The sky is falling, or is it? Is AI good, or is AI bad?
Entry-level workers are struggling to get in the door and get hired. Experienced professionals are being displaced and replaced. And the conundrum is that employers still can’t always find the people they need to fill critical roles.
All of those things can be true at once.
That contradiction was at the center of my recent Worthy for Thirty conversation with Nicholas Wyman, Executive Director of IWSI America, and Dr. Deborah Williamson, Vice President of IWSI America.
IWSI, or the Institute for Workplace Skills and Innovation, operates at the crossroads of employers, job seekers, educators, and the government- more state than national- helping build and maintain talent pipelines through apprenticeships, skills development, coaching, and workforce programs.
But what really caught my attention during our conversation wasn’t the ability to try to predict exactly what work will look like five or ten years from now.
It was something much more useful:
What can we do today to set us up for a promising tomorrow?
Because the American workplace is undergoing several transformations at the same time. AI and automation are directly and indirectly impacting the tasks companies need people to perform. The COVID-19 pandemic permanently changed where and how many of us work. In-office, hybrid, or fully remote. Make your choice. Yet some experienced workers are struggling to re-enter the workforce, while younger workers, like recent college graduates, are realizing that getting that first opportunity can be unseemingly difficult.
And nobody knows exactly where all of this ends.
That uncertainty might be the intention.
Give up trying to control the future. Prepare to adapt to it.
Nicholas made an important distinction during our conversation: there are technical skills, and there are what he and IWSI prefer to call employability skills.
Technical skills are always changing or being updated. The software changes. The equipment changes. AI changes the workflow. Industries adopt new technology.
Employability skills stay with you through your career. The pejorative descriptor is ‘soft’ skills.
Reliability. Communication. Resilience. Curiosity. Adaptability. Working with others. Showing up when you say you’re going to show up.
It comes off as simplistic in an era infatuated with AI proficiency, but Nicholas broke it down even further:
“Be reliable and show up.”
He contends that doing those two things regularly provides employers a reason to give you a chance.
That sat well with me because we tend to discuss the future of work from the top down: AI models, labor statistics, economic forecasts, layoffs, interest rates.
IWSI approaches it from the inverse.
What does this particular person know how to do?
What might they be capable of doing?
And what is preventing them from getting there?
The overlooked skill might be the one you already possess.
One of my favorite ideas from the conversation was backwards design.
When people look for a job, Dr. Williamson explained, they often start with the job posting.
They read the requirements and ask:
Do I fit the description? Am I the one they’re looking for?
But that can be the wrong starting point.
Instead, look backward.
What have you actually done?
What problems have you solved? What environments have you thrived in? When have you led (this shows up in many different forms)? When have you worked under pressure? What have you built, organized, fixed, sold, taught, or improved?
Then ask:
Which of those abilities transfer somewhere else?
Dr. Williamson said IWSI often has to unpack those experiences through deeper conversations because people don’t often recognize the value of their lived, professional experience and the skills that come with it.
Nicholas is a great example himself.
He started his career as a chef.
Today he works in workforce development.
Those might appear to be completely different careers until you break the first one apart.
Running a kitchen requires managing people, meeting deadlines, dealing with customers, solving problems, coordinating workflows, and performing under pressure.
Those capabilities don’t magically evaporate when you leave the kitchen.
Your job title isn’t your skill set.
That’s a significant distinction for anyone who has been laid off, wants to pivot into a new career or fears their current role could eventually be eliminated by technology.
Apprenticeships deserve a much bigger place in the American workforce.
There’s another idea we probably need to rethink: the assumption that education happens first and work happens second.
Nicholas described an apprenticeship as essentially a longer-term paid internship where you learn both on and off the job.
He knows the model personally. He entered the workforce through an apprenticeship after leaving high school and later continued his education.
His philosophy is simple:
The right education at the right time.
Learning doesn’t need to follow a perfectly linear progression of high school → four-year college → career.
You can work.
Learn.
Earn a credential.
Change industries.
Go back to school.
Learn something new.
And repeat.
That’s lifelong learning in a much more practical way.
And apprenticeships aren’t limited to the traditional vocational trades.
IWSI’s work includes pathways into occupations such as dental technicians, optical technicians, and pharmacy technicians, including a California initiative that connects people with disabilities to apprenticeship opportunities.
For employers struggling with talent shortages, that raises an important question:
Instead of continuing to search for the perfect employee, what if you helped create one?
Hiring someone isn’t the primary KPI. Retaining them is.
This might have been the most important point in our entire conversation.
I asked Nicholas and Deborah how they measure success.
The obvious answer would be placements.
How many people got jobs?
