Career Trends for 2025
I know we are all bombarded with “new year, new you” messages everywhere during these first weeks of the new year. We all know that New Year’s resolutions are notoriously difficult to maintain and that most of them fall by the wayside by mid-February. So, I won’t advise you to make monumental shifts in your career management strategy. I want to point out that you are the CEO of your career, so it’s incumbent upon you to manage your career just as you would any team or project. In line with that, here are some trends to keep on top of for 2025:
Accelerated Adoption of AI: Organizations are already seeing material benefits from generative AI use, reporting both cost decreases and revenue jumps associated with deploying the technology. The scale or way advanced AI adoption in the workplace will impact workers remains relatively unknown. Some potential effects could include replacing workers, complementing workers, freeing workers up to do more productive tasks, or creating new jobs.
Emphasis on Skills-Based Hiring: Skills-based hiring is a recruitment approach that evaluates candidates based on their skills rather than their education or past work experience. Employers have long relied on proxies like education or years of experience in a given role to signal that a candidate could perform a job. Instead, these unnecessary requirements weed out perfectly qualified candidates for seemingly arbitrary reasons. Hiring companies will begin shifting away from such proxies as educational pedigrees and years of experience and focusing on skills and competencies. Skills-based hiring can be implemented at all levels of the organization and reframes old thinking that places importance on a candidate’s history. Instead, this hiring practice identifies employees who have potential to deliver meaningful change.
Expansion of Remote and Hybrid Work Models: Over the past few years, the shift to hybrid/remote work has benefited various industries as all kinds of departments and teams gained access to new resources for virtual work. As a result, the general view of the workplace has radically changed. Despite the recent press coverage of Amazon’s mandate that all employees must be in-office five days per week, remote and hybrid work remain the models of choice by both employers and employees. The idea that “everyone” is going back to the office is a misconception. Some C-suite leaders might want everyone back in the office five days per week, but the data proves that workers are even more productive when they can work autonomously without commuting to their cubicles daily.
Growth in Green and Renewable Energy Jobs: Job postings for ‘green’ jobs are growing nearly twice as fast as the number of workers with the skills to fill them. Only one in eight people currently have skills relevant to abating the climate crisis, with women at a particular disadvantage. In high demand will be “green skills,” the knowledge, abilities, values, and attitudes needed to live in, develop, and support a sustainable and resource-efficient society. From green technologies to renewable energy solutions and ESG, there will be a market for those passionate about curtailing the progression of climate change and ensuring that corporations do their part to help in the crisis.
Increased Focus on Employee Wellbeing: The past few years have been hard on us all. From a global pandemic that disrupted and fundamentally changed how and where people work to mass layoffs in the tech industry, longer hours, and wages that haven’t kept pace with rising inflation, workers across industries feel overwhelmed, stressed, and burned out. Over 75% of employees and 63% of managers are under extreme stress. This is bad for business, and savvy employers recognize this. Such employers know that focusing on employee well-being increases employee engagement, satisfaction, and productivity.
Rise of Gen Z in Management Positions: Gen Zer’s are no longer strictly entry-level employees. They are rising into management roles at companies of all types and sizes. These digital natives are good at communication, comfortable working in virtual settings, and quickly adapt to the fast-paced change of technology. This generation values transparency, and companies looking to recruit top talent must walk the talk regarding honest and open communication.
Demand for Cybersecurity Professionals: Cybercrime rates are rising, and the growing number of attacks put lives at risk, costs companies millions, and threatens national security. This, combined with rapidly changing regulation, begets the need for people skilled in mitigating all types of organizational cyber risks—those to intellectual property, data, financial resources, and personal information. There is currently a dearth of such talent, which is obvious when you realize that there are nearly 4 million cybersecurity jobs currently vacant. It is predicted that the field will grow by 25% in 2025, making it one of the most innovative sectors of the economy. And with such growth comes enormous opportunity.
Here’s to a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2025! I look forward to the coming year and the continued success of my clients and followers.