Warning: Read this before leaving a job these days

Don't accidentally make yourself a "new unemployable" as I seem to have done. All that would take is to find yourself unemployed as a skilled worker without a job offer around the present time.

I expected something like this might happen when near-human-level AI became available, but it's already happening in part due to suped-up autocomplete that has no understanding of the difference between fact and fiction and has little use outside of generating images and writing crappy articles:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/article-growing-number-of-unemployables-frustrated-by-the-job-market/

https://www.kornferry.com/insights/this-week-in-leadership/the-new-unemployables-a-scary-future

Interestingly this trend suggests that if the pandemic hadn't happened, this would've happened sooner, but pandemic overhiring bought workers some time.

Is this a matter of having AI proof your resume?  You know add what AI looks for.  

I'll be out of a job as soon as AI can make chips from blocks of metal to performs specific tasks, join them together in such a way to maintain serviceability and do it to order on a daily basis.

My boss had the audacity to present me with an AI program to design weld fixtures.  I briefly looked it over and decided it was trash.

In reply to akylekoz :

That's part of the problem, but only a small one. If we could get access to the AI apps HR departments are using to filter resumes we could optimize resumes to get past them, similar to how malware authors will optimize their malware to get past antivirus programs. But testing this isn't as cheap or easy as downloading a copy of AVG.

But even if you get past that, it does nothing for the fact that companies are doing very little hiring from outside for skilled labor these days.

I've often wondered what my work as a consultant for the last decade would look like to a HR minion. While I've worked on a lot of great projects, I'm not sure if my lack of proper W2 employment will torpedo me if I ever have to go back to the corporate world.

My friend's wife is looking for work and recently took a class from an HR pro; she passed this on to me:

You could try https://www.jobscan.co/, which evaluates your resume against the job description to see if it'll get past ATS. Caveat: I haven't used it. Also my alma mater provides free access to it -- I don't know if this is unique, so it may be worth seeing if your school does, too. 

The HR person said that, often, jobs are posted at the beginning of the week. Actual humans will look at resumes for the first day or so, after which ATS does. If good candidates aren't applying, they'll re-post the job on Friday, because they're trying to catch employed candidates who are too busy to apply during the week but have the weekend to do so. So, if you're tracking a particular employer, be ready to submit as soon as a position is posted.

Take all of the above fwiw -- it came from elsewhere. 

Meanwhile, a job search workshop I took some time ago repeatedly hammered into attendees' heads that jobs are best found by networking. I'm not great at that, but it's the approach I'm taking. The career counselor teaching the workshop has taught this approach for years. 

Good luck. 

I forward threads from here that I think would interest my son. Here are his thoughts:  (early 30's urban techie sort of guy)

"Oh yeah, the AI recruiting tools have turned into an arms race. People are using AI tools to auto-generate resumes and cover letters and to submit applications, and recruiters are using AI to auto-filter the applications/resumes/cover letters since they're now getting thousands of applications for a job posting so they can't have a human look at all of them. It's a mess and has basically turned the 'you gotta know someone' factor up to 10. It's been bad in tech for a while probably because tech workers are the most likely to use those kinds of tools. I would guess that before I talked with $%&#@, most if not all the jobs I applied to auto-rejected my resume because I didn't feel like using AI to rebuild my resume lol. They all had almost identical message bodies. 

It's funny that marketing is hit the hardest - I always wonder if all that bullE36 M3 does any good anyway. Seems like a good use case for AI since marketing is basically down to a formula at this point, just write copy in the same basic format with your branding and your choice of a handful of persuasive techniques. 

But yeah, I think the recruiting thing is a pretty good example of the problems with using AI on both ends of human endeavors. You just end up with computers talking to computers and humans aren't even in the equation anymore so it's kind of like "what's the point?" 

I kind of suspect there'll be a cultural backlash against all this automation and people will have pent up demand for human-made things and human experiences, but maybe that's wishful thinking. I guess we'll see! Seems like if AI does get good enough to replace nontrivial jobs we'll have a reckoning on what to do with people who don't really need to work anymore. You'd like to think we'd have some sort of universal income, but history makes it pretty obvious that the currently uber-wealthy will likely keep taking the lion's share of production through ownership of automation infrastructure or whatever. It'll be pretty strange if we end up in a place where the only jobs are AI engineers and prostitutes. "

"Death to HR!"

In reply to NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) :

To your point about how you hope people will always want stuff made by actual humans, I can't recall who said it (or at least said something similar), but art is the one thing that makes humanity special.

Not to be all doom and gloom, but if we just replace all the art–paintings, drawings, photos, movies–with stuff made by AI, I'm not sure what all is left to live for, you know?

In reply to Colin Wood :

"Not to be all doom and gloom, but if we just replace all the art–paintings, drawings, photos, movies–with stuff made by AI, I'm not sure what all is left to live for, you know?"

My son is more eloquent than I. 

I think humans have an innate fondness/appreciation of humans and human things. So, hopefully we won't get to that point.

stroker said:

"Death to HR!"

Recruiting and hr are different in most orgs. Until you get to vp level. 

