Speaker 1: LinkedIn News.
Speaker 2: From LinkedIn News and I heard podcasts. This is let's
Speaker 2: talk offline. I'm Gianna Prudenti.
Speaker 3: And I'm Jamaie Jackson Gadsden. It's the holiday season, y'all.
Speaker 3: And if that we're doing something a little bit different
Speaker 3: this week. Now what's different, you might ask, Well, first,
Speaker 3: did you know that LinkedIn has a whole podcast network
Speaker 3: filled with other podcasts that talk all about work related topics?
Speaker 4: Mmmm?
Speaker 5: Now you know?
Speaker 3: So if that in mine? Over the next two weeks,
Speaker 3: gian and I want to share some of our favorite
Speaker 3: episodes from other shows in the LinkedIn podcast network.
Speaker 2: Ugh, I'm so excited. You know, we have some pretty
Speaker 2: amazing colleagues who also give really great advice on their shows,
Speaker 2: and we've learned a lot from the conversations they've had
Speaker 2: on their podcast. And this week we want to share
Speaker 2: an episode from Get Hired.
Speaker 3: Yep, one of our work besties. LinkedIn's Andrew Seaman spoke
Speaker 3: to Jill H. Fuller, Professor of Management Practice at Harvard
Speaker 3: Business School, about how AI is changing the future of
Speaker 3: work and hiring.
Speaker 2: AI is becoming a more prevalent part of all of
Speaker 2: our lives, especially when it comes to work and we
Speaker 2: loved this conversation because Andrew and Joseph really helped dispel
Speaker 2: some of the fears we might have when it comes
Speaker 2: to embracing new technology and understanding AI will only help
Speaker 2: us stay competitive in the job market. So we hope
Speaker 2: you enjoy this conversation from get Hired.
Speaker 6: From the way people apply for jobs and hiring managers
Speaker 6: screen applicants to the actual kind of roles available, AI
Speaker 6: is reshaping every aspect of getting hired today. AI powered
Speaker 6: tools hold enormous promise for job seekers, but they also
Speaker 6: pose some potential challenges. So how should you be thinking
Speaker 6: about your career in the context of AI, well, whether
Speaker 6: you're just starting out, looking to pivot, or trying to
Speaker 6: climb the ladder. We're getting into all of that on
Speaker 6: today's show. From LinkedIn News, This is Get Higher, a
Speaker 6: podcast for the ups and downs and the ever changing
Speaker 6: landscape of our professional lives. I'm and Andrew Seman, LinkedIn
Speaker 6: Senior Managing editor for Jobs and Career Development, bringing in
Speaker 6: conversations with people who, like me, want to see you
Speaker 6: succeed at work, at home, and everywhere in between. Joining
Speaker 6: me today is Joseph Fuller. He's a Professor of Management
Speaker 6: Practice at Harvard Business School and the co leader of
Speaker 6: the Managing the Future of Work initiative. Professor Fuller is
Speaker 6: an expert on what's known as the skill gap in
Speaker 6: the US labor force, which is the space between the
Speaker 6: current skills of the US workforce and the skills needed
Speaker 6: to get work done. He's written extensively about policy solutions
Speaker 6: to address it. We met up at the Walmart Opportunity
Speaker 6: Summit in Washington, d C. To discuss how AI is
Speaker 6: changing the nature of work and hiring. I kicked off
Speaker 6: our conversation by asking why it's so important to be
Speaker 6: thinking about the role of new technologies in the future
Speaker 6: of work right now?
Speaker 4: Can you tell us a.
Speaker 7: Little bit about what you think of today's gathering and
Speaker 7: sort of what you hope people will get out of it.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 1: I think today's gathering actually is a bit of a
Speaker 1: recognition that the way large companies particularly have been approaching
Speaker 1: challenges the labor market needs a refresh and rethink. People
Speaker 1: are executing as best as they know how the old
Speaker 1: playbook and the old playbook. They're not moving the ball
Speaker 1: at the rate they feel they need to. In terms
Speaker 1: of cultivating the right skills space, having more agile workforce,
Speaker 1: And there's some bedrock assumptions on which a lot of
Speaker 1: hiring has been made in talent sources made that the
Speaker 1: American K through twelve system will consistently create large numbers
Speaker 1: of people work ready, that the post secondary sector is
Speaker 1: going to create people with.
Speaker 5: Relevant job skills.
Speaker 1: It does, but forty four percent of college graduates end
Speaker 1: up underemployed when they graduate. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: warning sides. And I think when you get this many
Speaker 1: very prominent companies sending very senior people to something like this,
Speaker 1: it's more than just an active contributing to the commons
Speaker 1: and trying to do the right thing. It's an expression
Speaker 1: of business necessity.
