Technology is constantly evolving. What you learn today may not be relevant next time you’re looking for a job, or it may be the very foundation the next big thing is built on. In this fast-evolving and unpredictable world, landing your dream job can seem daunting.
The good news is that with all these changes come several ways to leverage technology to help you find your next job. What are these tech trends and how you tap into their potential? Here are four tech trends that will help you get a job in 2020.
Artificial Intelligence
Many companies are now using AI to help triage and short list and rank candidate suitability. This means job seekers engage with technology first before they get to the human. Understanding the answers a company may be looking for in the pre-screening questions and the reasoning for leveraging AI to scale, especially for popular jobs where the applicant volume outweighs the HR resources, will empower the job seeker to engage and provide the information to get on the short list and ultimately land their dream job.
What do you need to know about the trend?
There is a ton of competition for roles today, even in a job seekers market. Making sure you stand out, present a professional image in your resume, online, in communications and boost your credibility with accurate and measurable facts and figures the hiring manager can relate with and remember is key.
How can a job seeker leverage the trend to get a job?
Job seekers can leverage the trend in AI by using the tools, becoming familiar with the interview questions being used and as a result how the initial screening interview performance can make or break getting to the next level of interviews and to your dream job.
Anastasia Valentine, VP AI Technology Commercialization, Rhonda.ai
Use of automation tools; specifically, for those in highly technical roles wanting to work on cutting edge innovation - Kubernetes and how to cloud native platforms.
What do you need to know about the trend?
All job seekers benefit from being able to show proficiency with automation and integration solutions with specific and tangible examples of how they applied it to a problem in their current role and the measurable benefits.
For those highly technical roles - hands on experience designing, building, and operating Kubernetes clusters in production with business-critical applications driving transformation efforts. Additional benefits for those job seekers who were able to identify and implement a new business model or go to market opportunity using Kubernetes and cloud native patterns to access new markets and bring in additional revenue.
Is it difficult to learn?
Automation and integration solutions are not difficult to learn, however there is effort required to successfully plan and implement a solution. This primarily requires either a sponsored project, or trust from a manager for the job seeker to take initiative.
Kubernetes and cloud native technologies are far more challenging to learn, as they are fast moving with many options on actual implementation. Rather than try to be a master of the entire ecosystem - to which any such claim will be aggressively disbelieved - select either popular mainstream components or focus on high demand / low supply niche opportunities.
Are there job openings in this field?
All marketing, product marketing, product management, software engineering, pre-sales, and consulting roles today demand job seekers have experience in automating aspects of their roles to enable scale so that organizations can successfully deliver transformation.
How can you learn this skill?
As always, practical hands-on experience is the best and far superior to industry certification. Most organizations will support and enable their staff to automate parts of their role to enable scale and reduce cost and risk. Every job seeker should be able to clearly identify examples of where they applied automation to their role.
As Kubernetes is an open source project with widespread adoption and community support, getting access to Kubernetes is easy. There are plenty of learning courses - both free and paid - available throughout the community and the large vendor ecosystem. The most important aspect is devoting the time.
How can a job seeker leverage the trend to get a job?
For both automation / integration as well as Kubernetes - additional leverage comes from speaking at MeetUps and conferences such as KubeCon and DevConf, sharing a blog on LinkedIn, Medium, and other social sites. This is especially important for Kubernetes as it has such a large community focus.
Andrew Hatfield, hiring manager and Director of Product Marketing at Portworx
AWS (Amazon Web Services)
What do you need to know about the trend?
Cloud Services may not be a new trend but it's one that’s also evolving as Amazon is adding new functionality all the time to AWS. It's this aspect that could make it difficult to break in. You need to have recent experience with AWS because it evolves so fast that old experience is irrelevant experience.
How can you learn the trend?
There are many online learning portals that offer courses as well as online labs. Linux Academy, for example, has many AWS centered courses as well as certification preparation courses. And yes, certifications help.
How can a job seeker leverage the trend to get a job?
Even if a company isn't actively looking for an AWS engineer, they've probably considered migrating to the cloud or cloud bases services. That could make you valuable in the sense of having someone with that skill set on hand if they do decide to switch.
Shayne Sherman, CEO of TechLoris
Cybersecurity isn’t necessarily a new trend in the world of tech but one that is always top of mind for organizations and tech teams in general.
What do you need to know about the trend?
Ensuring the security of company data and more in a world where breaches happen too often is an important role for many individuals and teams. Furthermore, it’s constantly evolving, so ensuring your organization is ahead of the game when new security threats arise and abreast of future possible threats preventive measures is key.
How can you learn the trend?
From a tech role standpoint, having the expertise to analyze and implement software is an important skillset. There are a variety of roles in organizations across the board and in a number of industries that require these kinds of skills – pertaining to cybersecurity and other important tech and data-related roles.
How can a job seeker leverage the trend to get a job?
I always recommend networking with others in similar roles – whether it’s at the company you’re currently with or via other professional groups – because it is always great to learn what other teams are doing in terms of cybersecurity and how it might apply to your own role or project. Furthermore, keeping yourself informed by reading relevant articles and following trends by known cybersecurity experts is a way to stay ahead of the game with the trend.
Kassie Rangel, senior director of IT for HealthMarkets
Are you interested in finding a new role in the tech industry? Apply to any of our open positions today at CyberCoders.com.
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