Employment Evergreen Opinions

This Year At Work Put Yourself Out of Job

Career Geek -put yourself out of job
Written by Faizan Patankar

Technological advancements generally render the more traditional jobs obsolete. There’s this wonderful line from William Gibson, the science-fiction writer. He said,

The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet.

It’s true of the jobs industry. This isn’t a latest phenomenon.

15-20 years ago a lot of people were still involved in agriculture. Then came the machines and there aren’t as many people required as there used to be. It took a long time for that shift to happen, but people eventually picked up work in non-agricultural industries.

The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet. Click To Tweet

However, the exponentiation Moore’s law means people today have to be more adaptable as the rate of change increases.

Disruptive technology is rapidly encroaching various industries. These will make the more traditional jobs obsolete. It goes without saying, that you have to pick up a new skill, each year, to stay relevant.

P.S. These are the jobs which over the next two decades will have robots replacing humans completely

But I propose a more simpler way of looking at the problem and keeping yourself relevant to the your industry.

Try to put your current self out of job each year.

What the heck am I smoking?

… hear me out

Here’s a generic image of each individual’s current situation.

  • You have daily / weekly tasks you have to do (green)
  • Other tasks you learnt / know how to do (black outline)
  • All the other things that need doing (red)

Career Geek -what needs doing

There are tasks you do day-in day-out and these are the ones you will have to keep doing. One can argue, “this is what you are paid to do”.

Now, if you were focusing on putting your current self out of job. What you should do is, look for ways to automate what you currently do.

..and once you automate your tasks or improve processes to lean them out, then move on. And when I say move on, I mean move onto the “things that need doing” in the red bubble.

This way, you will stay relevant to the business. And at the same time embrace technology to make the place more efficient.

The truth is, with or without you, someone out there is creating the disruptive technology to automate what you currently do.

Ahemm… look at UBER. They are a killer startup and they’ve already started working on how to remove drivers and embrace self-driving cars. If a $50B company can do that think about how easy it is to replace what you do.

From this moment onwards, focus on putting your current self out of job. Take on new opportunities and even it would be even better if you go and make those opportunities.

Let me know in comments what you think about this strategy. Am I being too crazy? And share this post with your friends and colleagues to hear what they think!

Hit me up on LinkedIn.

P.P.S – I love writing disruptive stories, like in 2015 when I advised This Year At Work, Create Problems

About the author

Faizan Patankar

I started Career Geek Blog in 2011 to share my experience in job-hunting. I now focus on careers industry and blogging is just a tool to share that info. Love hacking careers. During the day I focus on my hobby - Engineering.

5 Comments

  • I love this post because it’s not crazy at all! Everyone needs to evolve and keep up with how quickly technology is evolving. If you don’t learn new skills, you become lost or outsourced. I’d add one skill to keep refining is relationship building. Robots are nice and all, but they cannot take away the human touch.

    • Thanks Emily!

      And you are correct. Relationship building is something that we need to focus on. It maybe the differentiator in in future! Soft skills might end up being the core skills in future career market.

      Faiz @ Career Geek

  • Man your article is awesome! It got me a little anxious in a positive way. In other words, I did a quick review of how I manage my time and resources, what level my complacency is at and what it’s doing to my life. I do have dormant and yet essential skills that need revisiting. There’s no point in waiting to “wish” when I can do something about career life now.

    • Thanks Ini,

      It’s always cool to keep skills refreshed. And skills will never go out of fashion. As long as you embrace the change and know that some day you may have to automate your skills is important. What I imagine as a future scenario is – people with skills brought in to automate that part of the business. These people will rapidly move on once their skills are automated. I am focussing on getting different skills – I don’t even think how they connect. Like I am good at Engineering, Communication, And now learning about Marketing.

  • Awesome post! If you aren’t evolving your skills and your mindset, you are going to fall behind. Besides, who wants to be doing the same work the same way 25 years from now? I hope that I will be a heck of a lot better at what I do and the way I do it by then 🙂