WEBVTT - There's an Easier Way to Change Careers 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.800 Let's face it, robots are going to take your job, 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:08.239 that is, if they haven't already. Automation is taking over 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:12.920 lots of different fields. We know this, but what exactly 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:27.280 are we supposed to do about it? This is game plan. Hi. 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.680 I'm Francesco Leavie and I'm Rebecca Greenfield, and this week 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.239 we're going to talk about what it takes to do 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.320 another job well with the skills you have. So we 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:39.680 hear all the time about what what is it exactly 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.120 that's threatening American jobs? This is something that's in the 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.120 news a lot um. It's sort of a political football, 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:49.000 but we know that a big factor in people losing 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.080 jobs is automation. Robots can do a lot of things 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.960 that they couldn't do before. And that's not just factory work. 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:00.000 That's jobs even like yours and my Inbecca. Yes, they're 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.760 are robots that can write news stories. And we even 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:05.160 did a show on this back in December while you're 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.959 out on leave and kind of talked about the state 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.280 of automation now because as you said, there was a 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.480 lot of scary talk about it. And I think there 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.199 are two interesting statistics. So that one, there's this widely 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:21.760 cited paper that says almost half of jobs can be automatable, 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:24.399 and there's some debate if that's like parts of jobs 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.360 or if that's actual jobs. But there are jobs that 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.959 you wouldn't expect being automated away now. It's not just manufacturing. 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.680 It's things like paralegals or even financial analysts and yes, 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.080 even journalists. Um. And then another part of the episode, 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.800 we talked about the jobs that are the most popular 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:43.360 right now are the fastest scrowing jobs are jobs that 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:46.600 are the least automatable. So it's things that have a 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.080 lot of social skills and things that robots aren't very 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:51.080 good at right now. Yes, so for those people who 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:53.880 have had long careers doing something that now a robot 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.480 can do, like certain types of manufacturing, say, I think 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.240 a lot of people talk about job retraining as this 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:03.720 like catch all solution. Basically just send all those you know, 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:08.200 coal miners or steel workers to coding boot camp and 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:10.040 they'll figure it out. And I feel like that's an 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:14.840 oversimplified solution. Yeah, I think it's one if you're in 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.640 the middle of your career getting your head around this 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.280 idea of learning a whole new skill for maybe not 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.360 that many more years of your working life. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.040 And if you have to change careers, that often goes 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.280 along with doing retraining like what we just talked about, 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:33.920 and probably taking a pay cut and just basically like 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.360 taking a few steps back down the career ladder to 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.720 get started again. So I think that there's another way 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.200 of looking at it, which is not what other job 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.280 or what other field could I enter that is kind 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.000 of like the one I'm in now, But what other 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:52.520 job could I do, even if it's nothing like the 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.040 one I have now that requires the same skills I'm 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:56.720 using for my current job, or the skills that I'm 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:58.880 good at. And so the New York Times just did 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:02.040 a deep dive into this. They built this really cool 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.720 graphic where they took every skill that's required for every 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:07.919 job according to the Department of Labor and mapped it 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.800 on the scatter plot so that you can actually see 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.760 what skills go to what jobs and see how close 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.400 your job might be to another job that you don't 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:22.240 even expect. So, like, my job editor is pretty close 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.320 to elementary school teacher in terms of how the skills 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:27.480 for that job line up. How do you feel about 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.720 that career change? I would love to be an elementary teacher. 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:34.960 I mean you get summers off and kids are cute. Yeah, 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.160 definitely you should go to the job and think about 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:42.040 the times you won't be working. I think it would 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:43.600 be fun to be aroun kids all day. Would probably 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:45.839 be really stressful, but so as being an editor. Yeah, 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:50.200 you're basically around children all day. They also excellent writers, yea. 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.280 They also used the same data to build a fun 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.440 little tool that tells you what your opposite job is. Yeah. 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.640 I saw this going around on Twitter, and the popular 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.160 one was your opposite job model. Model is the opposite 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:07.280 of editor. But which I don't I disagree? Okay, I 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.440 think it's not mutually exclusive. I bet there are some 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:14.640 editors who are models. I'd be surprised. But it's not 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.400 to say that models don't have skills that couldn't necessarily 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:20.840 transfer to other jobs. They might just not be using 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.800 them and modeling. Or you're an editor, it doesn't mean 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:26.520 you can't be a model. It's not like the skills 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.560 to be an editor don't exclude you from modeling. Right. 