration with machines caused human labor has become scalable.

In modern industries, the profits grow much faster than before. It’s no longer just a linear function of the time put into work by the company employees.

This makes specialists – especially those who close work with technology – extremely valuable. In addition, as mentioned above, the decrease in employee loyalty has an impact on remuneration. Highly qualified employees are paid more in order to retain them in the company.

So, the trend that we are observing, namely raising salaries, is not going to end any time soon. Hopefully, it is good news for you!

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Do you observe new, interesting trends in the job market of today? Please share with us in the comments! And subscribe to our newsletter to stay in the loop and learn from each other.

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Please cite as:

Ontology of Value (August 27th, 2021). The Four Essential Changes to the Job Market of Today: How To Adjust Your Professional Development Strategies. Retrieved from: https://ontologyofvalue.com/adjust-your-professional-development-strategies-to-the-job-market-of-today/

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