AI has been speeding the shift from a \u201crole-based labor market to a skills-based economy.\u201d<\/b>
\nJob hunters beware: some of the hard-earned skills listed on your resume are going unnoticed by potential employers.
Workers\u2019 profiles on job posting websites often feature general abilities, like leadership, communication, teamwork, and problem-solving, a recent report from the Wharton School says. But they\u2019re not highlighting the \u201cspecialized, execution-oriented skills,\u201d employers are seeking. That\u2019s created a \u201cskills mismatch economy.\u201d
\u201cPeople are not representing their skills in a way that\u2019s necessarily resonating with the skills that employers want,\u201d said Eric Bradlow, the vice dean of artificial intelligence and analytics at the Wharton School, who co-authored the report.
Meanwhile, AI has been speeding the shift from a \u201crole-based labor market to a skills-based economy,\u201d the report outlines, making it all the more poignant to know what skills employers actually want.
Bradlow, says generative AI has been \u201ca positively destructive bomb on roles and titles,\u201d by making workers able to carry out tasks that they didn\u2019t know how to do in the past. So \u201chaving a specific job title is becoming less relevant.\u201d
The Wharton School worked in partnership with Accenture, a professional services firm, to analyze millions of job postings and worker profiles for the report. The study used data from Lightcast, a labor market data provider, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bradlow spoke with The Inquirer about their findings.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What are some skills included on resumes that don\u2019t make much difference to employers, because everyone seems to have them?
A: Do we think it\u2019s important to communicate? Well, yeah, of course, it is. Do we think it\u2019s important to have leadership skills and manage teams well? Yeah, of course. Last time I checked, those were really important parts of the job \u2014 but everybody puts that down. We\u2019re not saying in the report that those skills aren\u2019t important. What we\u2019re saying is there\u2019s an over supply of people stating those skills, as opposed to companies saying these skills are what\u2019s going to get you the job.
Companies are realizing that depth of skill is what\u2019s going to be really important.
Q: Do people lack the specialized skills employers are looking for? Or are they just failing to highlight them on their resumes?
A: That\u2019s something, trust me, I wish I could answer.
If we had people\u2019s transcript data, or if we knew what courses someone had taken, then we could try to get an understanding of what skills people actually have.
I think two things are going to happen, based on this Wharton-Accenture Skills Index gap report. Number one is, you will see a migration where people [will say] \u201cI need to acquire those skills, if I don\u2019t have them, if I want a job.\u201d Second, you\u2019ll see [organizations] \u2014 whether it\u2019s an academic institution or a for-profit institution \u2014 saying \u201cwait a second, here, we need more people with this skill. We\u2019ll create a certification program.\u201d
Q: You found that some skills are actually tied to higher-paying jobs. Was that surprising?
A: I\u2019m not sure I had hypotheses about which skills would be paid higher or lower.
I think maybe the part that surprised me a little bit was that there wasn\u2019t massive swings and variation like \u201cif you have this skill, your salary doubles.\u201d That\u2019s not what we found in the data.
Q: What advice would you give someone crafting their resume?
A: One is talk about the specific skills you have. Every resume I read says \u201cI\u2019m an effective communicator, experienced leader.\u201d That\u2019s fine, but that\u2019s not what\u2019s going to stick out and become differentiated, because everyone\u2019s going to say that. To the degree that you have specific expertise and depth or skills, those are the kinds of things to put on the resume.
The second thing I would say is that \u2026 we should be in the skills acquisition business, be a lifelong learner. Skills will always be valued. Jobs in a particular workflow can go away. People with skills will be hired.
Take, for instance, a customer support agent in a customer satisfaction group. If you\u2019re someone with exceptional problem solving skills, you\u2019re hearing your customer, and you\u2019re able to tie it to some remedy, that skill is not going to go away even if the job you\u2019re currently in happens to go away.
Q: What skills are needed more or needed less because of the adoption of AI recently?
A: I don\u2019t view it as AI replacing humans. I view AI as that decision-support tool you should use for every decision. If I were an employer today, I wouldn\u2019t even consider hiring someone that didn\u2019t recognize the power of artificial intelligence as a decision-support aid. I don\u2019t know what business decision \u2014 pricing decision, product launch decision, product design decision, possibly even hiring decision \u2014 [for which] I wouldn\u2019t use artificial intelligence as a decision support tool.
I would also say, equally, I\u2019m very concerned about the agentic use of AI \u2014 in some sense totally handing over high stakes decisions.
Q: From where you stand, is AI coming for people\u2019s jobs, as we often hear, or is it coming for their skills? What\u2019s the difference?
A: Go through the history of mankind.
The train engine came. So you mean we don\u2019t need as many horses? Electricity came. You mean we don\u2019t need as much coal? Green energy came, and so now we don\u2019t need as much nuclear fusion?
Doesn\u2019t technology always come and translate one set of jobs to another set of jobs? It\u2019s not AI is coming for your job. What companies are realizing about AI is there are certain roles and functions that AI can do extraordinarily well, with high accuracy, and in some cases better than humans can do. These tend to be functions, by the way, that many humans don\u2019t like doing anyway.
I don\u2019t see AI coming for your job any more so than any set of technology. This is an extraordinarily disruptive technology, but we\u2019ve lived through periods of extraordinarily disruptive technology.<\/p>\n