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:31.440 That's an important thing to think about when you're looking 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.960 at charts like this, like it's going to tell you 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.000 what other jobs have skills where they are like the 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.279 skills you're currently using in your job. But that doesn't 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.440 mean that you don't have other skills you're not using 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:42.920 in your job, or you couldn't be good at other 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.479 things that you're just like not doing every day right now, 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.520 that's right, I'm multitalented. Yeah, you could. You could probably 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:51.840 be anything if you put your mind to Secca. That's right. 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:53.840 That's what they told us millennials, and we're growing up. 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.960 You can do anything you want. Well, to get a 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.479 little bit more into what you actually can and should 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.440 do if you want to change your career, I talked 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:08.320 to the co author of that article, Claire Kane. Miller 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:10.680 is a reporter for The Upshot at the New York Times, 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:13.880 where she covers gender and work. Thanks for joining us, Claire, 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.760 it's great to be here. So you recently wrote a 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:21.359 piece looking at the skills that you need for different jobs, 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.480 and you wrote that many of the skills needed to 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.400 do fading jobs are applicable to growing jobs. Can you 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.120 sort of explain what you mean by that? Sure, So 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.279 there's this notion that if you lose your job, particularly 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:38.080 in certain industries like those that require a lot of 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.800 manual labor, but really across industries that it can be 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.280 really really hard to find a new one, especially if 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.880 the reason you lost your job is because that occupation 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:49.520 is just shrinking because machines are doing more of the 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.560 work there, UM, and they're just aren't as many jobs available, 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:54.240 and so there's a lot of people who are just 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.719 stuck and they're unemployed, and they feel like there's nowhere 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:00.440 they can turn. And there's been a lot of talk 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.240 about this. UM. The Trump administration has been talking about 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.000 it a lot lately, and they've been calling it the 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.800 skills gap and saying that they hear from c e 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:11.800 o s that they have a ton of jobs available 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.760 and they're empty, and the problem is that nobody, um, 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:17.680 none of the employees who are looking for jobs have 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.880 the right skills, the skills that the CEOs need. And 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.840 we we took another look at it, and we found 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.560 that sure, that's the case some of the time, UM, 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.839 but it's also true that a lot of unemployed people 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.200 do have a lot of skills that are applicable to 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:37.200 other careers. But for a ton of different reasons, UM, 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:41.600 related to the way that our labor force is set up. 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.520 It's very very hard for them to switch careers, to 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:48.520 even know that their skills are applicable to other jobs, 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.240 and for hiring managers or CEOs um to be able 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.680 to see their potential. Yeah, you created this really cool 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:57.760 tool that lets you look at the skills that you 0:06:57.839 --> 0:06:59.800 have for your current job and what other jobs might 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.640 be similar are different. Um, And before we get into that, 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:04.880 just tell me a little bit about the research that 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:06.719 you did and where you got the data, what you 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.840 were kind of looking to find. So the Labor Department 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.080 keeps this database called oh net and it breaks every 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:18.080 single job that you can imagine down into the exact 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:22.160 skills that are needed to do that job. And UM, 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.520 so it is stuff like, um, I'm looking, for example 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.280 right now, at museum curator. So a museum curator, you know, 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:33.720 needs skills like history and knowledge of history and needs 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.800 to manage material resources, but also needs to be good 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.960 at communicating with other people and scheduling work and activities. 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.760 So it's like a whole host of of different skills 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.640 and own it um breaks jobs down into those skills. 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:48.560 And so we looked at that to try to answer 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:52.520 the question is there really more skill overlap between jobs 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:56.720 than we realize and what did you find. We found 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.720 that there absolutely is there is a certain segment of jobs, 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:01.840 and the are the jobs that are either very physical 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.000 and very routine, like working in a warehouse or working 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:08.000 in a factory. Those kind of jobs have been automated 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.240 and there is not, in a lot of cases a 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.600 lot of similarity UM to other jobs that are available 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:15.840 right now. That is sort of the biggest gap in 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:18.280 the labor market. So I'm not trying to say that 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.400 there's not a group of people who really are suffering 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.600 and whose occupations have gone away and they don't necessarily 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.440 have a lot of skills that are easily applicable. But 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:32.720 even for them, and especially for other UM kinds of workers, 