The jobs of the future and how to prepare for them

Here’s an impressive statistic: 85% of the jobs we’ll be doing in 2030 don’t yet exist! So what are these jobs and what are the skills to develop and strategies to put in place to access them? Do you need to work on your soft skills, like audacity and curiosity, to anticipate this future effectively? Or continually renew your hard skills? On 29 June 2021, Mickael Minot (EDHEC 2012), International Business Developer and EDHEC Alumni Strategic Retail Management club ambassador, had the pleasure of discussing this topic with 3 experts: Isabelle Rouhan (EDHEC 1997), author of Les métiers du futur and founder of the recruitment firm for top executives Colibri Talent, Fatima Redjimi, a career coach and certified educator, and Lorène Vignaud (EDHEC 2017), Product Owner – Search & Reco with Back Market. The event was an opportunity to find concrete answers to these fascinating questions. 

What impact will new technologies have on careers in the future?

The professional world is constantly evolving; jobs are changing, there are more and more slashers out there (although Fatima says the first of them was Leonardo da Vinci!), and hard skills are rapidly becoming obsolete. As Isabelle says, “nothing is permanent anymore except change”. This is undeniably the case in the working world. There is one thing everywhere that is transforming it: the automation of tasks. According to figures released by McKinsey, 47% of hours worked nowadays are spent on activities that could be automated. 5% of jobs are likely to be done by robots in the future, and 60% of our jobs could be partially automated. This phenomenon affects both qualified and unqualified professions. Today in France, there are 19 robots for every 1000 employees (compared to 77 in South Korea for example). But contrary to popular belief, technology and digital capabilities create more jobs than they destroy: in 2025, this sector is expected to generate 15 million additional jobs in Europe and destroy 6 million. Indeed, countries with the highest levels of automation (Germany and Japan) are also those with some of the lowest unemployment levels. The advantage of this trend is that it can offer those affected by the disappearance of their job a more fulfilling activity and one that generates value, for humans and machines are complementary and there is still significant room for progress. Isabelle points out that 80,000 jobs in the world of tech are not filled in France due to a lack of skills: and so there are enormous opportunities to seize provided one is ready to regularly update one’s technical skills, an area that is seeing accelerated obsolescence. Whereas in the 1970s hard skills had a duration of 10 or 20 years, by 2025 they are expected to become outdated in just 1 year, which explains the need to undergo continuous training. Fortunately, soft skills are long-lasting – and even tend to improve with age! 

Examples of jobs of the future

Jobs of the future in 3 categories 

Isabelle identifies 3 types de jobs:

‘Evolution’ jobs

Those that exist already but are being transformed by digital technologies, in particular by the automation of certain tasks, generating gains in efficiency and enabling renewed focus on work that is more valuable and useful.

Examples: augmented lawyer, social seller, data interpreter, journalist of the future. 

‘Revolution’ jobs

Jobs involving oversight, organization and anticipation, for example in management or the world of smart cities.

Examples: scrum master (augmented project leader), neuromanager.

‘Innovation’ jobs

Those stemming from technological innovations.

Examples: educator for robots, artificial intelligence ethicist.

A close look at a job of the future that already exists: product manager

Lorène Vignaud came to talk to us about this position because she is already a product manager and believes it is one of the jobs of the future. What does it entail? To explain her work, Lorène draws a parallel between product development and product management. In the case of the former, getting a product on the market, monitoring its performance, checking consumer perceptions, adjusting market positioning if necessary and then relaunching a suitable product takes 8 months to 1 year. As for the latter, product management, the process is similar but much quicker: this work can be done in just 1 month. Why? Because the role of the product manager is to establish a link between business and developers via digital products. The new methods linked to coding make it possible to be agile and fast: data analysis, setting product objectives, creating functions to improve performance, etc. Product managers are already behaving like scrum masters, with technology allowing them to put in place agile processes on a daily basis. The gateways into this profession are varied: via similar work (such as data analysis, testing or product design), an internship in a start-up, working with entrepreneurs in an incubator, training to be a scrum master or coding. As part of its MSc in Data Analytics & Artificial Intelligence, EDHEC is even proposing a partnership with Le Wagon to teach coding to those enrolled.

The coach’s perspective: how to project yourself towards the jobs of the future 

Fatima believes it is essential to be both an actor and creator of the job you will be doing in 2 or 10 years: “humans learn and adapt, and we have the potential within us to create, bring to life and embody the jobs of the future”. The idea is to express this potential, to be able to match up your skills and what inspires you so you can participate in the world’s evolution. In any career, the notion of meaning – the need or desire to take part in something useful and lasting – always ends up coming to the surface. Nowadays, a one-job career is no longer really an option: we need to teach ourselves in a way that allows our jobs to evolve, so we can move from one to another. Humans have multiple forms of intelligence, so let’s be attentive to our desires, our predispositions and dreams and allow our imagination to express itself.      

As you will have understood by now, it is essential when thinking about the jobs of the future to be curious, to nurture your capacity for learning (one of the most sought-after soft skills according to Isabelle), and to be able to project yourself into a world that you have not yet mastered. So, are you ready for the careers of the future?

This topic still carries many unknowns and raises a plethora of interesting questions: don’t hesitate to reach out to the Alumni community to discuss it further. And be sure to check out our schedule of events to find out about upcoming webinars, an opportunity for live exchanges on many fascinating issues!