Speaker 7: Well, what do you think about this moment overall, especially
Speaker 7: with the arrival of AI, because we're seeing the companies
Speaker 7: talk about skills, but with the specter of this huge
Speaker 7: technological shift.
Speaker 5: So how do you.
Speaker 7: Think people in the workforce who feel maybe like cogs
Speaker 7: and a wheel, how should they view this moment?
Speaker 5: Well, in terms of AIAI is really the.
Speaker 1: Culmination of an arc of technological development we've seen over
Speaker 1: the last twenty years. As many people understand AI of
Speaker 1: different forms has existed for a long time. Generative AI, though,
Speaker 1: was this capstone development, and it's going to be different
Speaker 1: than previous technologies insomuch as it has a couple of features.
Speaker 1: One is it's an augmentative technology, by which we mean
Speaker 1: it allows people to do elements of their job very well.
Speaker 1: It's not an automation technology. We're just one for one.
Speaker 1: You all the software in this case and the job
Speaker 1: goes away. It also is asymmetrically oriented toward knowledge workers
Speaker 1: and higher wage workers. Most technological revolutions have more or
Speaker 1: less addressed middle skills worker, lower wage workers, the bottom
Speaker 1: end of the white collar distribution. So this is going
Speaker 1: to very much affect different populations to both make it
Speaker 1: more productive but also make there be greater pressures on
Speaker 1: their employability. We're now at an age where, in multiple instances,
Speaker 1: the half life of a technology is about equal to
Speaker 1: the time it takes.
Speaker 5: To master the technology.
Speaker 1: That's just crazy that that's so off the map of
Speaker 1: the known world, And that gets us a little bit
Speaker 1: of the question about individuals AI. Our data suggests that
Speaker 1: people are very curious about AI, men of them are
Speaker 1: very hopeful about AI.
Speaker 5: So I think for.
Speaker 1: Individuals right now. The first thing you understand is this
Speaker 1: is here to stay. It's designed to be navigable by
Speaker 1: human being who can type, and pretty soon it'll do
Speaker 1: audio recognition.
Speaker 5: So playing with.
Speaker 1: It, even just the open available, no monthly fee, understanding
Speaker 1: that it's I want to show up in your work
Speaker 1: sooner or later. So it might be a little intimidating,
Speaker 1: but time to stick your toes.
Speaker 5: In the water in your work.
Speaker 7: You talk to a lot of companies and the sense
Speaker 7: I get from a lot of them is that they're
Speaker 7: kind of in the same boat where they're like, we
Speaker 7: want to use this technology, and obviously they are, yes,
Speaker 7: but at the same time they're still trying to be
Speaker 7: like how though, Like they're still trying to figure out
Speaker 7: exactly how it will be beneficial to them right.
Speaker 1: Yes, And what I'd add to that is, because it's
Speaker 1: an augmentative technology, it's much harder to adopt than an
Speaker 1: automation technology. A lot of companies are essentially saying, what.
Speaker 5: Wow, using this is complicated.
Speaker 1: Right when companies started moving from horsepower to electrical power,
Speaker 1: that was complicated too, and this technology is fundamentals at
Speaker 1: this is the most important technological development since controllable power.
Speaker 1: So what you have to do as a company to
Speaker 1: deploy it is you have to not intrude it into
Speaker 1: your existing process. You have to re engineer your process
Speaker 1: around what it can do. That means you're going to
Speaker 1: change job descriptions, metrics, the process flow and so a
Speaker 1: lot of companies are actually having negative margin impact right
Speaker 1: now because they're paying to spread AI three at the workforce,
Speaker 1: but they haven't had the confidence or the knowledge of
Speaker 1: yet what costs it could take out to offset those costs.
Speaker 1: So most adoption curves and your technology is like those
Speaker 1: are shaped like an s. Early adopters could be hobbyists.
Speaker 1: Even then the economics start to get more favorable scale
Speaker 1: economies and you get that ramp up, and then you
Speaker 1: get the late adopters that have no need for AI.
Speaker 1: Generative AI. It's actually jshaped. It's cash negative, margin negative
Speaker 1: right now. For a lot of companies, the question is
Speaker 1: how soon can they make the associated changes with the
Speaker 1: way that they do processes. Today, adopt AI displays those casts
Speaker 1: and then bounce out the other end, But when they
Speaker 1: bounce out, it's going to be with a very steep slope.
Speaker 7: What strikes me is how dynamic. It is like especially
Speaker 7: in customer service. Yes examples where you know, the high
Speaker 7: performers they don't benefit from AI, but the low performers
Speaker 7: in a call center they benefit.