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.160 there really is a lot more overlap. For example, our 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:40.600 chart found that UM lawyers and clergy members do a 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:44.680 lot of the same things. Kindergarten teachers, elementary school teachers, 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.040 and editors do a lot of the same things. UM 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:52.480 cooks and restaurants, and UM cashiers or ushers do a 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.720 lot of the same things. So UM, there is you know, 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.160 there is more overlap than people realize, and the problem 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:01.600 comes down to how people actually search for jobs and 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.600 how people hire for jobs. Yeah, how do you sort 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:07.840 of find out what skills you have? Like I think 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:10.680 most people have a general idea, but how do you 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.040 start to map yourself to these skills that the Labor 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.800 Department keeps track of. So oh net made by the 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.680 Labor Department is supposed to be used by you know, 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:22.920 not just data journalists but also uh, you know, average 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.920 people who are looking up to find information about their 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.640 career paths. So you can go there, but it's not 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:33.000 the easiest thing to use, and frankly, the United States 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.199 doesn't have a ton of great resources for job seekers. 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.640 There are some new nonprofits that are working on this. 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.720 One is called Opportunity at Work and another is called 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.560 Skillful And what they're doing is basically trying to take 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.839 people and say, here are your skills. Here are the 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.719 skills that you have learned to do. And maybe you 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.040 learn to do that in college, maybe you learn to 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.800 do that as a volunteer. Maybe you worked in the 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.080 mail room, but you worked they're long enough at the 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:03.760 company that you learned and had to do other skills 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.080 that might not show up on your resume. When someone 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.000 just sees that you worked in the mail room, you 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:09.720 know you learned. You could have learned these in a 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:11.720 lot of different places, but here are your skills and 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.440 will help coach you um to find a new job. Now. 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:18.760 Of course, that kind of personal coaching that these nonprofits 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:23.120 offer is great, and it's not necessarily accessible for everyone. 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:27.160 And so another fix that people say needs to happen 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:31.680 is for employers to think really hard about how they hire. Now. 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.800 A lot of hiring has to do with credentials on 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.240 a resume. As you know, a lot of resumes are 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.680 just scanned now by software to weed out the ones 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.240 that are not applicable, and so things people are looking 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.640 for are a college degree. Definitely need a four year degree. 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:48.640 Sometimes even where did you go to college? If it's 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:50.800 not one of these twenty five schools, We're not even 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.000 going to look at that resume those kind of things. 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.040 And and the argument is, these are things from your 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:58.319 past that you can't change. If you didn't go to college, 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:00.800 you know, and you are forty years old with a 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:02.400 mortgage and two kids, you might not be able to 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:04.360 afford to go to college now, but you might have 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:09.400 built up skills that would make you UM talented to 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.120 do a certain job even if you didn't have that degree. 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.720 So the idea is if hiring managers could change the 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.280 way that they look at people and look at resumes 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:22.400 um to test for skills as opposed to credentials. Of course, 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:24.559 that that's a big problem to solving a big change 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.240 in the way a lot of people hire. Yeah, it 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:28.520 seems to me that even if you do have a 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:32.920 college degree, you can find another field that you might 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.880 have really good skills for. But getting an employer, getting 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:40.160 a hiring manager to take a risk on you, you know, 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.120 hiring somebody who does a completely different type of job, 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.240 that seems like a whole other can of worms, Like, 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.080 is there any is there any way people can help 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.160 sort of sell themselves to employers once they find out 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.760 like I'd be really good at being a clergy you know, 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:57.400 I'm a lawyer and I'd be really good at being 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.319 a clergyman or whatever the example was you gave, Right, 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.960 It's it's coming on employees obviously to try to sell 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.199 themselves to think, you know, just to think outside the 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.320 box in the first place about what other jobs that 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:12.280 they might be um eligible for, qualified for, and then 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.880 to convince employers. But I think the burden is often 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:18.400 really unemployers. So one thing that employers can do is 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:23.719 skills based interviews where instead of you know, screening resumes 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:26.920 for credentials, they're actually asking people to come in and 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.360 do part of the job. For an editor, it might 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:33.160 be you know, doing an editing a story. Um that 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:35.080 that is an actual part of the job, and then 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:36.880 you can see if the person has those skills. So 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:39.600 there's a lot of those kind of um skills based 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:44.280 interviews that people say takes a lot of bias out 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.960 bias about your past credentials, and maybe other kinds of 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.160 bias that might come in to the interview process. Another 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.800 issue is, as you mentioned, employers have very little incentive 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.439 to train people right now and to take risks on people. 