Top skills to land a new job in 2024

Answering what seems like hundreds of questions is par for the course when you’re interviewing for a job. But you can never really predict what questions might get thrown your way. But LinkedIn Career Expert Andrew McCaskill says there’s one question employers will ask above the rest. He joined TheStreet to share his thoughts.

Related: AI could actually help you get a new job, instead of stealing the one you have

Full Video Transcript Below:

ANDREW MCCASKILL: I actually predict that the number one question that recruiters are going to start asking candidates is how are you using AI in your personal life and how are you using it at work? And you need to have a really good answer for that. But the future of work is still human, right? And so I think that the number one thing that candidates have to think about is, yes, bone up on your AI skills, start to play with AI tools because it’s going to be important. AI is here to stay. But the number one most in-demand skills on our in-demand skills list was communication, followed by then we’re talking about adaptability. People are to hire folks who can pivot and not panic, right? And so your people skills and those human skills are going to be really important just as much as having AI skills and playing around with AI tools. But I will say I don’t want to undersell how important AI is going to be in the future.

We saw in our most recent data that 71% of executives said that they would hire someone with less experience if they had AI skills. That’s a big thing to say, less experience, but they have AI skills. I’ll take the AI skills person over that person with more experience. That’s really telling. And if you are thinking about how do I get those AI skills, do things like LinkedIn Learning has tons of AI courses, many of them for free, that you can take and start learning that language. But there are also companies on our most recent top companies list where the companies are saying, we know that AI is important. We want to give you a sort of easy entree into learning AI skills so companies like AT&T and Verizon are doing things like having hackathons or they’ve created their own AI tools to let employees play around with them. And so companies are thinking, even if you don’t have those skills, we’re going to help you get them. And that’s how important it is.