This emerging AI economy represents a significant shift in how we think about work. While automation may reduce demand for certain routine tasks, it simultaneously creates unprecedented opportunities that blend technical expertise, creativity, human judgment, and ethical oversight. These new roles often exist at the intersection of technology and traditional fields, creating hybrid careers that would have been unimaginable just a decade ago.

Let’s explore some of the most promising and innovative career paths emerging in this new AI ecosystem:

1. AI Prompt Engineers: The “Linguists” of AI

What they do: Craft precise instructions (prompts) to elicit optimal outputs from large language models and generative AI systems like Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Midjourney.

Why it matters: The quality of an AI’s output is directly proportional to the quality of the input it receives. Poor prompts lead to vague, irrelevant, or even incorrect AI responses. A skilled prompt engineer can dramatically improve the effectiveness of AI tools, essentially acting as a translator between human intent and machine comprehension.

Skills needed:

• Exceptional language precision and communication skills
• Deep understanding of AI model behavior and limitations
• Creative problem-solving to frame queries effectively
• Knowledge of specific domain terminology when working in specialized fields
• Ability to analyze and refine prompts based on output quality

Real-world impact: At a major legal firm in Chicago, a prompt engineer increased document review efficiency by 70% by designing specialized prompts that extract precise case summaries and identify relevant precedents from thousands of legal documents daily. Their work reduced attorney review time while improving accuracy of critical information extraction.

Career trajectory: What began as an ad-hoc role is rapidly evolving into a formalized profession with competitive salaries ranging from $80,000 to $175,000 depending on experience and industry. Many prompt engineers start with backgrounds in linguistics, communications, or technical writing before specializing.

2. AI Trainers & Data Curators

What they do: Select, organize, label, and refine the training data that shapes AI models’ understanding of the world. They’re responsible for ensuring that AI systems learn from high-quality, representative, and ethically sourced information.

Why it matters: The axiom “garbage in, garbage out” has never been more relevant than with AI. Models are only as good as the data they’re trained on—biased, inaccurate, or poor-quality data inevitably leads to flawed AI outputs that can perpetuate societal problems or make critical errors.

Skills needed:

• Expertise in data labeling methodologies and tools
• Strong domain knowledge in relevant fields (healthcare, finance, legal, etc.)
• Meticulous attention to detail and consistency
• Understanding of potential biases and representation issues
• Database management and data preprocessing skills

Real-world impact: A team of healthcare data curators at a medical AI startup ensured their diagnostic assistant was trained on diverse patient data across different demographics, medical conditions, and healthcare settings. Their careful curation work led to an AI system that demonstrates significantly lower diagnostic disparities across racial and socioeconomic lines compared to competing products.

Career trajectory: This field is seeing rapid growth as organizations recognize the critical importance of high-quality training data. Entry-level positions often start around $65,000, with senior roles commanding $120,000+ particularly in specialized domains like healthcare or finance.

3. AI Ethics & Compliance Specialists

What they do: Ensure AI systems operate fairly, transparently, and in accordance with emerging legal frameworks and ethical standards. They identify potential harms, audit systems for bias, and develop governance structures for responsible AI deployment.

Why it matters: As AI systems make increasingly consequential decisions affecting human lives—from loan approvals to medical treatments—ensuring these systems operate ethically becomes paramount. Without proper oversight, AI can inadvertently perpetuate bias, violate privacy, or make decisions that harm vulnerable populations.

Skills needed:

• Comprehensive understanding of AI ethics frameworks and principles
• Knowledge of evolving regulations (EU AI Act, GDPR, etc.)
• Ability to conduct thorough risk assessments and algorithmic audits
• Excellent communication skills to translate technical concepts to stakeholders
• Background in philosophy, law, or social sciences often beneficial

Real-world impact: An ethics specialist at a major recruitment technology company implemented a comprehensive auditing system that uncovered subtle gender and age biases in their AI hiring tool. After addressing these issues, client companies reported a 35% increase in workforce diversity while maintaining or improving new hire performance metrics.