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.439 And if you think back, you know, fifty seventy five 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:01.679 years bill joined a company and then they stayed there 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:03.880 for the rest of their career, So there was loyalty 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:06.520 from both sides, and both sides has had a lot 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:09.000 of incentive to invest in the other. But now a 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:12.360 company doesn't know if an employee is going to take 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.240 the skills they learned on the job and just go 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.000 to the competitor down the street. And at the same time, 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.400 an employee doesn't know if they you know, go and 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.760 invest in new skills or some sort of retraining, is 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:24.640 the company just going to lay them off next year 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:28.040 and that investment won't have been worthwhile. So um, there's 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.400 not that same loyalty and people don't have the same 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:34.280 incentive one. So one solution to that is apprenticeships, which 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.240 is um something that Trump administration has talked about, as 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.640 did the Obama administration. It's really a bipartisan approach and 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:44.720 that's the idea of learning on the job. So someone 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.320 is getting paid and they are doing the job UM 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.920 while they're also you know, testing out their skills and 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:55.200 learning um learning new skills. So so in that's in 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.320 that sense the employer doesn't have to depend on a 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.280 school UM to teach these skills. I can actually keep 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:01.840 to these skills. But at the same time, it's getting 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:03.800 work out of the person and the person is getting 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:06.480 paid UM, so that the incentives are more aligned on 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.880 both sides. Do you think people shut themselves off from 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:13.560 career possibilities because they aren't aware of how their skills 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:15.600 might transfer, like could a tool like this help them 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.320 with that? They absolutely shut themselves off from other curse 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:21.720 because they're not aware. I mean, I think when people 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:23.800 I think, what's interesting to me about own itt is 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:28.400 it includes these skills like communicating with people outside your company. 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:32.080 That is an extremely valuable skill that not everyone is 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.640 good at. If you're good at it, that could apply 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:37.160 to a ton of different jobs. But my guess is 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:39.600 that when you ask people about what they do day 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:41.640 to day, they might say, you know, oh, I do 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.000 these spreadsheets and I have these meetings, But they don't 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.760 necessarily think I'm a really good communicator and that is 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.000 a skill I have that is essential to my job 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.840 and could be essential, um in a in a completely 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:54.400 different career. So in that sense, I think these kind 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.200 of tools that own it offers UM I hope that 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.720 our chart offers, and also that these these nonprofits like 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:04.760 Skillful and Opportunity at Work offer is being able to 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.720 think of yourself a little bit differently. But it's also 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:10.880 a challenge. One economist that I talked to, whose name 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.640 is Lawrence Cats at Harvard, is a labor economist. He 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:18.760 says it's often not a skills mismatch, but an identity mismatch. 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:20.960 So even if you do have the skills to do 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:24.120 another job, it can be very hard to make that 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.880 leap and to think of yourself as something different. If 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.360 you thought of yourself as a welder your whole life, 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.960 you know, maybe you could work in an automated factory 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.360 behind a computer, but you thought of yourself as a welder. 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:38.760 Your identity is that you work with your hands, and 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.480 the idea of, you know, working behind a computer is 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:45.240 just not your identity. So you might have skills that apply, um, 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.680 but you also need to make that mental leap. That's 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.360 really interesting. Yeah, you had a couple of examples of 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.200 anecdotes in your story. One was a I think like 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.560 a laid off oil rig worker who who was retrained 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.440 to program machines for advanced manufacturing. And and you had 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:05.520 a paralegal who who changed careers to become a duela UM. 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.040 And I wonder if you talked to those people about 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.400 making that mental leap and whether they did it out 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:13.200 of necessity or kind of what sparked them to do that. 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.840 So the oil rig worker did it purely out of necessity. 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:22.080 He was unemployed, um, all the all all the mining 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.720 plants in the area had been shut down, and he 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.400 didn't think that he could get another job. He lived 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:30.360 in Appalachia. This is all he knew how to do, 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.880 and the work that he was doing simply no longer existed. 