How to Navigate the Future of Work

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the corporate world at an unprecedented pace.

As a professional, it’s critical for you to understand how AI impacts your career.

Pay attention to AI, and your career can get on a growing track. And if you are more of an ambitious type, with some clever usage of AI, you could not just grow, but secure a corner office with a seven-figure salary.

Ignore AI… And you risk underemployment or even unemployment.

With stakes this high, let’s talk about how to harness AI to maximize your career potential.

Why AI Makes a Tremendous Difference

Artificial Intelligence is not just a buzzword; it’s a game-changer that’s reshaping industries. Understanding its implications is essential for staying competitive in today’s job market.

AI’s Impact on the Workforce

According to Forbes, AI is already making a significant impact on the workforce, introducing new avenues for career advancement while simultaneously threatening to reduce workforce sizes.

  1. Automation of Business Processes: Companies are using AI to automate various tasks and business processes, reducing the need for humans. This automation isn’t limited to menial tasks but extends to complex functions that traditionally required human intervention.
  2. Assumption of Decision-Making Roles: AI is increasingly taking over decision-making tasks as well, threatening not just rank and file workers, but also senior leaders and executives. As reliance on AI-generated responses grows, human judgment is becoming less central. This isn’t just people being lazy or shortsighted either, it’s also profitable to use AI to make decisions: Research from MIT shows that AI can outperform humans in complex decision-making scenarios.
  3. Reduction in Workforce Sizes: With all this automation of both rank-and-file as well as decision making work, AI is poised to eliminate many jobs before new opportunities emerge. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that by 2030, automation could displace up to 800 million jobs worldwide.
  4. Permanent Job Losses: The jobs lost to AI are unlikely to come back. The efficiencies gained through AI make these roles redundant. Going forward, corporations will learn to do more with less.

The Inescapable Truth

Despite all the misdirection from industry leaders and capital, as well as the popularized notion that AI is going to create many new job opportunities – before any of that materializes – AI is going to demolish a lot of jobs.

The hard truth is that once jobs are lost to AI, they are unlikely to return in meaningful numbers. Therefore: the most important realization you need to have before proceeding forward is that artificial intelligence is going to make the workplace considerably more competitive.

Leveraging AI for Career Advancement

To navigate this new world order, you need to not just understand, but also leverage AI to enhance your productivity as well as decision-making capabilities.

Now… Let’s examine how AI can be used for your career development.

What Is Career Development?

Of course, we need to first ask: “what do you mean by career development?”

Career development is the process of managing your professional growth. Think of it as navigating a career path… With a series of calculated moves and skill enhancements, akin to a chess grandmaster plotting their next move…

In other words, career development is a set of actions you take to grow your income.

A successful career development strategy includes:

Key Components of Career Development

  1. Skill Acquisition: Continuously learning new, high-value skills ensures your relevance and competitiveness.
  2. Networking: Building and maintaining strategic relationships, especially with influential figures.
  3. Job Performance: Excelling in your current role, getting recognized for your contributions, and making sure you have that recognition in writing.
  4. Personal Branding: Managing your professional reputation. Shaping how others perceive your expertise and credibility.
  5. Career Planning: Setting and achieving long-term career goals. (We teach our students our “series of titles” strategy)
  6. Strategic Alliances: Cultivating alliances with key decision-makers to gain access to valuable resources and influence.
  7. Office Politics Mastery: Mastering office politics allows you to navigate power dynamics effectively, leading to increased opportunities for advancement.
  8. Strategic Visibility: Enhancing your visibility in high-impact projects and initiatives showcases your value, leading to greater recognition and career opportunities.

So…. How does AI play with this?

While AI can augment certain aspects of career development, it is of no use in other aspects…

AI can augment skill acquisition, job performance, and career planning. However, for networking, personal branding, and strategic decision-making, human skills and other crucial areas of career development, especially those that relate to power, it makes zero difference.

What does matter, however, is developing an understanding and a clear vision of how the world is changing and how AI is transforming the world.

Simply put, the key is: understanding how AI is reshaping the world of work. This understanding is the single biggest thing you can do to leverage AI to grow your career.

Which is why, we are first going to cover how companies are using AI and teach you what to do about it to develop your career. Once that’s covered, we are also going to discuss how to use AI tools specifically for your career development activities.

How Companies Are Using AI and What This Means for Your Career Development

There are a couple of key areas that companies use AI, which are important for your career development:

Recruitment

Companies use AI for applicant tracking, chatbots, AI-driven interviews, and even on-the-job training. But that’s just scratching the surface…

Almost a decade ago, some companies also started using AI for video analysis, where they automatically reviewed the “please hire me” videos sent by candidates. These tools assessed applicant credibility and personalities, down to every minute little detail. Other similar tools that evaluate and categorize humans have been in use for quite a while by human resources departments across the corporate world.

But… Of course… This is now accelerating.

