reprinted from Sunday Star Times – Business Section – New Zealand, written by Simon Day

Being employable could soon be more important than being employed in a fast-changing job market.

 

Are you honest, reliable, know how to drive a van and don’t mind handling urine samples? Then how about a career as a drug detection technician, just one of the jobs in hot demand as Kiwi society – and its job market – sees rapid change.

According to job website Seek.co.nz, technology is changing the world faster than we can adapt and new jobs are rising out of the ashes of industries that are getting rapidly left behind.

And this evolution means young New Zealanders need to be less fixated on a particular job and instead look to develop a range of employment skills.

“You are not aiming to be employed, you need to be employable, they are quite different,” says Auckland University manager of career development and employment services, Catherine Stephens.

There have also been big increases in demand for jobs such as social media managers, app developers, sustainability officers, and wellness advisors.

Last week there were 132 social media manager vacancies, and 37 advertised app development roles. Young social media users and device developers are becoming essential to companies who want to manage their online message and experience, according to Stephens.

Is your job on the way out?

The sustainability movement has produced roles within companies that want to be genuinely committed to reducing the environmental impact of their industry. Seek has started to see listings for sustainability officers across a number of industries, to audit the environmental commitments of companies.

“If the management believes it is a priority then the correct resources need to be attached to it, or otherwise it is just a good idea. You need someone who takes responsibility for it and manages it and enforces it,” she said.

Australian futurologist Morris Miselowski believes increased automation will do way with boring tasks, hopefully freeing workers for more creative work. That would, however, require a more skilled workforce and more innovation around recruitment for those taking on staff.

Miselowski sees a number of major changes in the job market in the future, including the rise of freelance workers, greater specialisation and the need for workers to be more proactive in developing their work skills.

Brace, too, for the increased importance for workers to possess “soft skills” such as interpersonal skills. The ability to show attributes such as empathy will also be of value to the future worker.

Miselowski predicts the average person’s working life will consist of six career changes and up to 14 individual job changes.

When former police drug detective Kirk Hardy founded the Drug Detection Agency (TDDA) 10 years ago it was the first workplace drug testing company in New Zealand. In the past five years the business has rapidly expanded and now employs over 100 people and is testing people in a number of professions.

It started with the “safety sensitive industries” such as construction, aviation and manufacturing. Drug testing has now become a part of many professional services and retailers job interview process. Accountants, lawyers, financiers and retailers are increasingly being drug tested when they make the short list of candidates for a job. They usually take hair samples that provide a six- to 12-month history of drug use for employers who are tracking regular drug use, not the occasional toke, says Hardy.

“Professional services have had a big shift into hair testing. They are looking if candidates have a propensity to use drugs, if someone has a habitual use of methamphetamine. The drug test has become one of those modules, like a credit check,” he said.

It is difficult to find employees with the integrity and tact required to administer the drug tests.

“You are dealing with people’s emotions. Tensions are high. You have to have empathy, you have to treat people with dignity,” Hardy said.

So, what does a social media manager do?

“Don’t worry,” I assured my wife after social media work commitments had delayed our 2010 holiday to late summer. “Nothing happens at the end of February.”

New Zealanders who knew what did happen will never forget it, and neither will I forget turning the car around so I could be back in the newsroom the following morning to help a social media audience hungry for information in the wake of the earthquake that devastated Christchurch on February 22, 2011.

First came the social media marathons, then the days of walking through the silt, floodwaters, and rubble as I took my smartphone on the road to help distressed residents tell their own stories over social media. Imagine using technology to bring families into a virtual community when their physical one was in absolute disarray.

Four years later I’m no longer a social media editor, but a social media manager – one of two employed by Spark. The effortlessly clever Jess Moloney handles the proactive marketing stuff while my focus is, as ever, on advocacy plus strengthening relationships in our Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram communities. Basically, it’s my job to care about people, to be sure that we’re listening to what they need and to report it in so we can repair or improve, and we’ll also return all the love sent our way.

Frith and Morgan are a social media manager’s dream come true – they’re the ones who maintain these relationships while I’m either giving direction on our tone of voice, or while my head’s up in the clouds where all the strategic thinking happens. Their jobs are newer than mine, and are evolving even faster.

I can’t say this was a lifelong dream. The job didn’t exist, and there’s no way I could have imagined it while I was flailing hopelessly in the sea as a twentysomething with no direction whatsoever.

I had ambition, though. I wanted to be useful to my community on the largest possible scale. Now, I feel I’m on my way. Thank goodness for technology.