The only category placed ahead of “Technical Skills” on my resume in 2020 is “Education," but this is just a formality. The place where you got your degree (or even if you got your degree) is becoming less important. This is increasingly true with shifts towards remote education forced by COVID-19 and remote alternatives such as Lambda School looking increasingly attractive. There is a high degree of value placed on technical skills in the current environment. A job applicant's answer to “What are your technical skills?” can set themselves apart. Soft skills are still important in 2020, but technical skills are where job applicants gain an edge. This will continue for the next 10 years.

And then, this change will reverse itself. “What are your technical skills?” will be replaced by “What are your soft skills?” as the question to separate oneself in an interview. Technical skills will become less of an x-factor due to 3 emerging trends. 

If not through their technical skills, how will future entry-level workers separate themselves apart from their peers? Soft skills - the ability to listen, empathize, facilitate group discussion without technology - will be the x-factor that sets entry-level workers in 2030 apart from their peers.

Trend #1 - Technical skill education will become more affordable & accessible from 2020-2030

The first half of the 2020’s will be a continuous game of catch-up for K-12 and higher education systems. In an ideal world, we would already have implemented robust, accessible STEM skill based curriculum in the US education system. Spoiler: we didn’t. That’s going to change.

To adjust to the effects of COVID-19, many school districts and higher education institutions have turned to remote learning modules to teach in a safe manner. The pandemic won’t last forever. At some point, the “new normal” will include both college and K-12 students returning to a form of in-person classes. The “new normal” will also include remote learning modules in some capacity. Remote technologies have shown their immense power. There’s no getting rid of it now. 

Rapidly updated, off-the-shelf curriculum modules will provide students with access to a wider range of up-to-date curriculum than they have ever had before. These benefits cannot be ignored, and the likely scenario post-COVID is a hybrid system where students work through remote curriculum modules in their classrooms. The STEM skills that our education system so desperately need will soon be delivered through remote modules. 

Not only will it be more accessible through K-12 and higher-ed systems. It will be readily available to anyone with a wifi connection. Globally, people will no longer need to rely on institutions to be a student. Anyone will be able to get world class technical training from anywhere. This curriculum is already on it's way (see Lambda School, Data Camp). It is set to only improve. 

The increased dissemination of technical skill education will increase the availability of technical skillsets from K-12 to higher education to anyone with access to the internet.

The first generation of true digital natives will be Generation Alpha. These are people born after 2010 - the same year that the iPad debuted. What are digital natives? People who can comfortably teach themselves a digital experience. It’s intuitive for them - no instructions or guidance needed. Alpha is not the first generation that has been introduced to technology. They are the first generation whose lives are a holistic, end-to-end digital experience. 

Entertainment, financial services, smart home capabilities, remote education, video conference capabilities, and food delivery can all be facilitated on a single device in their pocket that they have access to 24/7. No generation has had so much power at this much speed at their fingertips at such a young age. Their expectation of fast services will extend to education.

The idea of learning out of a physical textbook that is 5 years old will seem archaic to Generation Alpha. Their digital curriculum will be updated rapidly to stay current. The idea of a standard set of curriculum for each student will be incomprehensible. Their digital modules will assess areas where each student needs to become stronger in, and the digital curriculum platforms will tailor unique modules for each student to address areas where improvement is needed.

Their learning style will be fast. They’ll expect to need to constantly train and retrain their skills. They will be comfortable with the fast pace of a changing world. Why? It is all that they know. Their intuition will guide them to not only understand digital experiences but create new ones. They will automate tasks that they see as mundane to provide more time for them to express their creativity. This will all come naturally to them. 

Technical skills will become commonplace with the emergence of Generation Alpha because they will no longer be a pre-requisite for what they learn but for how they learn. 

Remote education, the same thing that will make technical skills more accessible and affordable, fails to form experiential learning opportunities. Human elements crucial to the long term success of a team - the ability to listen, empathize, facilitate group discussion without technology - cannot be facilitated online. How much do these experiences matter, and what’s the difference in social development between a generation that grows up with remote learning tools vs. a generation that interacts with these tools for the first time as a young adult?

Generation Z (born 1997-2010) will experience remote learning at the high school/college level. Remote learning will be an adaptation for them. They have enough technical skills to navigate the remote tools, but they will not be fully comfortable with the adjustment.

Generation Alpha will experience remote learning at the K-12 level. Remote learning will become engrained in them. They will grow up seeing education through a digital lens. They will be comfortable with remote education and remote meetings. They will become increasingly comfortable with less in-person interaction and more remote work. It is what they saw their parents do during COVID-19. It is how they attended class during the pandemic. It is how class carried on even after the pandemic. This extends outside of the classroom. 

Generation Alpha will be more comfortable ordering takeout through a mobile app than picking up a phone. They’ll be more comfortable talking to customer service via chatbot than facilitating a conversation in-person. These interpersonal interactions may seem small and insignificant, but compound 1000’s of them over the course of a lifetime and they become fundamental to our development.

Generation Alpha’s opportunities for both formal soft skill development in the classroom and informal development outside of it will decrease.

A change is rumbling in the subtle yet mighty undercurrents of our institutional + cultural fabric. The good news: entry level professionals in 2030 will be equipped to take technical challenges on. The bad news: these same professionals will not not be prepared to take on the human element of serving on a team. 

2030 entry-level job applicants who are prepared with the ability to listen, empathize, and facilitate group discussion without technology will set themselves apart from their peers. But we - the current leaders who shape the institutional and cultural fabric - need to take action now to ensure that Generation Alpha has opportunities to hone their soft skills. 

Take the time to ask yourself - "How will you be a part of empowering our future leaders with the skills that they need to succeed?"