Author: ANISA PURBASARI HORTON

BY ANISA PURBASARI HORTON 7 MINUTE READ

Back in 2015, Heather Terenzio was giving a talk at a vocational school. After she provided an overview of the US-based software development company she founded—Techtonic Group—a young man who helped cater the event came up to her. He told Terenzio that he’d been teaching himself to code for 10 years. He liked what Techtonic was doing, and said that if she were to hire him, she wouldn’t regret it. “We thought, well, why don’t we see what we can do with this kid?” says Terenzio. “He learned everything we taught him, and we had this epiphany that we were on to something interesting.”

Techtonic had been struggling to find qualified developers, and outsourcing the work offshore just wasn’t cutting it. So why not create a formal program to allow people without a computer science degree to train for these jobs?

Today, Techtonic is the first Department of Labor-approved apprenticeship program for coding. Participants apply to be part of the program, and once they’re selected, the company trains them, while paying them from day one. After the training period, Techtonic pairs each participant with a senior staff member to work on a client project. At the end of the program, Techtonic (or one of Techtonic’s clients) hires the apprentice.

Coding-based apprenticeships may be a recent development, but Terenzio predicts that in 20 years, more and more companies will adopt similar models. “I can see it in every industry: healthcare, medical billing, other kinds of jobs,” Terenzio says.

Many workplace and higher education experts agree. We talked to six professionals whose work involves predicting the nature of education and upskilling in 2040 and what the workforce is likely to demand from employees. They all shared the consensus that change is the only certainty. Workers, employers, and education providers alike need to be agile, flexible, and prepared to adapt as technology continues to disrupt industries and change what jobs will and will not be available. Here’s what else they had to say:

1. TRADITIONAL UNIVERSITIES WILL BE FORCED TO ADAPT TO MEET THE NEEDS OF EMPLOYERS
Rising student debt and uncertain returns on investment have many questioning whether attending university or technical college is still worth it. According to a 2019 survey by PayScale that polled 248,000 recipients, 66% had some regrets over their higher education experience, with student loans being the main reason for their dissatisfaction. Fast Company also recently conducted its own informal Twitter poll on how useful college is likely to be in 2040, and 69% of the 3,911 respondents agreed that a degree would be “less useful” than it is now.

So what will universities look like in 2040? According to Ryan Craig, cofounder and managing partner of University Ventures, a fund that invests in education companies (including Techtonic), the US is set to see the biggest shifts among nonselective colleges—that is, colleges with acceptance rates of 50% and higher. “They will have to eliminate departments, programs, functions, merge with each other, and ultimately become more focused on employment and employability,” says Craig.

“Two decades ago, there was this general thought [among higher education institutions], that our job is not to be vocational institutions,” says Johny C. Taylor, Jr., president and CEO of the Society of Human Resources Management. Instead, the purpose was for “lofty academic pursuits” and teaching individuals to become more well-rounded individuals.

Now, and likely in the future, employability and return on investment are at the top of the mind for many prospective students. “I think the market made education shift,” Taylor says. Combined with declining enrollment due to the falling U.S. birth rate, universities will have no choice but to focus on more practical-based training and change their curriculum to meet the demands of employers, he says.

As for the merits of universities, both Taylor and Craig believe that it will remain a pathway to a good first job, but not the default one as it is for so many today. Craig believes that for those who can get admitted to a selective university without incurring large amounts of debt, a traditional three or four-year degree remains the best choice. But for everyone else, an alternative path might be the best way to go.

2. WE’RE GOING TO SEE MORE AND MORE ALTERNATIVES TO TRADITIONAL UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES
One of those training paths will be company-sponsored apprenticeship programs, says Craig. In his book A New U: Faster and Cheaper Alternatives to College he calls this type of arrangement “last-mile training.” Essentially, “it’s the skills that are missing between the secondary ecosystem and what employers are looking for.”

