Looking for a job in the age of A.I.

Daniel Shapero has been at LinkedIn since 2008, when the Great Recession rocked the labor market. He’s since risen through the ranks to become the company’s chief operating officer, guiding the platform through significant strategic shifts.

Now owned by Microsoft Corp., the professional networking site is taking on its next big transformation: artificial intelligence.

The interview has been edited for length.  

We’ll start with A.I., the topic du jour. What have you been hearing?

The biggest unknown, and probably the biggest change, is that almost every role is going to be rewritten in the context of A.I. From engineers to salespeople, marketers, finance professionals to lawyers — everyone’s going to be leveraging A.I. in some way. And so how does the talent team think about hiring people based on knowledge of leveraging A.I.? And how do they equip people to learn the new skills that are required?

You could argue it’s the largest skills transformation that we’re likely to go through in our lifetimes. You might even say that one of the most important skills in any job is just going to be understanding how to unlock the power of A.I. in your day-to-day.     

What do you see as the major skills that will be in demand?

When it comes to deploying A.I. technology, I think it will amplify trends we’ve been seeing for some time. So you’ve already seen a tremendously competitive environment for data scientists or platform engineers.

Before you might have said, “Oh, those skills are confined to a set of companies at the forefront of those technologies.” I think we’re going to move to an environment where that’s critical for any company that wants to deploy effective A.I. tech.  

Do you feel like there’s an element of generative A.I. that’s overhyped?

The number of practical applications that are going to improve how people work that are ready now is like nothing I’ve ever seen. From writing a message, to helping describe yourself in a way that’s attractive to an employer — those are things that are here now.

To have a technology that we’ve only just seen less than a year ago come into practical use across a wide range of areas is unprecedented. So I’m extremely optimistic. The value of generative A.I. in workflows in many professional settings is very real.  

Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase CEO) said recently that he thinks the next generation could have a 3 1⁄2-day workweek. What do you think?

Whether or not all of these benefits translate into leisure time, or more focus on the parts of our job that we enjoy and inspire us, I think that remains to be seen. But the promise of spending less time on the mundane, repetitive tasks, or the things that don’t tap into our humanity — that’s a wonderful positive.   

What advice would you give a young person entering a world in which A.I. is changing so much?

I would say, learn how to use the tools, try them out. People who are comfortable with these tools — just like people who are comfortable with technology in general — are going to have opportunities.

But there’s also going to be increased demand for human skills: communication and creativity.