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.600 And he found out about a training program to train 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:42.720 out of work miners to do sort of computerized factory 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:46.600 work essentially. And I talked to the person who runs 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:49.720 that program, and she said, it's actually really similar skills. 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.400 It's working with your hands, understanding how machinery works. But 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.360 these people didn't think of themselves that way. But he 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:58.520 signed up for the training program because he really had 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:01.720 no other choice. And he said, actually, it is pretty 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:03.520 similar to my old job in a lot of ways, 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:05.440 and it's different in some ways. And I learned those ways, 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:07.679 but I was able to apply my old skip my 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:12.400 old skills now. The parallegal I talked to, she decided 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.159 to become a doula and then a midwife because she 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:17.679 decided she was interested in something else. She did not 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.680 quite realize how much those skills overlapped. But after being 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:25.440 a paralegal for so many years and she became a midwife, 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:28.040 and she said, actually, there is so much overlap here, 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.200 so much more than I realized. For example, a lot 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:33.720 of being a paralegal is you know, reading through a 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.679 ton of documents and then making notes and writing in 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:39.920 a really clear, concise way so that other lawyers working 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:42.960 on the case can understand what that pile of documents 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:45.520 is about and not have to read it themselves. Being 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:49.600 a midwife requires seeing a patient and writing and communicating 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.400 in a really clear and concise way. You know where 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:54.959 they're at with their health and their pregnancy, so that 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.200 when a different midwife or a doctor comes in, or 0:17:57.200 --> 0:17:59.359 when they show up at a hospital and delivery, someone 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:03.080 can look at their chart and understand exactly where they're at. So, 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:04.840 you know, it's a skill that you might not think of, 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.080 and it's actually essential to both jobs. Yeah, it's it's 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:09.960 super interesting, and it stands to reason that if you 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.439 are if you are interested in a career change, and 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.159 you're passionate about doing something, even if it feels really different, 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:18.960 you might be drawn to it for a lot of 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:21.240 the same reasons that you're drawn to your current career, 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.160 Like those skills might line up because those are both 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.520 you know, because those careers are both well suited to 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.960 you exactly, and you know, it's a shame that there 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:35.320 is not an easier way right now to both see 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:38.880 break down which skills you have and which skills might 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.040 be accessible, and then you know, to convince employers that 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.840 actually I can do this job. And and that's why 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.840 I do think it is part of the responsibility falls 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.639 on employers to think a little bit differently about how 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:54.280 they hire and take risks on more people. Before I 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.439 let you go. There's just one more tool that you 0:18:57.440 --> 0:18:59.440 guys created at the Upshot that I wanted to chat 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:01.800 with you about out and I'm not sure if you 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:03.359 were directly involved in it, but it seems like it 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.480 came from the same data set, which is a tool 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:08.520 that lets you plug in your current job and find 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:11.840 what job is your exact opposite. Did you work on 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:14.240 that or was that just from the same data This 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.600 was from the same data set that I've worked on 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.480 with my colleague um Quattron Booie, who is also on 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:24.280 the Upshot. He's a graphics editor. And yeah, it's a 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:26.840 it's a really cool graphic that tells you things, Like 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.440 you know, we've been talking about job similarities and where 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.679 they overlap. This is this is the opposite what's most different, 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:35.879 So like a kindergarten teachers opposite job as a physicist, 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:39.560 and a writer's opposite job is a mobile home installer, 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:42.960 for example. Is there any way a job seecret or 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.399 somebody just like looking to improve themselves in their career, 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.720 uh could use that tool as something constructive and not 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.960 just sort of a fun a fun curiosity. I think 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:56.240 so absolutely, because what it really does is help you 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:59.320 focus on the nature of your job. You know, a 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:00.800 lot of us go to work every day and we 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.119 do our job, and like I was saying earlier, we 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:06.639 don't really realize which skills were using. Or maybe we 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.400 realize the basic skills, but we don't understand the nitty 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:11.480 gritty skills. And I think this tool of the opposite 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.480 jobs tool helps you realize, um that your job is 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:18.240 really broken down into a lot of different skills. And 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:20.280 if you start thinking about it that way, and so 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:23.199 instead of thinking, well, I am a teacher, or I 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.000 am a librarian, or I am a physicist, you think, well, 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:28.680 I really have to do a lot of creative thinking 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.200 and a lot of communicating, or you know, I really 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.439 need to have a lot of gross gross motor coordination 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.280