Boot camps are what Craig calls version 1.0 of the last-mile training model. They may be faster and cheaper than colleges, but many still require the applicants to incur financial risks by paying tuition fees upfront without the guarantee of a job. And even for graduates, Craig says, companies have what he calls “hiring friction”—where they are reluctant to hire candidates who have never done the job the company is hiring them for, let alone entry-level candidates who are just starting out in their careers.

Version 2.0 of last-mile training, according to Craig, is educational providers who adopt an income-share agreement. Rather than charging tuition upfront, students only pay a percentage of their income if they secure a job that meets a specific income threshold (for example, over $40,000). But while this eliminates the financial risk, it doesn’t solve the problem of hiring friction. Employer-sponsored apprenticeships eliminate both.

Terenzio and Taylor see employer-sponsored apprenticeships as a positive trend. But not everyone in the training and education space is on board. For starters, not every company can afford to introduce this kind of program. Also, when a company is in charge of their employees’ education, “it locks the employees into a company’s way of doing things,” says Scott Latham, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. For instance, an engineer may get versed in Amazon Web Services. That may prepare them for a great career at Amazon, but it doesn’t allow for a great deal of mobility across the tech sector.

Craig believes that the sweet spot will be “intermediaries that can build into their business model a commercial incentive to provide, train entry-level talent, and scale.” Here, Craig is referring to staffing and business services companies that are able to train individuals at a large scale—in addition to matching candidates to specific roles. He predicts that they will explode “in a good way,” and as a result, he’s placing University Ventures’ focus on funding these types of companies.

3. SOFT SKILLS WILL CONTINUE TO BE IMPORTANT, BUT MOST JOBS WILL REQUIRE A HIGH LEVEL OF TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETENCE
In today’s workforce, there’s a growing emphasis on “soft skills.” Many workplace experts predict that it’s these skills that will help workers differentiate themselves from their peers when they are applying for a job. These skills include communication, empathy, mindfulness, creativity, collaboration, and leadership, according to Fast Company contributor Faisal Hoque. “As we hurtle toward our inevitable robot- and AI-filled future, these sorts of uniquely human capabilities may only be more essential,” wrote Hoque.

But the prevalence of automation will mean that more and more jobs will require an ability to work with new sorts of technology. “As an individual, you’re going to have to constantly ask yourself, how will the future of work technology affect my industry?” says Latham. A job in sales or marketing, for example, will require competence in navigating customer management software such as Salesforce. Nurses and doctors will have to work alongside robots. That means that along with having soft skills, workers of the future will need to be prepared to perform jobs with a strong technological component.

4. SPECIALISTS WILL BE MORE VALUED THAN GENERALISTS
The rise of the gig economy and contract work in roles that were once the purview of traditional employment is one of the main ways that technology has changed the job landscape. Micah Rowland, the COO of Fountain, a recruitment platform for gig and hourly workers, believes that we’ll continue to see this trend in 20 years’ time.

What will change, according to Rowland, is the extent to which specialists will be valued over generalists. He gives the example of legal services. In the past, a small business owner may go to a local lawyer to take care of their legal needs—both for their business and their personal affairs. In the future, that business owner will have greater access to legal talent and services—beyond their immediate proximity and geography—depending on their specific needs. They may engage one lawyer to help them sort out their tax affairs and another to help them write a will. Possibly neither of these lawyers will live in their city, and 100% of their interaction is likely to take place virtually. More and more of those transactions will occur on an as-needed, one-off basis, says Rowland.

5. MICROCREDENTIALING WILL BECOME MORE PREVALENT
As technology continues to transform various industries, what employers are looking for from employees will change at a faster rate. Latham says, “The best-case scenario is that there will be a disruption that occurs, and jobs won’t be destroyed but will be changed, and someone who was doing accounting will now do the same job but they need to know how to work with an artificial intelligent bot.”

