Technology is fundamentally transforming the job market, and advances in AI only speed up change. According to an October LinkedIn report, 10% of workers were employed last year without a presence more than 20 years ago. Conversely, many people now work in jobs that may not exist for much longer, and are quickly replaced by faster and cheaper AI alternatives.
That's why he pays Chua, the head economist at APAC on LinkedIn, said at the Fortune Brainstorm AI Singapore Conference on Wednesday.
To that end, Chua believes that the changes created by AI will ultimately “enhance the way we work.” But to get there, entry-level workers need to learn AI skills and increase their employment potential. White-collar experts who are afraid of AI to do their job need to gain a comfortable reskill.
“AI is not going to get your job. The person next to you who are smart and using AI will get your job,” said Madhu Kurup, Vice President of Engineering. Instead of competing for AI, employees should be looking for ways to use AI to their advantage in the workplace.
However, the responsibility for doing so is not solely on workers.
“It's very important that universities and organizations have the ability to support their employees through different types of roles,” explained Sun Sun Lim, vice president of the University of Management of Singapore.
“You're not going to have a career for the rest of your life anymore, but you have a career for a lifetime,” Lim said.
AI for the recruitment application cycle
The panelists acknowledged that AI has created difficulties in the employment recruitment process. Candidates are increasingly turning their eyes to AI, helping them to drive away a massive amount of job applications. As a result, businesses are facing an unprecedented flood of applications.
Many companies look to AI themselves to manage this flood, screen applicants using technology and conduct early interviews.
Job seekers now complain that they will conduct multiple interviews at the company without meeting a single employee.
“The recruitment process will be LLM and LLM talking to LLM,” said Jess O'Reilly, general manager of ASEAN Workday. “It's not going to take us anywhere.”
O'Reilly believes this solution is using a human-AI blend. AI helps narrow down candidates and make the hiring process faster, but “a lot of it is about chemistry in employment,” explained O'Reilly. And fortunately, AI interviewers cannot evaluate these “soft skills” like human cans.
