One of the few things that everyone can agree on is that the world is changing at a rapid pace. New technologies, and the opportunities or issues they represent, have become more of an expectation than a surprise. However, the extent to which new technologies are changing the job market is even more extreme than the rate of change. It often seems like job options are opening or closing at random, and that it’s happening faster and faster. That’s not quite the case. While it’s true that the job market changes in response to new technologies, it’s far from random. What’s more, the changes are rapid but not so fast that you don’t have a chance to adapt to them. Success in the modern job market comes from putting special emphasis on a few specific points.

Get Ready for and Used to Rejections

Nobody likes rejection, and we dislike it even more when it affects our quality of life. It doesn’t just feel like a personal affront when our job applications are rejected. Rejections come hand in hand with considerable and justified concerns about putting food on the table. However, these messages are just a normal part of the modern job market, and it’s going to get worse rather than better over time.

It’s best to find ways to reframe rejections as the norm rather than the exception. Part of the reason for rejections comes from the nature of the market itself. More qualified applicants within a system that doesn’t grow at the same speed will always be inherently more prone to rejection. However, there’s also the issue of technology and automation.

Computers, AI, and the Job Market

Issues with job applications aren’t just because of how the market’s scaling or failing to scale. There’s an additional issue of how companies are coping with increased demand. It’s often simply not viable for a company to sort through the sheer avalanche of applicants. Many companies chose to go with automation as an initial filter of sorts. People often assume that this is a new practice born of recent advances in AI. However, in reality, companies have been using computers to sort through applicants for decades. It’s simply that the methods of doing so have grown in complexity. In theory, the systems have also grown in their effectiveness.

Early methods to sort through applicants came about through simple keyword matching. If certain words or phrases were found in an application, then the resume would be increased or decreased in priority, or even thrown away. It was a crude method, but it did have an acceptable level of success. The initial methods gave way to expert systems and other implementations of what would now be considered primitive AI. The new technologies provided methods of finding patterns in job applicants that suggested success in their future. Oftentimes, the human eye wouldn’t have been able to notice those patterns. These techniques would lead to the era of large language models, which could be paired with secondary tools for advanced work with applicant data.

All of this means that a lot of people’s fears about AI making it impossible to find a job are unfounded. AI is a gatekeeper that often hides your resume away from human eyes. However, technological gatekeepers have been around for a very long time. And there’s just as much potential for AI to help you get ahead as there is for it to push you behind. The trick is to leverage human connections and networking as much as possible, use hiring agencies, and tailor your resume to each company in order to ensure that an AI would note patterns that match what it’s looking for. Instead of keyword stuffing, as you might have in the past, you’ll want to work towards something closer to what a human would want to see.

Making Proper Use of the Global Economy

The concept of a global economy is hard to escape these days, and for good reason. We do live within a global economy. However, people often misinterpret what a global economy is. People typically think of a global economy as something that averages every location out to ensure an overall lack of economic diversity. Meaning that your chances of finding a job in one location would be no different than the next.

In reality, the global market is a far more complex concept of weights and balances. You should think of the global market as something that can provide you with the ability to look into a multitude of unique opportunities. It would benefit you to look abroad if you don’t mind moving and are having trouble finding work locally. You might be shocked at just how many opportunities different regions provide for someone with your unique background and skillset.

For example, an auspicious city like Cambridge might seem like it’d have one of the worst job markets with constant competition among the best of the best. Cambridge, in reality, has some of the best odds in the UK, with about 8 potential applicants for every 100 vacancies. This is in stark contrast to the UK’s national average of 54 potential applicants to every 100 vacancies. The example of Cambridge also highlights why recruitment agencies, and specialization as with education recruitment, is such an important option. It lets you leverage the same technologies that might otherwise work against you as a tool to get ahead of the competition. You’re also able to get a broader overview of the larger job market to shatter the ever-present assumptions and illusions that most people carry with them about individual towns and cities.