“That’s going to require a lot of upskilling,” says Latham. “The worse-case scenario is the reskilling, and that is if AI, drones, and automation destroys jobs and these people need to be reskilled into new industries and learn new skills. We’re probably going to end up somewhere in the middle,” Latham predicts.

Whether it’s upskilling or reskilling, experts predict that microcredentialing will be a big trend in the future. Workers will continually need to upskill and reskill as employers’ needs shift. Latham believes that we’re going to see “small bites” education. Workers will be able to obtain certificates in cybersecurity, for example, without necessarily having to complete a degree. In turn, educational providers will be more and more specialised in their offerings. Just like coding boot camps, there will be more and more training institutions that focus on one particular industry.

6. LIFELONG LEARNERS AND COMPANIES THAT ENCOURAGE A CULTURE OF LEARNING WILL BE THE ONES TO THRIVE
If there’s one other thing apart from change that most professionals in the training and education space agree on, it’s the belief that those who choose to see their careers as a sequence of continuing education will be the ones to thrive in the future. It’s not enough to be smart, says Taylor. Good workers of the future also need to be curious. “Curious people see what’s coming around the corner. Curiosity will keep you ahead of the game.”

As for employers, companies that cultivate a culture of learning will be the ones who benefit. Leah Belsky, chief enterprise officer of online learning platform Coursera, says that “facilitating training will become part of a manager’s role. I think direct learning is going to be a core part of that.” She explains, “Companies are now realising that to sell their technology, they need to get into the education space. They realise that they are limited in how much they can grow because there aren’t enough skilled professionals.”

At the end of the day, “none of us really knows what the future looks like,” says Taylor. “You just have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.”

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This article was originally published on fastcompany.com.  

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Anisa is a freelance writer and editor who covers the intersection of work and life, personal development, money, and entrepreneurship. Previously, she was the assistant editor for Fast Company’s Work Life section and the co-host of Secrets Of The Most Productive people podcast.

BY ANISA PURBASARI HORTON 6 MINUTE READ

I have a love-hate relationship with all things beauty-related. Sometimes, I look forward to my evening skincare routine, seeing it as a meditative way to get ready for bed after a long day. Other times, I see it as a burden. When I have to attend an early-morning event, the last thing I want to do is cut into my sleeping time to have enough time to put on makeup and blow-dry my hair.

I find it important to look professional, and as much as I’d like to opt out of society’s standards of what that looks like for women, I know that doing so can cost me, in a literal sense. A 2016 study by sociologists Jaclyn S. Wong and Andrew M. Penner found that attractive individuals out-earned their peers by about 20%. When researchers started factoring in “grooming” (which for women included whether or not they wore makeup), the gap narrowed. But being considered too attractive can also hurt women. Another study, published in 2019, found that “attractive businesswomen are judged as being less truthful than less attractive women.”

It seems like an impossible dance. To be taken seriously, women must look attractive, but not so much that they veer off into the “untrustworthy” category. And when it comes to deciding how much time, effort, and money one “should” dedicate to personal grooming to maximise earning potential, the line becomes less clear.

THE APPEARANCE DOUBLE STANDARD
When I tallied up my average monthly grooming expenses against my husband’s, I found that I spent about 15 times more than he did. For the purposes of this exercise, I only tallied up things that we used individually and didn’t share. My husband is a minimalist when it comes to personal grooming. His recurring expense consists of a drugstore face wash, deodorant, and shaving cream. When he does get a haircut, he rarely pays more than $20.

Given that we’d set individual budgets for those expenses, I wasn’t that surprised by the disparity. What I did find surprising, however, was just how little information is out there about how women should treat these costs in the context of their personal finance. While I rarely stray above the limit that I set for myself, I wanted to know if I was spending an appropriate amount on personal grooming for my income level. I also wanted to know if I was spending it on the right things.

