Job clusters and skills portability
The Foundation for Young Australians has recommended that rather than looking at one ‘dream job’, perhaps we may need to think about a ‘dream cluster’ instead.
What you need to do is to match your skills and interests to a job cluster instead where your technical and enterprise skills are portable across different jobs within the same job cluster.
As more and more employers are hiring for skills and experience instead, this may be a better approach as you are focusing on skills rather than job titles, which may change or transform over time.
Seven job clusters
Jobs are more related to each other than we realise.
This is because when a person trains or works in one job, they also acquire skills for other jobs within the same job cluster – it’s about an average of 13 other jobs within the same job cluster that you will also acquire skills for.
This is because, for many jobs, employers demand very similar skills.
Job seekers and workers need to capitalise on this so that they can have wider job options within the same job cluster to choose from.
The seven job clusters are shown in the diagram below.
Not all job clusters are created the same. Some job clusters have stronger job and career prospects than others. The size of the bubble, as shown in the diagram above, represents future employer demand for jobs within that job cluster – the bigger the bubble, the bigger the demand for jobs within that job cluster.
Careers, technologist, informers, and generators are four job clusters that have good future employer demand and job prospects in Australia.
Enterprise skills are required to succeed
To enter, succeed, and move around jobs within a job cluster, job seekers will need relevant technical and enterprise skills.
They will likely require a combination of formal training at an education institution, on-the-job training, and experiential learning to develop both their specific technical and enterprise skills.
Enterprise skills are those transferable skills that will enable people to engage with a complex working world. Soft skills that are most demanded by a job cluster are summarised in the diagram below.
By intentionally acquiring or improving these enterprise skills, it will help job seekers secure employment quickly. Having these skills listed in job applications can give job seekers an edge over other job seekers.
International skills comparison
As a comparison, the World Economic Forum has predicted some growing and declining skills up to 2022, as shown in the diagram below. (World Economic Forum, 2018)
Preferably, students should be aiming to acquire those growing skills whilst at school, college, university, and even at workplaces.
Match a job cluster to personal strengths and interest
Expand your likelihood of gaining on-going full-time employment by focusing on a ‘cluster of work’.
Instead of focusing purely on choosing a single job, young people should consider a more long-term question – that is, which ‘cluster of work’ interest them the most where they can build a meaningful career based on their strengths.
Job titles come and go due to advances in technology and job automation. This is where skills are fast becoming the future currency of work – skills are transferable and portable across jobs especially within the same job cluster. These skills are evergreen and can be adapted for different work context and periods.
When making their decision as to what ‘cluster of work’ to build their career within, young people can:
(1) Reflect on one or more job clusters that best match their interests and strengths.
(2) Test their fit by gaining hands-on experience within that job cluster. This could involve apprenticeships or internships, volunteering, or even working part-time or casual in an appropriate job.
So, which job cluster could you belong to in the future?
To help you with that decision, complete this handy quiz here to get an idea of the potential job cluster that suits you. Then evaluate the potential jobs that are listed within that job cluster.
Cross-check your selected jobs with your MBTI results
Cross-check jobs within the suggested job cluster with the initial list of jobs that were based on your MBTI personality.
Common jobs that appear on both lists will likely be the candidates for the next assessment – Ensuring that these jobs have a positive outlook in terms of job prospects, income security, and strong employer demand.
Future jobs outlook – The reality check
Common job titles that intersect both your MBTI personality and job cluster are great candidates for ensuring that they also have positive future jobs outlook.
There are several information sources about future jobs outlook that you can go to as part of your due diligence. They include:
(1) Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business (Australia)
(2) Bureau of Labor Statistics (US)
(3) World Economic Forum
(4) Google Trends
What’s important to note is that it is more constructive to examine which jobs rely on skills that machines are unable to replicate or automate. These jobs are resilient in terms of their requirement for uniquely human labor.
Jobs globally
Globally, the projected emerging and declining jobs are shown in the diagram below. (World Economic Forum, 2018)
The list will provide a good indication of where the trends of the global job market will be heading.
The mean probability of automation by occupation is shown in the diagram below. (OECD, 2018)
The occupational groups that have the highest probability of becoming automated typically do not require specific skills or training: food preparation assistants, assemblers, laborers, refuse workers, cleaners and helpers. The next category is however workers with at least some training, and what they have in common is that large part of their job content is interacting with machines, mainly in the manufacturing sector: machine operators, drivers and mobile plant operators, workers in the processing industry, skilled agricultural workers, metal and machine workers etc.
At the other end of the spectrum are occupations that require high level of education and training and which involve high degree of social interaction, creativity, problem-solving and caring for others. This end is populated by all sorts of professionals and managers, but also by personal care workers.
The 20 industries at the highest average risk of automation and the 20 industries at lowest are shown in the diagram below.
The industries with a high risk of automation belong mostly to the primary and the secondary sector. Few service industries – notably, postal and courier services, food, and beverage services, land transport, waste collection and treatment, and services to buildings and landscape – face a high risk of automation.
At the opposite end of the ranking, the industries with a low average probability of being automated are all part of the service sector, except for oil extraction.
