Gear Up as These Skills Will Define Your Job Prospects in an Automated Future How to be Ready for a Job in the Future

As industrial technology continues to progress and the automated world takes over and we continue to spend more time in the virtual digital world, more new occupations arising with requirement of new skills, some of which seem alien right now. The World Economic Forum's 'Future of Jobs' study predicts that almost 5 million jobs will be lost before 2020 as domains like AI, robotics, nanotechnology and other socio-economic factors replace the need for human workers and 9% of the workforce in future would be deployed in new jobs that do not exist today.

For Indian in particular this gets more worrisome, as the current crop of IT workforce, that has been so far involved in outsourcing activities will slowly be replaced by automated requisitve jobs, According to a jobs report by FICCI and NASSCOM in association with Ernst and Young, by 2022 nearly 37% of Indian workforce would be in jobs demanding radically different skill sets.

Here are some top skills/posts that we think will gain increasing importance in the coming years:

• Data Crunching/Data Scientist: While data analysis has traditionally been a part of financial and finance-based businesses, with the digital domain playing a crucial part in our everyday lives, the need for crunching data beyond finance has become necessary. While tech-based companies and startups already have
• Wealth Management: The domain was restricted to mostly HNI's a decade back. But with higher pay packages, and the media salary rising for the average Indian, wealth managing has become a crucial task. Most individuals prefer a personal relation with a manager or a smaller trusted firm rather than big banks or NBFC's that gobble a sizeable commission. In wake of this, more people with this skill set will be in demand as individual wealth continues to rise.
• Cybersecurity Architect: It's no surprise to have this skill as a necessity on the list, as every second day a large corporation is reported of having faced a cyber breach. While Yahoo, Equifax and Hilton are just some known names, experts say most breaches in small and medium size companies go unnoticed. With data security becoming a priority, cybersecurity professionals will see a surge in their skill demand.
• Digital Marketing: The era of spending crores on offline advertising is dying out. While big companies can still afford these expensive spaces, smarter ones are shifting to digital marketing. This is not a new skill for sure, but as time goes it will become a necessity especially on the resume of those B-school graduates.
• Delivery Ops: With the rise of logistical businesses in India, delivery operations is gaining more importance than ever. Delivery management skills compounded with handling delivery data will be in vogue in the job market as this sectors grows.
• People Management: The term HR has been misused too often by companies, where they have an array of responsibilities, leaving them no time or neglible to actually look at people management. Some companies are bucking that trend by bringing in People's Officers, whose main aim will be to focus on the employees.
• IoT /Machine Learning: As we gear up for an automated future, any and every skill related to IoT and machine learning will gain importance. This is not just limited to the engineering and development part but also the ancillary services that will be needed to support such technology.
• SEO Skillset: Most importantly, as businesses continue to vouch for their presence online, SEO and SEM skills will be in focus, for the neighborhood shop, to the corporate solutions provider.