Shift to Future-Safe Job Skills

Routine tasks of all types are fast being automated, everything from airline ticketing and grocery checking to software writing and laboratory procedures.

What's going to be left for people to do? Where should you focus your energies to be relevant in the years ahead? See "The 10 Key Business Survival Skills for Today."

MIND OVER TECHNOLOGY book, now available on Amazon, offers future-safe job options

A new book on off-peopling (bad news) and the new hyper-human work (good news) is now available from Amazon.com. It's Mind Over Technology -- Coming Out on Top as a Wired World Starts to Run on Automatic by futurist Richard W. Samson.

Read news reports about off-peopling. Automation has been acknowledged for some time, but its human impact has been largely overlooked. Hence the need for a new term, "off-peopling."

Job Search Basics

Sometimes the most productive job-finding methods are the very ones overlooked or underutilized. Check the advice of several experts and employment services.

How to Present Your Best Self

Renton Bond of Pennsylvannia, a former marketing manager (now retired) offers this job-search advice:

I was out of work several times and did consulting until I found another job. Got consulting jobs through contacts from co-workers or supervisors from previous employment or ad agencies I had worked with as their client.

The best help I got was from an agency which a company hired to assist me when they let me go. It's advice I have passed along to many others. I was told to write a page or two on each of the 10 things in my life I was most satisfied with, or proud of -- yes, even happiest doing -- throughout my life.

Not things I had a small part in, and not what the group I was in did collectively, but what I personally did to contribute to the group effort. Not necessarily connected with work. Could be community or club activity. Could be something from high school or college. Follow S.A.R. outline: Situation YOU faced, Action YOU took, Result of YOUR action.

Then condense each essay to a paragraph. Put in dollar figures or other specific figures wherever possible. Then condense this paragraph to 25 words or so. Take several days to do this. Let it gestate. Then, with help from others who know you well, sit back and discern what these 10 achievements tell you about yourself, what you most enjoy, what you are good at -- yes, even happiest doing.

With this new insight into yourself, unless the examples outside of your jobs are really notable, go back and select things from your jobs which illustrate these non-work things and use these work-related statements instead.

Then put a short headline on each of these 10 achievements (such as Department Leadership, Creating a Business, Foresight & Planning, Research & Analysis, Problem Brands, Market Testing, Problem Markets, Increasing Profit Year After Year). Top off these with heading "EVIDENCE OF EFFECTIVENESS." Put this section on first page of resume and brief outline of employment history on second page.

This approach helped me land a couple of good new jobs when I needed them, relatively fast.

An afterthought: Knowledge workers, used to using their brains, ought to be able to search for more gainful employment more intelligently than the pooly educated.

If you have experience or knowledge that would be helpful to others seeking jobs or independent income, please write a short piece and submit it for publication. Or click COMMENTS below to share your thoughts online.

Tired of 9-to-5 with Regular Companies?

Try this search link to explore alternative ways to make money, temporarily or permanently.

Looking for Contract or Freelance Work?

If you're between jobs or establishing a new service, check out this seach link. It could lead you to a job posting or matching service that could help.

WELCOME to JobSearch

EraNova Institute is testing this new service, JobSearch, to help people make the transition to new and better ways to earn a living. As business moves more and more tasks off people and onto automatic systems, everyone including knowledge workers will need to move up to less routine forms of employment.

Here's the place to search for the "next thing" you might do to make money ... while also making a difference ... at an ever higher level of creativity.

Invoking Google, JobSearch uses pre-tested searches to help you connect with major job sites such as HotJobs and Monster.com ... and with organizations that offer acccess to freelance work, career assistance, or other income-related help. When you do any income-related search, you will be presented with --

- A set of ads for resources you may be seeking, and
- Links to relevant information and resources on the Web.

Articles such as this one will give additional links (such as this link to the buzz about off-peopling). You'll learn about employment trends, new business and income opportunities, and career-advancement resources. In the articles and comments, you'll also find insights and data to help guide your progress as a contributing breadwinner during changing times.

Please add COMMENTS by clicking the link at the bottom of each article. Assist others by sharing your knowledge; and let us know how we might extend and improve JobSearch.

Think of JobSearch as plain old search with a bit of pre-searching done for you, plus editorial guidance for framing your own searches in more productive ways.

When seeking a job, contract work, or new clients, many people get stuck in just a few habitual methods. JobSearch can help you broaden your horizons.

Bookmark JobSearch. Come here often. Search ... find ... and help others search and find, for the better, more fulfilling life we all seek.