The 5 skills you need on your CV by 2020 to get a high-paying job

An amazing statistic was published in the World Economic Forum's future of jobs report in 2016.

Brace yourselves:

Current technological trends are bringing about an unprecedented rate of change in the core curriculum content of many academic fields, with nearly 50 per cent of subject knowledge acquired during the first year of a four-year technical degree outdated by the time students graduate, according to one popular estimate.

Our world moves as quickly as technology does. It feels like robots and AI are coming for every job. And that's because, in a way, they are.

A popular research paper from Oxford University found that automation threatens a range of professions, not just everyday work, and also found that there are an estimated 47 per cent of jobs at risk in the United States.

So how do you make your CV future-proof?

Tough question - you probably can't, and the best advice is to adapt with the times.

The WEF report read:

Beyond hard skills and formal qualifications, employers are often equally concerned about the work-related practical skills or competences that current employees (or prospective new hires) are able to use in order to perform various job tasks successfully.

In short - cross-functional skills are in.

A chart describing what skills jobs most often feature was included in the report:

Picture: World Economic Forum

Among the most important were:

• Critical thinking - employing a mix of logic and reason will become more important as automation increases as we need to manage the drones ethically - as well as the societal transitions that the process encourages. Employers want good evaluators who can see benefit and maximise it.
• Complex problem solving - 36 per cent of all jobs across industries will require this as a core skill by 2020. You will need to be able to think laterally while resolving a situation.
• Creativity - In 2015 it was 10th on the list, now it's in the top three. New tech is fantastic but creativity is needed to explore new uses for new tech, to create appetites in marketplaces and to inspire people. It'll never go out of style.
• Emotional intelligence - there will still be jobs for people and those people will need managing. Managers need emotional intelligence to read a professional and respond to their needs. In addition, user experience creation needs this intuition. Robots can't understand feelings (yet) so this will be important in years to come.
• Team skills - Being able to collaborate with a team will become more important. Robots will increasingly do insular, procedural work which should free people up to do what they're best at - be creative and work as a team to realise ideas. Being a team player presently separates you from an AI.

HT Inc.com

More: If you want to get a job, remove these skills from your CV