If you happen to have chosen the same career as one of your grandparents, out of curiosity, ask him/her what the specific skills required were to perform the job in those days. Chances are that they were fewer and somewhat or significantly different from what is required today. Or chances are that he/she might not be able to recall any – not because they weren’t required, but because people didn’t pay as much attention to them as we do today.

But the fact is that skills have grown a lot in significance and number.  As of 2024, the labor market consulting firm Burning Glass Institute has tracked more than thirty-two thousand skills. In turn, LinkedIn claims to have recorded around forty-two thousand skills.

If I had to pinpoint a specific year when my deep interest in skills started, it would be 2010. The first trigger came when I did my master’s thesis about foreign direct investment and technology spillovers at a Japanese university. The focus was on developmental economics – at that time, I was in the process of shifting from law to development-focused public policy. One concept captured my attention: human capital as an important factor for (economic) development. The second trigger came from reading some books about education, skills and the workforce. It was like an eye opener for me. I became more attentive to anything related to the skills of the 21st century. I would get to know about sociologists or economists working as data scientists – the one thing they had in common was that they possessed some specific skills the market had in very high esteem.

But what is it about the skills¹ that everybody seems to be talking about these days, as much as they do with AI and jobs? Will acquiring one or two of the so-called high-demand skills secure you a job or improve your current status?

The short answer is yes. It is definitely better to acquire them. It can play a role in landing your first job or progressing at work. When shifting career, it can facilitate career changes as well. And according to studies, it also often brings salary improvement.

But we will get there, digging more, not only into skills, but also into the key components for choosing and building a career with a global mindset.

For this introductory part, the intention is just to make a general reflection to try to channel you into considering skills, with a more holistic/big picture thinking.

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Be aware that skills are not a substitute for domain expertise. They are part of the expertise building process, which is long. It is important to have clear understanding of these two. You can think of hard skills as technical and tactical, mostly quantifiable. E.g. learning how to do A/B testing for marketing. Domain expertise is deeper, strategic and holistic and it takes much longer to acquire – it’s actually usually acquired through longer study and work experience. E.g. Marketing expertise². Another way to think about it is: domain expertise is composed of, on one hand, deep specific knowledge and know-how about a specific topic and, on the other hand, a bunch of specific skills – some or most of which change at a much faster pace

Because building domain expertise takes a lot of time and effort, if you are a fresh graduate or are close to graduation, more than ever you have to develop a strategy (followed by actions) to increase your chances of stepping into the world of work, as, unfortunately youth unemployment is much higher everywhere in the world, and the playing field is not leveled for everybody. Acquiring a skill that is in high demand in the market can make the difference between landing or not your first job.

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In order to increase your practical understanding of skills, consider the following:

Skills types
Common skills (or, baseline skills)	Specialized skills (technical/hard skills)	Software skills	Certifications
Prevalent across occupations&industries / includes soft&learned skills	Equip workers to do specific tasks / usually specific to a given occupation	Subset of specialized skills / indicates proficiency with computer software	Recognized/assigned by bodies (government, etc)
E.g. problem solving	NumPy; hotel management	SQL, AutoCAD	PMP

Credits: the original classification comes from Burning Glass. I (re) organized them in this table

In an ever-changing job market, understanding and developing skills is no longer optional. While domain expertise remains fundamental, skills act as catalysts for career growth, adaptability, and opportunities. The rapid evolution of technology, particularly AI, reshapes which skills are in demand, emphasizing the need for lifelong learning. Whether you’re starting out, shifting careers, or aiming for advancement, a strategic approach to skills development can make all the difference. Moving forward, we will explore not only which skills matter most but also how to align them with your career goals to navigate the future of work effectively.

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1. The truth is, there’s not a universally accepted definition of skill. In fact, there’s not a universally accepted definition of intelligence either. So, you completely have the right to ask how do we know there are more than forty thousand skills if we don’t even have a universally accepted definition.

Nonetheless, as a way of conceptually better understand skills, let’s consider the following summary:

–  Each occupation is composed of a bunch of specific tasks, which in turn requires the possession of a bunch of skills.

– Skills are usually transversal. This is to say, the same skill is important to more than one occupation. In fact, some skills, such as critical thinking or digital literacy, are so embedded everywhere, that they become foundational skills.

–  Key changes in the world, with technological innovation – such as generative AI –  at its core, highly determine which skills are important at any given time.

– Many skills are short-lived. They become outdated within a few years, which give birth to the growing importance of lifelong learning.

– Possession of key (high-premium) skills facilitates career moves, and also command a salary premium

– Skills are not a substitute for domain expertise or subject-matter expertise.

2. If you are one of those convinced that actually there’s no gist in developing marketing expertise, as ‘AI is killing it‘, I invite you to reflect upon the marketing expert Jessica Apotheker’s insight.