Yet when I consulted personal finance websites and publications, many seemed to wave off these expenses as “nonessentials,” failing to consider the penalty that many women would pay by reducing (or cutting out) these expenses. Beauty blogs and women’s magazines—on the other hand—were helpful in suggesting cheaper alternatives, yet they also published beauty routines that seem unaffordable.

Desiree Vargas Wrigley, founder and CEO of Pearachute, an aggregator for family-friendly activities, knows the burden of having to spend extra money on makeup and clothing. When it comes to appearance in the context of raising capital, Wrigley said, “I feel like founder-market fit is something that investors are looking for.” While a male founder can pitch his expensive enterprise software start-up in jeans and T-shirt, “When it comes to women, we have to look the part of the market that we’re serving. If we’re selling designer bags, we have to be wearing designer everything,” Wrigley explains.

Wrigley began to notice the difference between the appearance-related costs she took on—versus those of her male cofounder—when they were going through their accelerator program. “There were so many meetings where I didn’t feel like I was being taken seriously as a CEO. I feel like I had to up my appearance to command authority. I would sit in the meeting, lead the entire presentation, and every question would be directed to him. That’s when I started paying more attention. I spent a lot of money trying to look the part of the high-class CEO that they were expecting.” While she never calculated the total costs, she estimates that the difference probably tallied up to several thousand dollars a year.

HOW MAINSTREAM PERSONAL FINANCE TREATS THESE EXPENSES
Ashley Feinstein Gerstley, founder of Fiscal Femme and author of The 30-Day Money Cleanse, works with a lot of professional women and has had many conversations about how personal grooming fits into her clients’ financial lives. She isn’t a fan of a prescriptive percent-of-your-income model, saying “Some people value traveling more than where they live, so they’re not going to pay as much in rent, but they’re going to pay more [for travel]. I think the same applies to personal care and health.”

It’s also worth noting that everyone’s relationship with makeup is different. Personally, I fluctuate between seeing it as something I reluctantly opt into and viewing it as a form of self-expression. However, there are people of all genders who choose to wear—and spend money on—makeup out of pure enjoyment.

But the conversations around these nuances aren’t happening in the personal finance space, says Gerstley. The most obvious reason, she suspects, is because it has been a space that is created (and still largely dominated) by men. “These types of conversations are not as prevalent,” she says.

Gerstley also says that money is a space riddled with shame and judgment. “There’s a lot of fear around saying the wrong thing or offending people.” To illustrate a similar example, Gerstley mentions the backlash she sometimes gets when she posts pictures of herself on vacation. “Someone will say, ‘Wow, that’s not Fiscal Femme.’ Just because I’m taking positive actions doesn’t mean I can’t spend money on things that are outside of necessities.”

WHEN OPTING OUT ISN’T POSSIBLE
When reading about beauty and personal finance online, you’ll see people argue that the expectation is a self-perpetuating one. The more women spend on grooming expenses, the more they reinforce expectations, and the more money they fork out.

For Kara Perez, founder of Bravely, a financial community for women, a way to opt out of the burden of adhering to these standards is by being a self-employed entrepreneur who works from home. “For me, personal grooming is not mandatory in my professional life, unless I’m at a conference or on TV. I’m able to opt out . . . for big chunks of time because of [my] specific lifestyle.” Perez acknowledges that she is in a privileged position, and that if she were required to go into an office, that she might feel less able to “opt out.”

For Wrigley, the grooming expectation for a female CEO goes beyond raising capital. When asked about the impact of social media on such pressures, Wrigley says that there are a lot of image-related pressures for female entrepreneurs in the consumer-centric space. “The number of questions I got about my personal Instagram following is bizarre,” says Wrigley. But at the end of the day, “you have to be positioning yourself in a way that the consumer wants.”

