Employers are increasingly looking for students who show good judgment with AI, can demonstrate their AI skills in an interview, and are adept at directing AI.
Thank you for this list, Andrew! I'm going to pass along the message to my students who are anxious about navigating the job market in the age of AI. Very helpful.
Andrew, saying “I can use AI” is starting to sound a bit like me saying I can cook because I own an air fryer. 😄
Employers will want the receipts: What problem did you solve? What did AI get wrong? What did you reject? What decision did your work support? And can you demonstrate it rather than simply adding “AI proficient” to your CV?
I see this in the industry experience programs I run. Give students a real client problem, real feedback and responsibility for defending their choices. Those 14 skills then become evidence they can take into an interview.
Of course - 100% agree :) — and that is what a student or institution are intended to do with a list that identifies skills, which, by definition require demonstration.
And so then I read this article by Aaron Horwath for the Berggruen Institute, which has been my hunch. So decided for this job, I will not involve the AI at all. I'll discover what I want to say by thinking about it and writing it down and faffing about until it's what I want and use the AI as a search engine for the research. It actually cheered me up alot. Who the hell mandates the use of AI for everything like these people - utterly mad.
"It’s a funny predicament: all day, humans across the same industry — ostensibly hired for their unique critical thinking and experience — collectively pump every thought, business challenge, idea and solution through the same set of AI tools. Almost as if all these companies have simultaneously hired the same single employee: Mr. Claude (or one of his contemporaries)."
"But AI isn’t only generating Workslop. It is changing how employees think through problems and arrive at solutions. Rather than relying on their own skills or working through problems with other humans, employees in every company are increasingly asking AI to execute broader, higher-level tasks: solutions to business challenges, sales coaching, marketing campaign strategy and stakeholder management. The types of tasks that form the foundation of a company’s vision, direction, how teams function and how it is perceived in its market."
:) Of course the tension here is for students who are going inter interviews where they are expected to show AI fluency. And this is where they need to be able to articulate where they don't use it, and why.
Yes, agree, it is very difficult too to self-analyse. I was thinking of adding other personal self-reflections, which Andrew has but could be expanded - around things like 'when am I better? When am I copping out and AI will get the job done, but my brain and my thinking will not be stretched? How do I tell when it is better to have it done and out and 10% less good than taking three times the effort and time, but will be 10% less good/original. What is it doing to my productivity and effectiveness really. Does it feel like cheating when it isn't and does it feel like its doing me good when it is in reality shrinking my options, stunting my creativity and atrophying my ability to think?
I am just about the research and write something for some work in the UK on the NEETS and what is being called The Bedroom Generation. Will it all be better if I use AI, if I use AI first will it shape my thinking too much, so I should do a draft without it first, or am I just being unnecessarily precautionary and get the basics of the research right with AI and then shape it? Should I use AI at all, even though it will make things longer and might be a bit worse, but original. I haven't decided. And have already spent half an hour thinking of what to do and faffing with tea and this post! How do you, and you Andrew tell?
Hilary, the tea and half an hour of faffing may actually be part of the thinking, not a sign that you are doing it wrong. 😄
My own test is fairly simple. If I am still discovering what I believe, Bruce (my trusted, or sometimes not so trusted, AI buddy) stays outside the room. I do the first messy thinking.
Once I have a view, lived examples and a few scribbles that are recognisably mine, AI can help me research, challenge gaps or tidy the structure.
If the first prompt decides the frame, I may finish faster, but I risk borrowing someone else’s map before I have drawn my own.
Actually, you are right about the tea and faffing! But your last point really is the problem I most worry about, I am steered somewhere I don't want to be, or wouldn't be, which may or may not be good. But have decided to consider it 'stakeholder engagement', I wouldn't dream of going to a stakeholder without getting my act together as to what input I wanted, but it is often valuable, and often total random input, but knowing what others think is often valuable too and can steer you wrong if they are persuasive enough. Data. Not The Answer.
“Stakeholder engagement” is a good way to put it, Hilary. My AI occasionally brings a gem and occasionally sends me down a rabbit hole. Either way, I need to know what I’m trying to work out before I ask him. 😄
Feels like you're in my head Hilary :) I don't think this type of angst is given enough attention — and I face it all the time. My increasing approach is to write with out AI, or with AI as a fact checker along the way, and then use it as an editor after the fact — unless I am intentionally doing something where integrated use of AI makes sense. And I always try and add an AI use statement — this feels increasingly important.
Yes, as above, we are trying to think of it more as stakeholder engagement, than an extension of my own brain! Stakeholders can talk dllx or give genius insights and are also easily able to lead you somewhere you don't want to go if you are not careful!