Career trajectory: This rapidly growing field combines elements of compliance, ethics, and technical knowledge. Salaries typically range from $90,000 to $200,000 depending on experience and organization size. Many professionals enter from adjacent fields like technology law, privacy compliance, or risk management.

4. AI-Augmented Creatives (Artists, Writers, Designers)

What they do: Integrate AI generative tools like DALL·E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, or Claude into creative workflows, using them to enhance ideation, streamline production, and explore new artistic possibilities while maintaining human creative direction.

Why it matters: AI can dramatically accelerate content creation and help overcome creative blocks, but it still requires human artistic judgment, emotional intelligence, and cultural context to create truly resonant work. These hybrid creatives combine the efficiency of AI with the irreplaceable human creative spark.

Skills needed:

• Strong foundation in traditional creative disciplines (writing, design, visual arts, etc.)
• Proficiency with AI-assisted creative tools and platforms
• Editorial judgment to select, refine, and enhance AI outputs
• Conceptual thinking that goes beyond what AI can generate alone
• Understanding of copyright considerations with AI-generated content

Real-world impact: A digital agency’s AI-augmented design team reduced turnaround time for initial client concept presentations by 60%. They use AI to rapidly generate diverse visual directions, then apply their expertise to refine and elevate these concepts, allowing them to explore a much wider range of creative possibilities within tight deadlines.

Career trajectory: These roles represent the evolution of traditional creative professions rather than their replacement. Salaries remain comparable to established creative fields ($60,000-$150,000) but with increased emphasis on technological fluency alongside creative talent.

5. AI Maintenance & Debugging Experts

What they do: Monitor, troubleshoot, and fine-tune AI systems after deployment to ensure continued accuracy, reliability, and performance as real-world conditions change.

Why it matters: Unlike traditional software, AI models can “drift” over time as the world changes around them, gradually becoming less accurate or developing new problematic behaviors. Regular maintenance is crucial to ensure AI systems continue to function as intended.

Skills needed:

• Strong machine learning fundamentals
• Advanced testing and debugging methodologies
• Familiarity with model performance metrics and monitoring tools
• Understanding of concept/data drift and mitigation strategies
• Experience with model retraining and fine-tuning techniques

Real-world impact: A maintenance expert at a financial services firm detected early signs of performance degradation in their AI fraud detection system following the introduction of a new payment platform. Their proactive intervention and model adjustments prevented what could have been millions in fraudulent transactions slipping through undetected.

Career trajectory: This specialization typically requires technical background in machine learning or software engineering. Salaries range from $95,000 to $180,000, with higher compensation in industries where AI reliability is mission-critical, such as healthcare or financial services.

6. AI Integration Specialists

What they do: Bridge the gap between AI capabilities and business needs, helping organizations seamlessly incorporate AI tools into existing workflows, systems, and organizational structures.

Why it matters: Simply acquiring AI technology doesn’t guarantee business value. Many organizations struggle with effective implementation, user adoption, and integration with legacy systems. Integration specialists ensure AI deployments deliver on their promised benefits.

Skills needed:

• Knowledge of enterprise software ecosystems (CRM, ERP, etc.)
• Strong project management and change management abilities
• Basic understanding of AI/ML concepts and limitations
• Technical implementation expertise
• Stakeholder communication and training capabilities

Real-world impact: An integration specialist helped a mid-sized retail chain deploy customer service AI across their operation. By carefully mapping existing processes, identifying integration points, and developing a phased rollout plan, they achieved 92% employee adoption and reduced customer response times by 80% while maintaining high satisfaction scores.

Career trajectory: This role often attracts professionals with backgrounds in IT project management, systems integration, or business analysis. Salaries typically range from $85,000 to $160,000 depending on the complexity of systems being integrated.

