Career shift

How to make a career shift? I think this is one of the questions that I have been thinking a lot recently and in fact, it bothers me a lot and a mere thought of the uncertainty in future weigh me down.

Based on the rosy images painted by the media, the promising industries in the next 10 to 20 years are those related with information technology or research and development. Logistics, biopharmaceutics, cybersecurity, apps developing, vertical farming and programming are some fields that I can think of. Manual works are soon replaced by artificial intelligence and operators by robots. There will be lesser and lesser blue collar jobs in future. It is not a wise choice to continue staying on the same position if you cannot see the determination of the company that you are working in to digitalize its business and invest more in R&D and developing the capabilities of its employees. 

I believe in many companies, impediment does exist when only a small group of considerably young people is tasked to spearhead the digitalization in a company. Many of the managers prefer the traditional ways of doing things and very usually unwittingly continue to manage in a way which is totally different from the new ways adopted in some of the biggest companies in the world. Also, with more competition from oversea companies due to open-market, some companies are struggling to survive with reducing revenue. No sufficient funding is invested into the digitalization even most of the decision makers in the companies are fully aware of the possible benefices and a dramatic reduction to the time and manpower squandered on doing something manually. For others, the talks on replacing manual works with the advanced technology sounds like gibberish and they just don’t agree that digitalization is a panacea to the performance of the company.

As an employee, nothing much we can do to affect the management’s decision and very often nowadays people give up a stable job and start a relatively low-paid job which serves as an entry point into the IT industry, thinking that using it as a stepping stone to gain experience and after a year or two they can move to the better positions in the same industry. However, no every one managed to do what they planned and some of them simply stuck at the entry job and found themselves impossible to move up the industry value chain. What would I do, if I am retrenched tomorrow? Perhaps I should have a backup plan and be well-prepared for whatever that might be coming. When grows older, the career selections become narrower and more difficult to start from zero.

(445 words)