Alvin Wang Graylin

The key thing that employers are looking for from AI developers and researchers is the ability to deliver results and there’s no way to gain the expertise needed except spending quality time on real world projects. Seek out projects that excite you and get yourself inserted into them, even if it’s unpaid. The experience you gain will be repaid in your elevated market value in the long run. There’s a lot of talkers in the market but few doers that can deliver on spec and on schedule. Become one and the world will beat a path to your door.

It’s me, but you could actually ask my AI at the Our Next Reality custom GPT 😁

The question is actually not phrased correctly. The reality today is that if you are not knowledgeable in AI concepts and tools, you are significantly disadvantaged in the work world. Make time to learn all you can in the space. Read related books, watch podcasts and go play with the tools and technologies relevant in your industry. You’ll instantly increase your productivity and your marketability.

In today’s market environment it’s nearly impossible to be successful without collaborating with internal and external partners on projects of all sizes. If asking for direct permission doesn’t work, you could consider exploring the landscape for suitable collaborators and relevant third party research or tools that could increase your productivity. Try to integrate these new resources in your solution to validate if it brings added improvements. If it does, highlight these results with your leadership and hopefully it’ll elicit more support for future suggestions from you.

In competitive labor market hiring managers always prioritize candidates with real work experience and initiative. Don’t wait to have a company tell you to work on a project, take action and start experimenting with new tools and techniques in the AI space and try to get your hands dirty in solving actual problems in the market. Even if you don’t succeed you’ll gain valuable experience and war stories that will make you stand out at future interviews.

AI will soon impact most cognitive and manual labor, so best you get comfortable with a faster rate of change in your job and be prepared to adapt accordingly. Do more introspection to understand your own limitations so that you can enhance those skills before your level of skill is made redundant. Key is recognizing that you can’t rely on your prior seniority or status in a company. In the new age, we will all be increasingly judged by our contributions vs our reputation.