7. AI-Powered Healthcare Diagnosticians

What they do: Collaborate with AI diagnostic systems to analyze medical images, lab results, genetic data, and patient records, leveraging AI to enhance detection capabilities while providing critical human oversight.

Why it matters: AI can detect subtle patterns in medical data that might escape even experienced clinicians, potentially identifying diseases earlier and more accurately. However, medical context, patient history, and clinical judgment remain essential for proper diagnosis and treatment planning.

Skills needed:

• Strong medical expertise and clinical experience
• Familiarity with AI diagnostic tools and their limitations
• Critical analytical thinking to evaluate AI recommendations
• Ability to interpret AI confidence levels and uncertainty indicators
• Communication skills to explain AI-assisted diagnoses to patients

Real-world impact: A team of AI-augmented radiologists at a major hospital system implemented an AI-assisted workflow for mammogram reviews that increased early-stage breast cancer detection rates by 12% while reducing false positives by 20%. The radiologists focus their expertise on evaluating AI-flagged areas of concern, leading to more accurate diagnoses and better patient outcomes.

Career trajectory: These roles typically require traditional medical credentials plus specialized training in AI-assisted diagnostic technologies. Compensation aligns with medical specialties ($150,000-$300,000+) with premiums for those with dual expertise in healthcare and technology.

The Future of Work in the AI Economy

As AI continues to evolve, the boundary between human and machine capabilities will keep shifting. However, the emerging roles highlighted above reveal a consistent pattern: rather than wholesale replacement, we’re seeing the development of human-AI collaborative relationships that leverage the strengths of both.

The most valuable skills in this new economy will be:

✅ Adaptability – The ability to quickly learn and incorporate new AI tools into your workflow
✅ Critical Thinking – The judgment to evaluate, contextualize, and verify AI outputs
✅ Creativity – The imagination to use AI in novel ways and go beyond what AI alone can generate
✅ Emotional Intelligence – The human understanding that AI fundamentally lacks
✅ Ethical Reasoning – The wisdom to guide AI deployment responsibly

Education and Preparing for AI-Era Careers

Traditional education is struggling to keep pace with these rapid changes. Many of these emerging roles lack established degree programs or certification paths. Forward-thinking professionals are creating their own education through combinations of:

• Traditional degrees in foundational fields
• Specialized online courses and bootcamps in AI-related skills
• Hands-on experience with AI tools
• Cross-disciplinary learning that spans technical and humanistic domains

Many organizations are also developing internal training programs to upskill existing employees rather than competing for scarce external talent.

Conclusion: A New Partnership, Not a Replacement

Rather than the apocalyptic job displacement scenarios often portrayed in media, the AI economy is creating novel hybrid careers that merge human expertise with machine capabilities. These new roles often require uniquely human qualities—creativity, ethics, emotional intelligence, and contextual understanding—combined with technical fluency.

The professionals who will thrive in this evolving landscape won’t be those who compete against AI, but those who learn to work alongside it, leveraging its capabilities while contributing the distinctly human elements that no machine can replicate. By embracing this collaborative approach, we can harness AI’s transformative potential while creating meaningful, productive careers for the future workforce.

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Make goal-setting an ongoing practice.

Setting goals at work is an interesting balancing act. On the one hand, your workplace goals must support the company mission. On the other hand, they must be your own. Otherwise, goal-setting is just a rote, check-the-box exercise.

An additional complication is that certain companies (and managers) are better at helping their employees set and achieve work goals than others. The good news is that even if you work for someone who approaches the annual goal-setting session as a necessary evil, there are things you can do to get some value out of it. If your manager genuinely understands the power of goal alignment and setting and achieving goals, you have a great opportunity to use the conversation as a starting point for career growth.

Here are 10 things to keep in mind before setting goals at work and filling out that goal sheet.

1. Get clarity on your team’s structure.

First things first – you must understand the functions and interrelationships of your team in order to set workplace goals that will make your team more productive and helpful to the rest of the organization. In a practical sense, every team serves as a supporting unit and a consumer of support at the same time. Get the mapping right, and you will be able to identify specific and measurable things you can do better to help processes and projects run smoother.