I've been in HR tech for a while and now run sales for an HR consulting company. I'm not sure any field has a smaller group of elite practitioners. Those who are elite become CHROs at F500s or go fractional. 
small companies often get screwed by lack of experience or expertise. 

I guess I missed it, but how are you a "new unemployable"?  I'm not understanding what happened, you're looking for a job and AI is filtering out your resume?  Or something else?

In reply to docwyte :

He's having trouble finding a job.

RevRico said:

Colin Wood said:

In reply to NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) :

To your point about how you hope people will always want stuff made by actual humans, I can't recall who said it (or at least said something similar), but art is the one thing that makes humanity special.

Not to be all doom and gloom, but if we just replace all the art–paintings, drawings, photos, movies–with stuff made by AI, I'm not sure what all is left to live for, you know?

Honestly, it might be better. The stuff from humans sure has gone down hill fast the past few years. 

Only because other humans have said ABC project/item/widget needs to be made to JKL specs for XYZ. Good fast cheap, pick two. Most eggheads in management have no real world experience anymore. Or if they had experience, it's from years gone by and everything has been forgotten.

But back to OP, lie. Everyone else does. Ok don't lie exactly but omit the truth.

Colin Wood said:

Not to be all doom and gloom, but if we just replace all the art–paintings, drawings, photos, movies–with stuff made by AI, I'm not sure what all is left to live for, you know?

Counterpoint: There was a time when people made the same arguments against online art distribution, digital art creation, digital art editing, digital art replication, analog art recording, analog art editing, and analog art replication. Why paint an exceedingly realistic portrait when a film photograph can be taken? Why take a film photograph when a cell phone pic can be taken? Why go see a play when you can go see a movie? Why go see a movie when you can stream to your living room? Things that became arts in their own right, were once threats to what was considered art at the time. Now few think twice about any of those technologies, but many also still maintain an appreciation for those who can still create that art without them.

Few have ever achieved great success at manually originating physical art. Not only because the talent required to truly do so is so rare, but similarly is the accessibility of such a time consuming endeavor to the public. Technology changes neither of those, but gives a larger pool of those with artistic inspiration the ability to express themselves in an equivalently more accessible way. Generative AI is simply the next evolutionary step.

This isn't limited to artistic endeavors either, but technical fields as well.

The only constant in this life is change. We have the choice to fight a endless and all-consuming battle that can't be won against it, or adapt to work with it and maybe even learn how to use it to our advantage.

The older I get, the more I see that fighting our own complacency is one of the greatest challenges of aging.

RevRico said:

Colin Wood said:

In reply to NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) :

To your point about how you hope people will always want stuff made by actual humans, I can't recall who said it (or at least said something similar), but art is the one thing that makes humanity special.

Not to be all doom and gloom, but if we just replace all the art–paintings, drawings, photos, movies–with stuff made by AI, I'm not sure what all is left to live for, you know?

Honestly, it might be better. The stuff from humans sure has gone down hill fast the past few years. 

The stuff humans are using AI to create is going to be worse than 'Idiocracy' levels of ignorance.  Someone can take any picture from social media and create porn videos now.  Two very well know women's college basketball players just had this happen to them recently.

AI aside, I wonder if you're also seeing a combination of a slow economy, and just too many people going in to the same field and, not enough jobs to support them.

GameboyRMH said:

But even if you get past that, it does nothing for the fact that companies are doing very little hiring from outside for skilled labor these days.

If you believe no one is hiring, you are just not skilled in the right areas or in the right geographical area.

I would currently hire 20 (yes, 20) field service technicians that can work on industrial equipment, 2 or 3 CNC operators, at least a half dozen welders and fitters, a waterjet operator, a laser operator, a press brake operator, and 2 or 3 technical support team members.

Its not that no one is hiring, its that good skilled labor is tough to find.  

NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Colin Wood :

"Not to be all doom and gloom, but if we just replace all the art–paintings, drawings, photos, movies–with stuff made by AI, I'm not sure what all is left to live for, you know?"

My son is more eloquent than I. 

I think humans have an innate fondness/appreciation of humans and human things. So, hopefully we won't get to that point.

So, did you just out yourself as Colin's father. 

In reply to docwyte :

The articles I linked explain it. I don't know the exact cause but the effects are all the same. Most alarmingly it's been just as difficult to get what should be very attainable basic jobs.

Duke said:

In reply to docwyte :

He's having trouble finding a job.

That's like saying that Godzilla is a movie about Tokyo having a lizard problem.

Duke said:

In reply to docwyte :

He's having trouble finding a job.

 

And like every other weekly thread, it's not his fault. 

In reply to Steve_Jones :

And like any of those threads, you attempt to ascribe systemic issues being discussed to some vague personal failings of mine.

Move out here. Businesses in small towns all have "help wanted" signs in the windows.

The job requirement is "show up".

The downside is, it's usually hot, dirty and smells like work.

In reply to 93gsxturbo :

To his credit, things are really not good here. My company is painfully slow and currently has a hiring freeze, the main reason I'm going back temporarily. It's not the only one I know of, either, and people I work with have relatives new to the country that can't even find jobs in fast food. It's tough here right now