Nicholas retorted.
“We don’t just want the person to get the job... We want them to keep the job.”
That changes the calculus.
A placement is a moment in time.
Retention is an outcome.
IWSI spends a great deal of time on what happens before and after someone is hired: interview preparation, resume development, employer expectations, mentoring and coaching.
And importantly, Nicholas argues that a mentor shouldn’t necessarily be someone’s direct supervisor.
An employee needs somebody they can speak with when something isn’t working, sometimes about seemingly mundane issues, before a small problem becomes a reason to leave or be fired.
That has implications that extend beyond apprenticeship programs.
Employers spend enormous amounts of time, money, and energy recruiting people.
Maybe the more interesting question is:
What are you doing during someone’s first 60 days to ensure they’re set up for success?
Nicholas went even further.
Forget the first 60 days.
Think about the first 60 minutes.
Does the person get the culture?
Do they know who to ask when they need clarification or have an important question?
Does someone actually explain the “unwritten” rules?
Do they feel comfortable raising a problem before it becomes something bigger?
Those tiny interactions can determine whether a new employee begins building confidence or immediately starts losing it.
AI makes human skills more important, not less.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that AI will simply eliminate work as we know it.
It will eliminate some jobs.
It will change or impact many more.
And it will likely create jobs we haven’t thought of yet.
Nicholas pointed toward sectors including healthcare, hospitality, tourism, and service industries as areas where human interaction remains integral, while acknowledging that some administrative and processing work is prone to automation.
But the bigger lesson from our conversation was this:
Don’t build your career around predicting which technology wins or which technology becomes preeminent. Build it around becoming increasingly useful.
Learn the technology. Always be a student — from recent college graduate to seasoned employee.
But also learn how to communicate. Do it well and concisely
Ramp up technical proficiency.
But also become dependable.
Develop expertise.
But remain curious enough to become a beginner again.
Because the people best positioned for the next version of work may not be those who perfectly predicted what was coming.
They’ll be the ones who learned how to keep learning.
A five-step exercise you can do this week
If you’re going through a career change, entering the workforce, worried about AI, or just wondering what’s next, here’s an exercise inspired by Nicholas and Deborah’s advice.
1. Inventory your past.
Write down what you’ve accomplished across jobs, school, volunteer work, side projects, and life experiences. Don’t worry about whether it sounds impressive. Just get it on paper.
2. Identify the value.
For every experience, ask: What did this require me to be good at?
3. Know your attributes.
Are you dependable? Analytical? Energetic? Organized? Creative? Collaborative? Goal-oriented? Don’t just list them; substantiate them; find examples that demonstrate each one.
4. Find one thing you’re ‘missing.’
Look at the type of work you’re interested in and identify one credential, skill or experience employers constantly request. Then find a clear and compelling way to start learning it.
5. Get out there!
This was perhaps Nicholas’s most practical advice. Stop relying exclusively on online applications. Talk to someone. Volunteer. Ask for coffee. Follow up. Attend something. Make the phone call.
As he put it during our conversation:
“Don’t wait for your ship to come in. Swim out to it.”
The future of work may actually be the future of learning.
Near the end of our conversation, Nicholas told me that at the young age of 58, he’s taking guitar lessons
Not because he’s embarking on a second career as a musician.
Because it’s difficult.
He’s pushing himself to learn something new.
He also attends workshops and online courses in subjects that interest him, including areas outside his professional expertise.
I really appreciated that.
Because perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong question.
Instead of:
“What career will be safe from AI?”
Maybe it’s:
“Am I still capable and willing to learn something new?”
The workplace will always change; now even faster.
Technology will keep getting better.
Certain jobs will go away, and new ones will emerge.
The advantage won’t necessarily belong to the person with the perfect résumé.
It belongs to the person passionate about remaining curious, translating what they’ve already learned, developing what they’re missing, and keeping moving.
Dr. Williamson’s final advice captured that beautifully:
Take an inventory of everything you’ve accomplished, don’t sell any of it short, and build from there.
Worth considering this week
If your current job was eliminated tomorrow, which three skills would you take with you?
If you can’t answer that yet, that’s probably a worthwhile place to start taking inventory of both your skills and experience.
My conversation with Nicholas Wyman and Dr. Deborah Williamson of IWSI America is part of the Worthy for Thirty podcast, where I speak with leaders working at the intersection of business, purpose, and measurable impact. The audio version of this conversation is available wherever you listen to podcasts.
If this write-up was valuable, subscribe to Worthy for Thirty on Substack and send it to someone who’s entering the workforce, navigating a career transition, hiring talent, or simply trying to figure out what comes next.