Does your current skillset give you a competitive advantage?

We all wonder what the next step in our career looks like, but the uncertainty about how to get from A to B can be daunting. Add to this juggling full-time work, caring responsibilities, shift work or studying part time, and career progression can seem like a slow journey. 

What makes this even more challenging is the competitive nature of the job market and the unknowns around the influence of emerging technologies such as AI and automation. Industries are evolving at an unprecedented pace, giving rise to new roles and jobs requiring new skills. As such, employers aren’t just looking to fill roles anymore – they’re seeking people with a diverse skillset who can adapt and change as the world does.

Future-proofing your career is no more a nice thought: it is a real need to remain competitively relevant whether you’re a beginner or have years of work experience. So, how do you prepare today for tomorrow’s job? 

Whether you’re after a promotion, a change of career or upskilling for better job prospects in the future, a great place to start is by building transdisciplinary skills. These aren’t technical or job-specific, but rather skills that are transferable across roles and are becoming standouts in the future of work. 

Here are our picks for the top five in-demand skills you need to gain – and maintain – a competitive edge.

1. Leadership

Scan through any job ad and this one will stand out. Why? The ability to work successfully with a team helps drive employee engagement, staff retention and job productivity that, together, have a massive impact on business bottom lines. Having the skill to lead, to exercise influence and work with a diverse range of people means you can spark change and bring creativity and innovation to the table. This skill set allows you to bring ideas to life through the power of collaboration – a key asset for any organisation.

2. Communication 

You can be skilled at your craft, but that might not matter if you can’t articulate the importance of your work to a diverse range of stakeholders. Effective communication is more than an exchange of ideas: it entails processing and simplifying complex information and conveying it in a manner that will be most impactful to the person on the receiving end. Whether you’re a product expert or an auditor, effective communication is a valuable skill. It’s how organisations build trust with their employees and customers, and build thriving communities.  

3. Digital or tech literacy

Technology is very much a part of every role, and being digitally savvy is an unsaid requirement for career progression. It’s not so much about what specific software programs or platforms you’ve worked with, but the ease with which you can adapt to tech-enabled systems, your ability to translate data insights into actions, and how you apply technology as an enabler for innovation. As technology continues to evolve, it’s important to upskill in this crucial area and ‘speak the language’.

4. Creative thinking

We know that many of the jobs today will evolve into new types of roles and jobs in the future, and as technology continues to disrupt sectors, the impact of it all is hard to predict. While many aspects within a role might be subject to automation now and in the future, jobs that involve creative thinking will continue to remain sought after. Creative thinking is integral to problem-solving and decision-making, and most jobs demand some degree of these skills to remain competitively relevant. 

5. Critical thinking

As organisations rapidly evolve to tackle new challenges, the ability to strategise and make evidence-based decisions is more relevant than ever. Having strong critical thinking and research skills sets the foundation for strategy development. Understanding what questions to ask, how to properly research a topic or audience, and plotting the short-, medium-, and long-term impacts of actions is integral to creating meaningful impact.  

Learning new professional skills – where to start?

While on-the-job experiences are a great way to upskill, another great way to future-proof your career is by undertaking postgraduate study. Whether it’s something bite-sized like a short course or microcredential, or a more long-term commitment like a master’s degree or a PhD, the University of Technology Sydney has a variety of postgraduate study options to help you take the next step in your career. 

Keen to learn more about how to upskill through postgraduate study? Explore your study options at UTS. Enquire here.