2. Talk to your boss. What can you do to make their job easier and make them look good?

No matter what your job description says, your job is really all about making your manager’s life easier. Think of it as an opportunity to be of service. Having a frank conversation about how you can support your boss will go a long way towards defining your workplace goals.

3. Focus on what you can control and have a plan for the rest.

For every workplace goal, there are factors you can control and factors that are out of your hands. Be clear on the distinction, and have a plan for what to do if the out-of-your-control factors don’t line up.

Imagine that you are a supervisor within an accounting department in a hospital. Let’s say you set a goal to shorten the month-end close timeline by 2 business days. Success will depend on the skill and collaboration of your accounting department (something you can contribute to and control), and on the ability of other departments to deliver critical data on time (something that is out of your control). It is smart to have a plan to coordinate the month-end close with other departments, remind them of the deadline and keep the communication lines open – but you must have a plan and an accountability agreement in the event they fail to deliver.

4. Think about your career path in the long run.

What is your ideal next professional role? What qualifications and skills do you need to qualify? Which success stories will make you a suitable and impressive candidate? Line up your personal goals for work in a way that allows you to gather those accomplishments and learn the skills.

5. Go beyond immediate tasks and think of the big picture.

Your growth as a professional is bigger than productivity and proficiency at your desk! Career progression often requires a broad scope of skills and experiences. Add professional seminars and other educational opportunities to your goal list, because continued learning is critical to your ability to expand your responsibilities and get promoted.

If you would like to move into a VP or a C-suite role in the future, consider looking at rotations in other departments. The knowledge of how different parts of the company fit together will prove useful and may set you apart from competing candidates.

Finally, if you see yourself growing into a management or client-facing role, Toastmasters is a fantastic way to sharpen your public speaking skills.

6. Get clarity on what goal achievement would look like.

You know the basics: a good workplace goal is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Go beyond those basics and visualize what goal achievement would look like. Would it make a particular project flow easier? Would it allow the team to work together more effectively? The image of a goal achieved will keep you motivated.

7. Schedule periodic check-ins.

The act of setting work goals is not limited to one conversation at the start of the performance period. Any plan must be flexible in order to retain its usefulness, and professional goals are no different. Sit down with your manager to talk about status and progress throughout the year. These conversations can be formal and regular (at the end of every quarter) or more ad-hoc. No matter which frequency you choose, the important thing is to keep the communication channel open, so that your goal plan can adapt to reflect today’s reality and priorities.

8. Ask for support if you need it.

Superstar performers in sports and at work don’t have to do it alone. Moreover, they know that they can achieve more and do it quicker with the help of a mentor or a coach. If you wanted to get better at golf, you would probably hire an instructor who would help you improve your swing. Your career is no different. Look for allies, both within your company and outside of it, and build a network of professionals who care about your success. Talk to them, ask for advice and listen carefully.

9. Do a periodic comparison of your annual goals with your to-do list.

Setting goals at work is great for mapping out big-picture targets and wins for the year. The unfortunate reality is that fire-drills and urgent reassignments can make it difficult to focus on the things that everyone had agreed were important. Continued professional education is a good example. Everyone knows it is valuable for your expertise and proficiency. It is also a requirement for retaining many professional certifications and licenses. However, continued education so often falls by the wayside because of client demands, deadlines and last-minute assignments. If you have ever had to cram a year’s worth of education credits in the last three weeks of the year, you are in good company.

So, do a periodic check of how well your daily to-do list aligns with your big-picture workplace goals. If the two have nothing to do with each other, talk to your manager and take action.

10. Track your accomplishments.

We have all been there – as you’re preparing for your annual evaluation (or revising your resume for your job search), you draw a complete blank on your past accomplishments. You know you have been busy, and your manager is generally happy with your work, but you cannot name a single specific success over the last year.

