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Networks are amazing things. By belonging to one network, a blog alerts me to another update, and eventually leads me to a fascinating report by the World Economic Forum. The report was published in 2016, and has taken a while to filter through – but the main thing is that I (and by extension, you) got there in the end.

After surveying some 350 executives in 15 major economies and 9 different industries, their goal was to better understand the importance of technology in our working lives,. What they found, though, was perhaps unexpected. Their report on the Future of Jobs claims that the most important skills employers will be looking for are not technical abilities but soft skills such as complex problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking and people management. To quote the report directly:

“Overall, social skills—such as persuasion, emotional intelligence and teaching others—will be in higher demand across industries than narrow technical skills, such as programming or equipment operation and control. In essence, technical skills will need to be supplemented with strong social and collaboration skills.”

So the message is pretty clear – if you want to boost your employability, focus on your communication skills – and invest in your network. The people you know and the networks you are connected to really do represent an extension to your own eyes and ears when it comes to knowing what’s going on around you, what matters and what doesn’t. And there’s plenty of research to show that building diverse networks are positively correlated with innovation. But that’s a subject for a future blog.

If you want more detail, you can read the full report, or an executive summary, here: http://reports.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2016/

Networks are amazing things. By belonging to one network, a blog alerts me to another update, and eventually leads me to a fascinating report by the World Economic Forum. The report was published in 2016, and has taken a while to filter through – but the main thing is that I (and by extension, you) got there in the end.

After surveying some 350 executives in 15 major economies and 9 different industries, their goal was to better understand the importance of technology in our working lives,. What they found, though, was perhaps unexpected. Their report on the Future of Jobs claims that the most important skills employers will be looking for are not technical abilities but soft skills such as complex problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking and people management. To quote the report directly:

“Overall, social skills—such as persuasion, emotional intelligence and teaching others—will be in higher demand across industries than narrow technical skills, such as programming or equipment operation and control. In essence, technical skills will need to be supplemented with strong social and collaboration skills.”

So the message is pretty clear – if you want to boost your employability, focus on your communication skills – and invest in your network. The people you know and the networks you are connected to really do represent an extension to your own eyes and ears when it comes to knowing what’s going on around you, what matters and what doesn’t. And there’s plenty of research to show that building diverse networks are positively correlated with innovation. But that’s a subject for a future blog.

If you want more detail, you can read the full report, or an executive summary, here: http://reports.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2016/