December 14, 2020 5 Best Roles for Job Security in an Automated Economy

The automation process is well underway. Here are the 5 best designations to increase your job security in an automated economy.

Image by Sergei Tokmakov, Esq. from Pixabay

Certified Public Accountant (CPA)

A certified public accountant, often referred to simply by the acronym CPA, is one of the most popular and widely recognized accounting certificates. Professionals with this designation are in high demand and, what’s more, this is a skillset that is highly automation-resistant so it carries with it reliable job security.

The CPA is rigorous and graduates will leave with a strong understanding of accounting principles, methods and standards and will be equipped to work in a wide range of sophisticated financial roles across industries. Anyone considering this designation should take the time to find a good study guide, especially if they are not coming from a mathematics background.

Certified Scrum Master

Scrum Master is a relatively recent designation that allows companies to take advantage of leading agile management and organizational techniques through trained scrum team leaders. The Scrum Master is responsible for getting rid of obstacles, addressing and improving team dynamics, facilitating intergroup communication and collaboration, and ensuring the team avoids outside distractions and interruptions.

Becoming a Scrum Master increases job security in an increasingly automated economy because it relies on soft skills and an ability to connect with people that are almost impossible to automate. It is geared towards increasing productivity, which is a universal preoccupation across industries and in organizations of all sizes. Scrum Masters are deployable at both the organizational and the divisional level, which makes this designation highly versatile, adding an additional layer of job security.

Certified Human Resources Manager (CHRM)

Another relatively automation-proof designation with high job security is the CHRM, or Certified Human Resources Manager. This designation is designed by the Human Resources Management Institute for HR professionals who are candidates for or currently employed in middle and upper-level management. This designation equips the HR professional to effectively manage and administrate the human capital of organizations of all sizes.

The reason a professional HR designation is a fairly safe bet in an automated economy is because HR will increasingly be relied upon to help mediate between employers and workforces that will be highly affected by automation. This will, like the project management designation, require superior soft skills such as conflict resolution and communication which, fortunately for HR professionals, cannot be easily automated.

Global Information Assurance Certification (GIAC)

A Global Information Assurance Certification is one of the leading global cybersecurity designations. Cybersecurity is a safe bet for job security now and well into the future because of the extent of digitization, growth in the internet of things, the remote work revolution and the never-ending game of cat and mouse that plays out between cybersecurity experts and malicious online actors.

In fact, global cybersecurity expenditures are expected to grow from 119.9 billion dollars in 2019 to 433.6 billion dollars by 2030. This will be spent on infrastructure, software and the specialists who monitor and secure it all. In short, there will almost always be a demand for cybersecurity experts, making cybersecurity designations like the GIAC a valuable addition to a resume and a good hedge against rising redundancies and automation. The coming decades will be fraught with many high profile breaches of cybersecurity and tremendous financial losses for many unfortunate companies, so big investments in cybersecurity will be non-negotiable in an automated economy.

Project Management Professional (PMP)

Project Management Professionals are responsible for coming up executing the planning, organization and completion of projects. Project managers are employed throughout the economy and across industries, from manufacturing and construction to engineering and IT. Project managers need to have a broad range of financial, human resources, operational, and technical skill sets. On top of this, they also need to be excellent communicators and managers of people.

Because of the wide and transferable skills that project managers bring to the table, they will continue to be highly sought after, and companies will go to great lengths to ensure productive and effective project managers are held onto. A project management designation is deployable throughout the organization and, in the event of job loss, is comparatively easy to integrate into a different organization or industry.

Conclusion

The wave of automation has already reoriented the economy in major ways, taking many jobs with it in the process. The unfortunate fact of life is that this process will only intensify during the coming decades. Job seekers and current employees are going to have to factor job security into the roles and designations they choose, with the above list being a good starting point.

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