Perez echoes Gerstley’s sentiment that people’s reluctance to speak honestly comes from fear of saying the wrong thing but also stems from a fear of being judged. “We live in a clickbait headline universe. A lot of people don’t want to take the time to explore the nuances.” She also stresses that race plays a critical role. “It’s one thing for a white woman to say, ‘I throw in a light concealer.’ It’s another thing for a woman of colour to say, ‘Well, I need something else.’ A lot of people don’t want to get into it, because it’s really a multifaced, layered issue.” The complexities, Perez says, make it easier to categorize those expenses as a “splurge.”

WHAT IT TAKES TO CHANGE THE NARRATIVE
Wrigley, Gerstley, and Perez all agree that changing the narrative around the cost of personal grooming for women is to increase the diversity of voices in the personal finance space. “Historically, personal finance has always taken a white male gaze,” says Perez. As a result, the narrative tends to be two extremes—either it encourages women to fully buy into it, or it shames women for buying a $30 lipstick.

“The whole ‘Don’t wear makeup if you want to save money’ is not an option for a lot of people. It’s also demeaning. It pits this sort of ‘I’m the smart cool girl who doesn’t wear makeup’ to ‘Well, you’re the brainwashed girl who does wear makeup.’” Perez adds, “I’d love to see more nuance and a recognition that your experience might not be universal. Add a little caveat: ‘Here’s what works for me.’”

Gerstley says, “There is freedom in escaping acquisition culture a little bit,” but she acknowledges that it can be difficult to change your mindset, particularly when external pressures say otherwise. Perez and Wrigley recommend that to start, one should take an honest look at their bank statement to see what they’re really spending. “Think about the environment you’re going to be at. If you’re already at $800 a year on haircuts and pedicures, okay, that’s the point you’re starting at. From there you can say, okay, I can stretch my pedicures a little bit. You can play around with the numbers, but you have to understand [your starting point] before you can make any of those changes,” Perez says.

She also encourages women to think about making small changes if they are passionate about changing the narrative. “If you are a woman who is higher up in a workplace, I think you probably have more flexibility and more power to say, ‘You know what? I’m going to wear flats instead of heels,’” says Perez. “I do feel very strongly that traditional Euro-centric beauty standards are harmful to many people. The more we can move away from those and discuss that with nuances, the stronger everyone’s finances—and, frankly, professional output—will be.”

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Article originally appeared on fastcompany.com. 

BY ANISA PURBASARI HORTON 2 MINUTE READ

Not so long ago, most people didn’t have to worry about their online presence or personal brand. Unless you were a celebrity, politician, or prominent CEO or entrepreneur in a public-facing company, doing well in your career involved doing good work and making in-person connections. Applying for a job meant mailing (or physically dropping) off your résumé and cover letter.

Social media changed all that. As we’ve discovered in this week’s episode of Secrets of the Most Productive People podcast, marketing strategist and Duke University professor Dorie Clark recounted a story of when a client almost didn’t hire someone because they couldn’t find any information about the candidate online. At minimum, employers expect an updated LinkedIn profile. The more content you can create (such as a blog post), the better.

Here are three things you should consider when you’re auditing your online presence:

1. Keep everything as up-to-date as possible. This includes LinkedIn, Twitter, and your personal website if you have one. You never know when people might need your expertise, or when your dream company wants to hire someone with your skills and qualifications.
2. Make yourself accessible. You want to have some way for people to contact you, whether it’s by email, Twitter direct messages, or messages on your personal website. There’s no point showcasing the value that you can bring, only for people to struggle to get in touch with you.
3. Stay true to yourself. It’s easy in the social media age to feel like you need to present a certain image, but in a world of curated filters, anything that doesn’t come across as genuine is going to be obvious. Just be strategic about what you share.

You can find the episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, RadioPublic, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And new this season, we’re answering your questions: What’s the career question that Google can’t help you out with? In the next few episodes we’ll be tackling how to answer the most common interview questions, how to negotiate your starting salary, and more. Leave a voice mail with your question at ‪(201) 371-3278, and your question might be featured on an upcoming episode.

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Article originally published on fastcompany.com.