LinkedIn’s Kory Kantenga shares expert insights on navigating the AI-powered job market, from career-proofing skills to opportunities Gen Z shouldn’t overlook.

Q: When you zoom out, how would you describe the current state of the job market compared to past years?

Kory Kantenga: The struggle is real. That said, it’s not all doom and gloom. There are certainly bright spots in areas of the labor market that are stronger, but it is a struggle right now for job seekers. Hiring is slower, competition is up, and confidence is down.

Q: What would you say to people to help restore their confidence around the job search, especially with AI creating uncertainty?

KK: Usually confidence comes from success, and in a job market like this, you cannot control success. It’s a slow job market with a lot of competition, but what you can control is how you’ve set yourself up for success.

Have you actually done the work? Do you have the skills that are needed for the job? Have you anticipated what the skills going forward are going to be? Have you done your homework and research? Do you know who’s hiring, who’s not hiring, and who’s investing? Where are those jobs of the future likely to come from? If you’ve done your homework, there’s no reason why you should worry.

Q: People keep saying “AI is going to take my job.” What skills should people focus on to AI-proof their careers, and what AI skills should we be learning?

KK: On the AI side, really what employers are likely to be looking for isn’t “can you build and maintain AI tools?” or “can you properly train an AI algorithm?” It’s “can you use it? Can you use it well?”

AI is a general purpose technology, meaning it’s like a cell phone or a computer. When you start a new job, you’re not trained in how to use a cell phone or computer, you’re just expected to know how to use it effectively for your job. That’s likely to be the expectation around AI usage.

In terms of career-proofing, certain skills are going to be more important going forward. Trust and relationships will be crucial in a world where you don’t know if the other person on the other side of the screen is real. We even see that right now in jobs that are on the rise, like background check investigators—probably because it’s become easier to defraud people.

We’re also seeing AI-adjacent skills in demand: data centers, data warehousing management, and data annotators. People who are domain experts who can label things. You don’t need to touch the algorithm, but you need to tell the system what different things are and what they mean.

Then there are skills that will always be important: communication. Everybody has worked with that person who’s great technically. And with AI, we can all be great technically, but they have horrible interpersonal skills. That’s likely to be more important in a world where you don’t necessarily need to be as technically savvy. You still need to be able to communicate with your stakeholders.

The question we all have to answer in our jobs is: “Why can’t AI do this?” Employers are going to ask that question, so you need to know how to answer it and manage those stakeholders. Communication, being able to adapt, and being able to switch gears very quickly. All those things are going to be always important.

Learn more about developing these essential skills: The Difference Between Hard and Soft Skills

Q: What are people worried about regarding AI that might actually matter less than they think?

KK: Being replaced. It is very hard to replicate a human being. If you try to go and do your coworker’s job tomorrow, unless you have the exact identical job, even the way you do it will be slightly different. There are always going to be these human aspects to our jobs.

Some jobs may get scaled down, and we do see certain jobs going obsolete over time, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Being worried about “is AI going to replace me tomorrow?”—that’s probably not a concern we should have.

On LinkedIn, we don’t see a lot of evidence of AI displacing jobs or layoffs because of AI. I see a lot of cheap talk around that, but the evidence just isn’t there. It may be that some employers are holding back hiring because they’re anticipating AI can do it, and some will find out it can’t and start hiring again.

What you shouldn’t worry about is AI replacing you. What might replace you is somebody who knows AI and you don’t. That’s what you should worry about—making sure you can actually use the technology.

Q: For Gen Z and younger workers entering the workforce, what are your best tips for developing competitive skills, especially when entry-level jobs seem less available?

KK: If you think about the entry-level jobs that aren’t available, they aren’t available in the places that have been hit the hardest over the last few years—finance, tech, consulting. These are areas where a lot of new grads want to go because they pay very well, so they overlook opportunities elsewhere.

If you’re a software engineer, you may not have thought about going into healthcare, even though most of the jobs from last year came from healthcare—pretty much all of them. There may be opportunities in other industries you haven’t thought about.

Cast a wide net. See where opportunities are available, even if it’s not in the industry you thought you’d be in, even if it doesn’t pay what you were hoping. Maybe it’s a stepping stone to something else, because the steps you take in your career don’t have to be big at first—they just have to take you in the right direction.

Q: What are some top industries new grads should look at?

KK: Healthcare has a lot of momentum compared to other industries. Education is another area—it has been challenging, but there are lots of opportunities. We do not have enough teachers. If you have a passion for teaching, please teach.

There are also skilled trades—electricians, data center technicians. These are areas where maybe you don’t necessarily need a college degree, but they’re very skilled, very well-paid, and there are opportunities there.

Think about industries that are more resilient: healthcare, education, and areas relevant to our quality of life like utilities. If you have green skills, for example, utilities is the place to look. It’s a small industry, but there are likely to be opportunities. Not just on the technical side building and installing solar panels, but also on the strategy and implementation side.

Q: Any final advice for people navigating their careers?

KK: Don’t get pigeonholed into an industry. Focus on learning your particular domain. What’s your area of knowledge? Where do you contribute? What are the skills you have and where do they translate?

Don’t necessarily tie it to a job title or an industry. Those are all very superficial things that employers focus on because they produce goods and services. But we as people, what are we producing? It’s our talent, it’s our knowledge, it’s our ability to help create and build companies.

Key Takeaway

AI won’t take your job—but someone who knows how to use AI might. Focus on building communication skills, relationships, and AI literacy while casting a wide net across growing industries like healthcare, education, and skilled trades.

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