Speaker 1: You're citing that MIT staff and research, which is terrific.
Speaker 1: It turns out as a great leveler. We did research
Speaker 1: at Harvard Business School on this as well, looking at
Speaker 1: analysts in a prominent consulting firm, and what you saw
Speaker 1: there which was startling, is that in the existing performance
Speaker 1: management system, a seventy fifth percentile performer was viewed as
Speaker 1: forty percent more productive than a twenty fifth percentile performer.
Speaker 1: That gap closed to about fifteen percent if both groups
Speaker 1: had access to AI. And I think this gets back
Speaker 1: to this how the individual should think about it. A
Speaker 1: lot of people are going to hear hears from new
Speaker 1: technology AI. Aren't Schwarzenegger, Oh my gosh and Matthew Broderick,
Speaker 1: you know and wherever that movie was called. And in fact,
Speaker 1: for many people, what it's going to do is help
Speaker 1: them do elements of their job which maybe don't come
Speaker 1: easily to them a lot better, with more confidence, better performance,
Speaker 1: which is going to enhance their standing with their employer,
Speaker 1: with their boss, and and the more comfortable you are
Speaker 1: with it, the more you're going to find it's going
Speaker 1: to free up time, especially for those urgent, unimportant things
Speaker 1: that tend to wreck your calendar. A lot of that
Speaker 1: kind of routine transactions and A will be very good
Speaker 1: at and you can escape that and focus on the
Speaker 1: higher value added activities.
Speaker 5: In your role.
Speaker 6: We'll be right back with Joseph Buller. And we're back
Speaker 6: with Joseph Buller, Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School.
Speaker 7: I think sort of also, what we're talking about here
Speaker 7: is for individuals to think of themselves not necessarily as
Speaker 7: like you know a teacher or you know accountant, but
Speaker 7: you have these skills and it can be transformed into
Speaker 7: different professions. How should people sort of view that because
Speaker 7: they might say, listen, I went to school to be
Speaker 7: a teacher or I went to school to be an accountant,
Speaker 7: and they may resist that.
Speaker 1: Well, there are certain jobs A technical writer would be
Speaker 1: a good example where it's going to be very hard
Speaker 1: to imagine future where a lot of those man hours
Speaker 1: are not displaced. But if you look, for example, what
Speaker 1: con Academy is doing with Conbigo and AI for teachers,
Speaker 1: it's doing everything from creating an environment where they're trying
Speaker 1: to teach the student how to use AI, but prevent
Speaker 1: the student from over relying on AI, but also doing
Speaker 1: diagnostics for what Jimmy or Jony actually understand or don't,
Speaker 1: but also giving feedback to the teacher. We looked at
Speaker 1: your twenty students in American history and they are very
Speaker 1: confused about the Louisiana purchase, or all over the map
Speaker 1: on causes of the Civil War, or frankly, none of.
Speaker 5: Them can write a topic sense.
Speaker 1: So the opportunity to make people, even in white collar
Speaker 1: trades like that more productive, focus on areas improvement and
Speaker 1: user satisfaction. I won't call students in high school customers,
Speaker 1: but an awful lot of opportunities let people do the
Speaker 1: part of the job they really enjoy, and it's the
Speaker 1: animating reason they pursued the profession the first place.
Speaker 5: We have ninety minimum two thousand.
Speaker 1: Word papers degrade in the next two weeks.
Speaker 5: I love my students.
Speaker 1: I think these will A lot of these will be
Speaker 1: really good papers, but I'm not looking forward to reading.
Speaker 1: You know, one hundred and eighty thousand words. That's the
Speaker 1: length of ANACRONAA.
Speaker 7: It sounds like there's so much potential for so many benefits,
Speaker 7: but it sounds like there might be definitely growing pains
Speaker 7: on all sides to get there right.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I think smart c suites, smart boards of
Speaker 1: directors are going to understand this is going to be
Speaker 1: a multi year program. I think heads of institutions or
Speaker 1: public servants that have service delivery roles like school committees
Speaker 1: and heads of school districts are going to have to
Speaker 1: understand that this is not going to be entirely easy.
Speaker 1: But there's incredible potential there just in the education sector alone,
Speaker 1: tunity to level the playing field. Let's go back to
Speaker 1: what you mentioned about customer service reps or I talked
Speaker 1: about consulting analysts exact same thing's going to happen for learners,
Speaker 1: for teachers, new teachers, and the ability to get big,
Speaker 1: big improvements in productivity and job satisfaction and user satisfaction
Speaker 1: in kind of a wind cube type model. It's going
Speaker 1: to be remarkable. I'm really an optimist about AI relative
Speaker 1: to legitimate uses. We have to fear AI in the
Speaker 1: hands of bad actors.