AI is increasingly utilized for surveilling individuals, as highlighted by Kevin O’Leary in this video. O’Leary explains how recordings of student protests will destroy the job prospects for the protesters in gruesome detail.

Obviously, this type of “background checking” have been with us for quite a while, especially for high-value roles. But, previously, this type of surveillance was expensive. With upcoming AI advancements, it’s becoming even more accessible to employers than what O’Leary is talking about… Meaning… Almost every employer will start using such systems to vet their candidates in the near future.

(Sidenote: This highlights the importance of managing your online presence. In the Launch Your Career program, we dedicate a chapter to sanitizing social media profiles and controlling your online presence. It’s crucial to be aware of the implications of digital footprints in an AI-driven recruitment landscape.)

Managing Employees

Employers also use AI to manage employees. They use AI to monitor workflows, provide real-time feedback, and watch employees to collect data. This data trains AI models, for a variety of purposes – which potentially includes creating automated systems to replace human workers.

This has some serious, including legal implications which we won’t get into now. Suffice it to say, however, that the AI empowered HR machine is a beast to reckon with. You need to understand, exactly, specifically “how your employer is using AI to manage it’s workforce”.

Ultimately, the rise of AI in recruitment and employee management is like a signpost pointing towards a future where our work lives are intertwined with technology in ways we couldn’t have imagined before.

For job seekers, it’s a warning: You need to understand how AI is changing the hiring game and learn to control your online presence wisely.

For those already on the job, it’s a reminder to keep an eye on how AI is shaping the workplace, and protect yourself from being taken advantage of.

Of course, this is the bare minimum. AI doesn’t only help employers, it also helps you…

Remember: You also can use AI for your career development.

AI Capabilities Today Applicable to Career Development

Let’s give you a couple of tools to put in your career development arsenal. But before we begin…

Put The Speculations Aside

There’s no shortage of speculation about the potential of AI in shaping the future of work. Many imagine a world where AI, combined with augmented reality, revolutionizes how we work. It’s easy to conceptualize wearing sci-fi glasses that not only enhance our vision but also provide real-time insights into body language, voice tone, and even act as personal sales or leadership assistants.

Yes, that type of AI can radically transform how you do your work. But… It’s speculation. It’s not here yet.

And while these speculations offer glimpses into a possible future, it’s important to remain grounded in the present. Rather than fixating on what AI could do someday, let’s focus on what it can do today.

Writing Skills Improvement

The simplest and most obvious improvement you can gain from AI is in writing ability. Use it as a proofreader and editor. It works wonders.

Boost Productivity

AI can make you significantly more productive at your job. Take, for example, a graphic designer who can create multiple designs using AI in the time it took them to craft a single one manually, giving them a radical edge in the market.

Most AI tools today cannot do the whole of your work, but they can help you do your work faster. That time saved can be turned into more accomplishments, more contracts, more gigs, and more promotions – for you… As long as you act fast.

As AI continues to evolve and integrate into various industries, early adopters will maintain a significant competitive advantage over their peers. Of course, over time this will normalize and use of AI will get baked into every industry’s numbers, as employer expect AI usage.

This means, for a short while (we predict 5-10 years), early adoption of AI will give a clear productivity boost, which you can leverage to get paid more and receive promotions.

Job Search Assistance

AI can also help with job searches. But its use is somewhat limited and there are important caveats…

To start with, AI can give you cover letters and resumes with a few clicks. But it won’t necessarily give you winning cover letters or resumes that lead to lucrative offers.

When it comes to application assistance, AI can be a decent starting point. But it creates application materials that often lack originality and are jargon-heavy. High-value jobs require unique, professionally crafted applications.

Specifically, AI generated cover letters and resumes:

  • Lack of Originality: AI-generated content is often generic, and visibly so – making it difficult for your application to stand out.
  • Lowest Common Denominator: By definition, AI is going to give you what’s popular and mainstream, the lowest common denominator. This is particularly important because popular and mainstream techniques do not differentiate you when trying to get high-value jobs. In essence, relying on AI-generated content diminishes your chances in competitive job markets.
  • Jargon without Subtance: Overuse of industry jargon can make your resume seem insincere and try hard. Remember: corporatespeak is one of the most common mistakes in a resume.  AI, just like the majority of professionals (who are paid very little), cannot differentiate between corporate speak and high value language.
  • Inaccuracy: AI can produce incorrect information. Remember, AI providers don’t even claim that their product’s output is going to be accurate. In fact, there was a recent case where a lawyer used ChatGPT in court, which created fake citations for the court case (made stuff up), and caused a lot of trouble.
  • Privacy Loss: Information you share with AI tools is not necessarily private. We recommend that you protect your privacy by understanding how AI tools use your data. 

Don’t get distracted by these negatives though. There is still an important place for AI in your application process. But only as an augmentation tool, and only after you’ve understood the principles of high-value applications. (Explore our courses for more guidance.)

