LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky shares his insights around the job market and talent shifts in a landscape increasingly—and rapidly—shaped by automation.
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00:00You know, to, again, to maybe reframe this one a little bit, I'm two for two on reframing
00:05both your questions now.
00:06So, thanks.
00:07We're so accustomed to that.
00:10That's what the people we interview do all the time.
00:13We're really just props.
00:14The questions we ask are irrelevant.
00:16And when you reframe a question, it helps you provide the kind of answer you want it
00:20to provide.
00:21So, yeah, go ahead.
00:22What's that?
00:23Do you have a question for my answer?
00:27Exactly.
00:28Welcome to Leadership Next, the podcast about the changing rules of business leadership.
00:33I'm Alan Murray, and I'm Michal Evron.
00:37You know, there are lots of people who are worried that AI is going to eliminate jobs,
00:42maybe their job.
00:43There are others who say, oh, it'll eliminate some jobs, but it'll create even more.
00:48And all of us are just speculating, but you have the data.
00:52So what does your data show?
00:55Where are skills and jobs in less demand and what skills are in more demand as we move
01:03into this profound technological change?
01:06It's really important for people to change the way you think about jobs.
01:11Jobs historically have been thought about as a title.
01:16But fundamentally, if you can take a different view, which is jobs as a set of tasks, your
01:22job is a set of tasks, my job is a set of tasks, everybody's job to be done is a set
01:28of tasks.
01:29And when you can start to really break down every job as a set of tasks, you can then
01:34take the next step to understand where technology can help either augment or make certain tasks
01:42more efficient or certain tasks are going to be just completely automated.
01:46Then you start to realize that, oh, you know what, like, if your job is just a set of tasks
01:52that is going to be automated, you need to start looking for a new job.
01:57So one of the things that we're doing across LinkedIn is taking every role in the world
02:01and doing a score of certain jobs as tasks and understanding that, hey, there's certain
02:05jobs like, you know, a lot of copywriting or translation type jobs where the majority
02:11of the tasks to do those jobs are tasks that can be automated.
02:14So you know, it's important to start thinking about a new job.
02:19The majority of jobs though in the world are the types of jobs where, you know, a specific
02:26portion of those tasks will be automated and you need to learn how to leverage those tools
02:31to help in that part of your job, but still a lot of human skills are needed for the majority
02:37of the jobs.
02:38Yeah.
02:39So give us some examples of skills that you think are going to be more valuable in the
02:43future because of what's happening now.
02:45First and foremost, it is really important to learn, learn, learn your way into using
02:52these AI tools.
02:53It's only going to help you in whatever job that you're doing to, you know, be able to
02:58leverage these tools to help you be more productive.
03:00My big bet is on people skills, you know, learning how to build people skills, communicating,
03:07knowing what to do when your camera falls off of your computer during a podcast interview.
03:13It's just, just so our listeners know, just happened to Ryan, he did a total eclipse right
03:18in the middle of the interview, he's just gone.
03:22Yeah.
03:23EQ, communication, collaboration, creativity.
03:28That's a place where, you know, I would be putting a lot of time and effort if I was
03:34just entering the workforce or thinking about what the future might look like.
03:38And then I think that there's this concept, which is for so long, we've been taught or
03:45thought about the importance is to build for stability.
03:50And I think the future is more about building for agility instead of stability, being able
03:56to adapt, being able to, you know, take on something new.
04:00The way I did my job last year is going to be the way I'm going to do my job this year.
04:04So I think a lot of that goes into what I would at least be thinking about right now
04:08entering the workforce, or at least I'm thinking about for myself transitioning, you know,
04:12through a leadership job that's always changing as well.
04:15So what role do college degrees play in all of this?
04:19Are they important for different reasons?
04:21Because it's not just the skills that you accrue through a degree, maybe not just a
04:28four-year degree, but it's also EQ, right?
04:33The last part is spot on, especially on the EQ side.
04:35And, you know, I'm not sure that outside of being with a group of people doing work or
04:43being with a group of people at a school, et cetera, there's been a real strong way
04:46to teach, you know, a lot of people's skills besides just kind of being in that environment.
04:52But I think it's an area of opportunity that, you know, as a society, we need to really
04:56figure out.
04:58In terms of, you know, college degrees in general, I think degrees are important insofar
05:05as they contain the set of skills that are really important and necessary to be productive
05:11in society.
05:14Historically, recruiters would use degrees as, you know, the way to assess or find talent
05:22because we had no better view to do it.
05:25So, for example, you see a lot of recruiters do things like, well, I just want to see candidates
05:30that, you know, went to Princeton, someone went to Princeton, they must be smart.
05:34Or they, you know, you know, or a previous company, this person used to work at Google,
05:38they must be smart as well.
05:40And when you only look at, I don't know, the degree or the pedigree on its own, as opposed
05:47to the skills underneath it, two things happen.
05:50Number one, everyone's looking at the same group of talent because all the recruiters
05:53do the same search, show people who, you know, used to work at Google and went to
05:56Princeton.
05:57It's like everyone's looking at this tiny group of people, which does not create a very
06:01equitable or efficient labor market.
06:04And number two, it turns out that, you know, oftentimes those degrees alone aren't signal
06:10enough for what needs to be, you know, done inside of the job.
06:14So we've been pushing a lot on, you know, skills are the currency, the actual skills
06:19that need to be done.
06:21And it falls in line really well with this idea of the future, about looking at jobs
06:25as a set of tasks, as opposed to just the job title itself.
06:29I think across the board, we're requiring, the site is going to require ourselves to
06:32go a level deeper in terms of what are the actual, you know, skills or tasks to be done
06:37instead of just relying on the, you know, the name of the degree alone.
06:41But I really think you're onto something though with the EQ point, and that's something we
06:45need to figure out.