Speaker 7: What would you say you know from your experience for
Speaker 7: job seekers that are navigating the current kind of weird
Speaker 7: labor market. I think for most people, what would you
Speaker 7: say your best advice to them navigating that that landscape.
Speaker 1: We don't use the word weird at Harvard Business School,
Speaker 1: we use a technical term goofy. The current labor market
Speaker 1: is manifesting a couple of phenomena. The first is that
Speaker 1: we are a post industrial economy. It is an economy
Speaker 1: that requires digital literacy, not super digital competence. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you need to be able to code in
Speaker 1: Python or something, or explain how a touchscreen works, but
Speaker 1: you have to be comfortable with digital devices, and someone
Speaker 1: who isn't needs to find a way to address that. Also,
Speaker 1: it's very, very important to be able to demonstrate or
Speaker 1: find your social skills. A lot of younger people, unfortunately
Speaker 1: because of COVID, because the growth of social media, their
Speaker 1: amount of social interaction is lower than previous generations, even
Speaker 1: their older brothers and sisters and cousins.
Speaker 5: So how do you do those things?
Speaker 1: Because it sounds like I'm saying, well, if you don't
Speaker 1: have it by now, well, first of all, you can
Speaker 1: try to gain some experiences and the amount of free
Speaker 1: material that already exists, and the types of abilities that
Speaker 1: are going to come soon to address issues like that
Speaker 1: are pretty remarkable. Chat GPT already has ability to with
Speaker 1: a fairly brief tape of you speaking, replicate your voice
Speaker 1: with one hundred percent fidelity. So if you want to
Speaker 1: hear how you sound in a job interview, you'll be
Speaker 1: able to do that and actually have a conversation with
Speaker 1: your early enough with yourself. At Harvd Business School, we
Speaker 1: studied a few years ago where do business people go
Speaker 1: as a first source for an explanation of a business
Speaker 1: concept they don't feel the understand For many many years
Speaker 1: it actually was the Harvard Business Review, so we're very
Speaker 1: proud of that. It isn't the Harvard Business View anymore.
Speaker 5: It's YouTube.
Speaker 1: So if you want the resource in YouTube if you
Speaker 1: want to learn about something.
Speaker 5: Are awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So be honest about your portfolio of skill, try
Speaker 1: to augment them to degree you can, and look using
Speaker 1: resources like LinkedIn about what are the skills that people
Speaker 1: that have the job you aspire to talk about? What
Speaker 1: do they talk about in terms of what they did?
Speaker 1: Look at their preview jobs. Build a little bit of
Speaker 1: a portrait of what you think your desired industry and
Speaker 1: desired entry level position is seeking, and then be objective
Speaker 1: about contrasting what you've got versus what they're looking for,
Speaker 1: and see if you can't backfill a couple of spots
Speaker 1: you know, attributes or skills or experiences. If you're seeing
Speaker 1: a gap that you think is impeding you from realizing
Speaker 1: that ambition.
Speaker 7: I'm super helvil. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: You bet.
Speaker 6: That was Joseph Fuller, Professor of Management Practice at Harvard
Speaker 6: Business School. If you're leading today's conversation with a new
Speaker 6: learning to apply to your job search career, I'd like
Speaker 6: to invite you to write about it in a review
Speaker 6: on Apple Podcast. Our team really enjoys reading what you
Speaker 6: learn from our shows. Plus it helps other people discover
Speaker 6: our community. Speaking of community, remember that we're always here
Speaker 6: backing you up and cheering you on. Connect with me
Speaker 6: Andrew Seaman and the get Hired community on LinkedIn to
Speaker 6: continue the conversation. In fact, subscribe to my weekly newsletter
Speaker 6: that's called you Guessed It Get Hired to get even
Speaker 6: more information.
Speaker 4: Delivered to you every week. You can find those links
Speaker 4: in the show notes, and of course don't forget to
Speaker 4: click the follow or subscribe button to get our podcast
Speaker 4: delivered to you every Wednesday, because we'll be continuing these
Speaker 4: conversations on the next episode right here wherever you like
Speaker 4: to listen. Get Hired is a production of LinkedIn News.
Speaker 4: This episode was produced by Grace Rubin asaf Gedon engineered
Speaker 4: our show. Joe de Georgie mixed our show. Dave Pond
Speaker 4: as Head of News Production. Enrique Montalvo is our executive producer.
Speaker 4: Courtney Coop is the head of original Programming for LinkedIn.
Speaker 4: Dan Ropp is the editor in chief of LinkedIn, and
Speaker 4: I'm Andrew Seman. Until next time, stay well and best
Speaker 4: of luck.