Ultimately, once you know the principles, AI can work wonders in proofreading, brainstorming, and customizing your applications (i.e. Write a template resume using one of our guides, give that plus a job description to AI in order to customize your application in seconds, etc.)

AI is incredibly beneficial, but just like any tool, you need to learn how to use it effectively.

Interview Preparation

AI can be used for interview preparation. But the same problems listed above persist…

Too often, AI advice mirrors mainstream, corporate, and politically correct narratives found online – but let’s be real, much of what’s popular on the internet is just garbage. Moreover, AI tends to play it neutered, bending the knee to HR norms rather than empowering individuals to seize opportunities and play the game on their own terms.

With that said, here are some ways to use AI for interview preparation:

  1. Gather Intelligence: Use AI-powered tools to gather deep insights into the company, its culture, and the interviewers. 
  2. Tailored Responses: While AI may offer generic interview responses, you can use its assistance to craft customized answers that highlight your unique skills, experiences, and achievements. (i.e. Write an answer using our “vault”, then ask AI to improve it)
  3. Predictive Analytics: AI can be used to predict potential interview questions they are going to ask you, based on job descriptions, company profiles, and industry trends.
  4. Mock Interviews: You CAN use AI for mock interviews. But you have to really know how to prime it to ask the right questions and do realistic analysis. AI lives in a world where what people say they do is identical to what they actually do. In the real world, the two are radically different.
  5. Body Language Analysis: Some AI tools can analyze your body language and vocal cues to provide feedback on your presentation style and demeanor. These tools are not perfect, but they provide a good approximation, especially for senior management or executive interviews.

Career Counseling and Guidance

AI can provide general career advice and coping strategies, but it won’t give you the strategic, shrewd advice needed to navigate the corporate world. Treat AI advice as a baseline, not gospel.

HR Prediction

One of our favorite ways to use AI is in predicting HR’s actions. Essentially, AI’s default predictions align closely with HR’s typical responses. Eventually, of course, AI will replace HR. But in the meantime, you can use conversations with AI to get the HR perspective and stay a step ahead.

Ultimately, with the techniques listed above, you can use AI to gain a competitive advantage in the job market as well as your workplace. You still need strategic career guidance, and a clear understanding of the Language of Value. But once you have these in place, AI opens many doors radically fast – faster than they have ever been opened before.

Key Takeaways

  1. Master AI Fundamentals: Get a grip on AI basics and be intimately aware of how it’s being used by the corporate world. You only have a limited time window to use it for competitive advantage.
  2. Guard Your Contributions: Don’t let your work become training data. Don’t hand over your hard work for peanuts – demand your due when lending your expertise to AI models and seek legal counsel to protect what’s rightfully yours.
  3. Maximize Your AI Use: Make AI your accomplice in productivity. Automating mundane tasks to free up time for high-impact moves that result in attention and recognition.
  4. Strategize Against Automation: Pivot away from responsibilities that can be automated away, especially as part of your personal brand. It’s OK to leverage AI and automate your work away at your current job, but you should never let yourself be labeled as an automateable professional. Avoid getting pigeonholed into a role, title or job that’s going to be replaced by AI. 
  5. Brand Toward Un-Automateable: Focus on skills and areas of work that will never be automated away, securing your place in high-value work. 
  6. Exercise Critical Judgment: Sharpen your discernment. AI is capable of making bad ideas look extremely polished and attractive, at nominal costs. You need to become considerably more shrewd and discerning in order to not be taken advantage of. Learn to separate the wheat from the chaff. 

Conclusion

Ultimately, in the light of these radical changes and the increasing integration of AI in business, it’s essential that you stay informed, and more importantly, proactive.

Firstly, stay updated on how AI is being used in recruitment and employee management by following industry trends and news.

Second, take proactive steps to manage your online presence, ensuring that your digital footprint reflects positively on your professional reputation.

And finally, use AI in every possible way you can that gives you a competitive advantage at work, as well as your job applications and networking.. Everyone else is going to do it.. And you will likely need it.

Make no mistake: For labor (as in, for anyone who earns an income through work as opposed to investment) AI is an existential threat. For capital, it’s the biggest opportunity humanity has come across.

This is the first time in history where capital will be able to grow without labor at scale… Let that sink in…

Also remember our history, especially the history of the last two centuries, which has been a bloody conflict between labor and capital. That conflict isn’t going to go away anytime soon… (Where do you think populism comes from?)

There is no sugar coating this. AI is inextricably tied to your career development, whether you like it or not.

As you navigate these tumultuous times, remember that adaptation is key. Stay vigilant, stay informed, and always be ready to pivot. By proactively embracing AI’s potential while also safeguarding against its pitfalls, you can position yourself not just to survive, but to thrive in the ever-evolving landscape of the future of work.

The bottom line is: We see this as a monumental opportunity for Insiders.

And we are already seeing unprecedented growth and increase of capabilities in our networks.

True.. Most careers will get crushed by AI.

But those who are making it, be they capital or labor, are laughing all the way to the bank.