As artificial intelligence enters more areas of work, there’s no shortage of headlines, podcasts, and social media posts predicting the disappearance of entire professions. It’s understandable that many people feel anxious about what this could mean for their livelihoods. While it’s likely that work will change in significant ways, responding with fear and despair rarely helps anyone adapt well.
A more useful question is whether there’s another way to think about preparing for a changing environment—one that remains flexible regardless of how technology ultimately reshapes work. Rather than trying to predict which jobs will disappear or emerge, it may be more effective to focus on the knowledge, skills, and abilities we’ve already developed and how they can carry across roles, industries, and technologies.
These are often called transferable skills.
To illustrate this, consider my own profession. As a counselor, I’m trained to help people work toward goals across areas such as relationships, mental health, career development, and adjustment to life changes. Those are the most obvious applications of counseling skills. Less obvious—but just as important—are the transferable abilities counselors develop: communication, assessment, planning, problem-solving, and helping people navigate uncertainty. These capabilities are useful far beyond any single job title or sector, including in environments where technology is rapidly changing how services are delivered.
The same is true in many other fields. Computer programmers, for example, are often mentioned as a profession likely to be heavily impacted by AI-driven automation. While the tools they use may change, the most valuable skills programmers develop are not tied to any single language or platform. Experienced programmers learn how to break complex problems into manageable parts, reason through systems, test assumptions, and adapt when things don’t work as expected. These ways of thinking translate naturally into roles in operations, management, strategy, and any work involving complex systems.
People who are better positioned to adapt tend to shift the questions they ask. Instead of focusing primarily on credentials or job titles, they ask: What are the skills I’ve developed that remain useful across contexts? Instead of asking What job do I want next?, they ask How do I want to function in the world of work? and What values do I want my work to reflect?
Seen this way, automation doesn’t have to be purely a threat. It can also be an invitation to think more clearly about adaptability, learning, and human judgment. Preparing for change isn’t about predicting the future perfectly—it’s about developing capacities that remain useful no matter what form the future takes.
If you want to begin identifying your own transferable skills, here are a few questions worth considering:
If I weren’t driven by fear, what emerging areas of work would I be curious to explore?
What have I learned from the jobs and roles I’ve already had?
What values do I want to embody through my work?
What would people who know me well say are my greatest strengths and areas for growth?
Am I taking time to understand how new technologies work and how they’re already being used?
What we cannot do is slow the progress of technology simply because the future feels uncertain. At FutureProofYourJob.com, one guiding idea is that life often involves learning how to swim in a sea of uncertainty rather than waiting for the water to become calm. We don’t need certainty in order to respond well to change, but we do need to remain willing, flexible, and adaptive. One practical way to do that is by taking time to reflect on the transferable skills you already bring to the table. Most people have more of these skills than they realize, and learning how to recognize and apply them can go a long way toward staying resilient as work continues to change.