The latest trend when it comes to perfecting an appealing CV is to tailor it for a career that is ‘future-proof’. This entails showing skills that would benefit the emerging trends of the future and being savvy in how you display them. It also means taking inspiration from the current digital landscape and thinking outside the box to reveal this creative thinking. How can you attempt to use your current skills to help future-proof your career prospects?
Display Your Creativity
One of the most future-proof assets you have is your creativity. They say that monkeys infinitely tapping away at a typewriter will eventually produce Shakespeare, but the same can’t be said for AI. So, your creativity will always be a valuable asset. The best way to show this creativity is in how you go about searching for a job and securing an interview.
For instance, marketing graduate Alfred Ajani handed copies of his CV out at Waterloo Station back in 2014 and gained several offers of employment. He returned in 2015 to find someone to hire himself! While confectionery company Candy Kittens shared that they received a CV in the form of one of their bags of luxury sweets. If your passion is graphic design, you could showcase this in how you present your CV, or if you’re a people person, you could find a way to show this creatively.
Focus on Emerging Sectors
Being interested in an emerging sector – or one that isn’t too saturated by those eager to work in it – can also help prepare you for the developments that will befall it in the future. Digital finance, for instance, is a growing sector, as the rise in people with online-only banks (like first direct or Monzo) attests to. Finding learning resources for these sectors can help boost your CV.
There are many resources that can help you buff up your knowledge on the sectors that will continue to grow in the future. As the Forex Trading Academy education and guides show, there are many online materials to help learn about digital financial industries, such as trading forex. While Moz provides a series of classes online for learning about SEO, which is dominating digital marketing and is constantly in flux with Google’s changing algorithms.
Moreover, Coursera has partnered with universities such as the University of Michigan and business IBM in order to deliver coding tutorials. Even something as simple as Duolingo could help give you basics skills in emerging markets, such China, which could show you as being future-focused.
Showcase Social Media Savvy
Social media is not going anywhere. There are already hundreds of jobs in all aspects of the industry – from creating content to advertising, to ensuring platforms run better and users get the most out of them. So being wise on social media can actually help future-proof your career, especially if you are able to then pivot this into a job.
For instance, video content creator Lee Dawson was able to turn his passion at creating videos around RuPaul’s Drag Race into a series of monetized videos – and then landing a job creating content for the UK version of the show for the BBC. Similarly, US content creator T. Kyle cut his teeth creating content based on The Real Housewives to then be hired by parent company Bravo for their Watch What Happens Live talk show. These examples were spotted for their passion and social media savviness, and then able to turn that into a job.
One of the most important things to consider when developing an employer-friendly CV and entering an industry to rise through the ranks is to make sure that it is future-proof. While robots may be streamlining processes that free up human workers from doing repetitive tasks, they allow these human resources to then be dispatched elsewhere to do things that no amount of AI will ever be able to take over. Being able to show that you are not just an effective employee, but one that will be useful for years to come, is more likely to match up your talents with the right employer.