In the coming weeks, the Houston Foresight blog will feature guest posts from members of the Student Needs 2025+ teams to share insights from their research and the implications of what they found. 
Thanks to UH Foresight alum Morgan Kauffman and current UH Foresight students Joyce Redlon and Jason Swanson for sharing what they’ve learned about students’ Working needs in 2025.
You need connections. The perfect resume is the ticket; you need to stand out. Go to that name-brand college. Become a doctor, for goodness’ sake! Work ethic. It’s all about work ethic.
As long as our modern workforce has existed, people have sought the key to landing and keeping a job. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, though, our collective confidence in what we thought we knew about working and job seeking shattered. Everyone is worried about the labor market, unemployment, and their implications for students, now and in the future. Based on this chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we can safely say “stay in school” is still sound advice, but as we look forward to 2025, what other tips do students need to be competitive in the job market?
“Be adaptable” instead of “Become an expert in X tech tool.” Technological disruption is the dominant trend that we see affecting the labor market of 2025.  Increasingly widespread automation and the growing (although, we expect, still fairly limited) capabilities of artificial intelligence systems will, if not revolutionize the workplace, at least drastically increase demand for workers who have the technological literacy to deal with such systems. Moreover, because technology won’t stop disrupting the labor market, staying competitive means being as adaptable as possible, learning new skills and staying up-to-date with new technologies as they are introduced.
“Build your social media presence wisely” instead of “Go to that job fair.” Another aspect of technological disruption that we see being of critical importance will be social media. Its impact and importance for both employers and employees is already huge, and it’s only going to go up. Right now, in 2014, companies that are looking for new employees are beginning to bypass resumes entirely and look only at LinkedIn and other social media; some have hired people based solely on their ability to write insightful and engaging tweets.  The fascinating thing is that some experts think that we’ve only scratched the surface of social media’s economic potential.  If these trends continue, by 2025, having a strong and professional social media presence may well be on the same level of importance in getting a job as going to a prestigious university.
“Picking your major might be the most important decision you make,” instead of “Don’t worry about specializing in undergrad.” Beyond the general need to be technologically up-to-date, the specific choice of what kind of education to get is one that we view as becoming absolutely critical in the coming decade.  Skills that are in higher demand will be rewarded more than those that are in low demand. The acceleration of technological disruption of the workforce will mean that it will be harder to predict which courses of study will be in high demand, but that if you can manage to choose correctly you’ll be in an even better position than you might be today.
“Build your personal brand,” instead of “Internship experience will set you apart.” Tying into this, students will need to be able to prove what they’ve learned and what they can do with their education, not just that they have one. Everyone competing for that job will have a degree and internships; students will need to show their value. Building this kind of personal brand won’t just be important to increase ones’ competitiveness in the eyes of potential employers, but since more people than ever likely earn at least part of their income on their own by 2025, a personal brand will be a critical element to maintain a business for themselves.
“Figure out how to work with and communicate with others,” instead of “Engineers make the most money, and they don’t have to talk to anyone.” One of the few rock-solid constants that we see in the labor market is the need for human-centric “soft” skills, the kind that make the difference between a merely skilled employee and a truly great one. These abilities also separate the successful entrepreneurs from those who fail. Teamwork, leadership, communication skills, even something as simple as showing up on time and in the appropriate dress code: these things will become even more important than they are already, meaning that collaborative and professional workplace-training will be a crucial part of any student’s education in the coming decade.
We see a growing, but noticeably different, economy in 2025. It’s one that will reward students who can meet the changing demands of a technology-saturated labor market, as well as one that will give all-too-little reward to those who fall behind. In the future we expect to see, students cannot afford to stand still if they want to enter or remain a part of the workforce; the decisions they make and the skills they learn will be even more important for their future success than they are today.
The University of Houston Foresight program is exploring the future of Student Needs 2025 and Beyond for the Lumina Foundation, a leading higher education foundation with a goal of raising higher educational attainment levels from 40% today to 60% in 2025. We are tasked with providing Lumina a view of how student needs are evolving over the next dozen or so years. Put simply, could changes in student needs alter the equation of what higher education will need to providing by 2025 and beyond?
To map the student needs landscape of the future, the Houston Foresight program has assembled a team of two dozen faculty, alums, and students organized around six teams exploring evolving student needs related to living, learning, working, playing, connecting, and participating. We are using Houston’s Framework Foresight process to produce forecasts of student needs and identify the implications and issues they suggest for higher education.
Follow us on Twitter at @houstonfutures and join the conversation at #studentneeds2025.