Thank you for this list, Andrew! I'm going to pass along the message to my students who are anxious about navigating the job market in the age of AI. Very helpful.
Andrew, saying “I can use AI” is starting to sound a bit like me saying I can cook because I own an air fryer. 😄
Employers will want the receipts: What problem did you solve? What did AI get wrong? What did you reject? What decision did your work support? And can you demonstrate it rather than simply adding “AI proficient” to your CV?
I see this in the industry experience programs I run. Give students a real client problem, real feedback and responsibility for defending their choices. Those 14 skills then become evidence they can take into an interview.
Of course - 100% agree :) — and that is what a student or institution are intended to do with a list that identifies skills, which, by definition require demonstration.
And so then I read this article by Aaron Horwath for the Berggruen Institute, which has been my hunch. So decided for this job, I will not involve the AI at all. I'll discover what I want to say by thinking about it and writing it down and faffing about until it's what I want and use the AI as a search engine for the research. It actually cheered me up alot. Who the hell mandates the use of AI for everything like these people - utterly mad.
https://www.noemamag.com/now-entering-the-era-of-bleh/
"It’s a funny predicament: all day, humans across the same industry — ostensibly hired for their unique critical thinking and experience — collectively pump every thought, business challenge, idea and solution through the same set of AI tools. Almost as if all these companies have simultaneously hired the same single employee: Mr. Claude (or one of his contemporaries)."
"But AI isn’t only generating Workslop. It is changing how employees think through problems and arrive at solutions. Rather than relying on their own skills or working through problems with other humans, employees in every company are increasingly asking AI to execute broader, higher-level tasks: solutions to business challenges, sales coaching, marketing campaign strategy and stakeholder management. The types of tasks that form the foundation of a company’s vision, direction, how teams function and how it is perceived in its market."
:) Of course the tension here is for students who are going inter interviews where they are expected to show AI fluency. And this is where they need to be able to articulate where they don't use it, and why.
Yes, agree, it is very difficult too to self-analyse. I was thinking of adding other personal self-reflections, which Andrew has but could be expanded - around things like 'when am I better? When am I copping out and AI will get the job done, but my brain and my thinking will not be stretched? How do I tell when it is better to have it done and out and 10% less good than taking three times the effort and time, but will be 10% less good/original. What is it doing to my productivity and effectiveness really. Does it feel like cheating when it isn't and does it feel like its doing me good when it is in reality shrinking my options, stunting my creativity and atrophying my ability to think?
I am just about the research and write something for some work in the UK on the NEETS and what is being called The Bedroom Generation. Will it all be better if I use AI, if I use AI first will it shape my thinking too much, so I should do a draft without it first, or am I just being unnecessarily precautionary and get the basics of the research right with AI and then shape it? Should I use AI at all, even though it will make things longer and might be a bit worse, but original. I haven't decided. And have already spent half an hour thinking of what to do and faffing with tea and this post! How do you, and you Andrew tell?
Hilary, the tea and half an hour of faffing may actually be part of the thinking, not a sign that you are doing it wrong. 😄
My own test is fairly simple. If I am still discovering what I believe, Bruce (my trusted, or sometimes not so trusted, AI buddy) stays outside the room. I do the first messy thinking.
Once I have a view, lived examples and a few scribbles that are recognisably mine, AI can help me research, challenge gaps or tidy the structure.
If the first prompt decides the frame, I may finish faster, but I risk borrowing someone else’s map before I have drawn my own.
Actually, you are right about the tea and faffing! But your last point really is the problem I most worry about, I am steered somewhere I don't want to be, or wouldn't be, which may or may not be good. But have decided to consider it 'stakeholder engagement', I wouldn't dream of going to a stakeholder without getting my act together as to what input I wanted, but it is often valuable, and often total random input, but knowing what others think is often valuable too and can steer you wrong if they are persuasive enough. Data. Not The Answer.
“Stakeholder engagement” is a good way to put it, Hilary. My AI occasionally brings a gem and occasionally sends me down a rabbit hole. Either way, I need to know what I’m trying to work out before I ask him. 😄
Feels like you're in my head Hilary :) I don't think this type of angst is given enough attention — and I face it all the time. My increasing approach is to write with out AI, or with AI as a fact checker along the way, and then use it as an editor after the fact — unless I am intentionally doing something where integrated use of AI makes sense. And I always try and add an AI use statement — this feels increasingly important.
Yes, as above, we are trying to think of it more as stakeholder engagement, than an extension of my own brain! Stakeholders can talk dllx or give genius insights and are also easily able to lead you somewhere you don't want to go if you are not careful!