The lesson here is that it can be difficult to recall success details at the end of the performance period. After all, you have a full year of projects to think through! Save yourself the trouble and keep a running list of your wins (a simple Word or Excel document will do just fine). List everything from meeting regular deadlines to stepping in to help with an urgent research project, to completing successful client pitches and presentations.

In closing, remember that setting goals for work is best when it is an ongoing practice. Do yourself a favor and treat it as a conversation that never stops. Every time you get a new assignment, ask your manager to clarify expectations. What does he hope to accomplish through your work? Where does he anticipate difficulties? What is the timeline, and why is this project important? After the project is wrapped up, have a conversation to debrief and talk about what went well and what could have been done better. Many professionals are apprehensive of performance discussions, but the truth is that you can only get better if you know what skills and habits need more work. Keep the communication lines open, and you will set yourself up for more interesting work and a faster career progression in no time.

https://www.topresume.com/career-advice/10-steps-to-setting-and-reaching-goals-at-work

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I have managed over 100 direct reports over the course of my career. From the nerdiest, most introverted engineer to the highly extroverted sales executive. They’ve been on either side of up to 20 years senior or junior to me, varying genders and from as far away as India and China to as near as the office next door. No matter what their role, experience, proximity or personality, I have always made their one-on-ones (1:1’s) a priority. Why are 1:1’s so important?

• Whether it’s an hour a week or 30 minutes once a month, making time for an individual says you give a damn about them as a person.
• The 1:1 is the only forum where you can have an honest, private, conversation with each other about what’s really going on—professionally and personally.
• This is a routine opportunity for you, as a manager, to assess the parts (your employees) that lead to the productive whole (your team)—which we all know is more powerful than the sum of said parts.
• A leader who makes time for their team members—especially those who are also leaders—is less likely to suffer poor team performance because of ambiguity and mistrust. Each 1:1 is an opportunity to clarify the goals of the organization, your performance expectations and build a trusting relationship with your employees by getting to know them as people, not just workers.
• Finally, constructive 1:1s throughout the year makes performance reviews a breeze. With routine 1:1s, review time can be more about goals and the year ahead instead of constructive feedback from the past.

Don’t just schedule these important meetings with your direct reports, be thoughtful about how these sessions play out. Below is the guidance I give to new managers on conducting 1:1’s.

Set expectations
Whether your employee has worked for you for awhile and you’re just kicking off 1:1s, or they are a new hire and you’re rolling them into the fold, set expectations up front.

• I am a big believer in being clear about behavior changes. If this is a new process you are putting in place at your company/in your team, be transparent about it. Otherwise, people worry something bad is going to happen (getting fired) if you all of sudden start scheduling 1:1s. Announce it at a team meeting/all-hands or send out an email/slack being clear about why these are important to do.
• This meeting is for them as much as it is for you. Be clear that you do this with all employees who work directly for you. No one is being singled out.
• Book a regular cadence of 1:1s. They should not be ad-hoc. It’s ok to skip one every once and awhile, but having it locked into the calendar is your commitment to being there for your employee.
• Decide the best cadence with them (weekly or every other week? 30 minutes or an hour?) and what the format should be—your office or theirs, a walk, or maybe grabbing coffee. Different formats work for different employees and they can always be changed as you get into a groove. [see below on remote employees]. Just don’t do after work drinks—that suggests a less serious discussion.

The agenda
If a meeting is important enough to have, it should have an agenda.

• Topics in a 1:1 should be about professional growth, personal connection and for giving each other feedback. Do not use the meeting to re-hash things from a group meeting or standup unless there are specific things you took off-line in that meeting or need to provide/get constructive feedback.
• 24 hours or so before the meeting, email the employee a list of what you’d like to cover. Try to do a split between strategic, tactical and personal items and always ask your employee what they want to cover too. For efficiency, let them know if you need them to bring/read/do something before the meeting. For example:

  Jessica, for our 1:1 tomorrow, I’d like to cover the following:

  • • Review a potential change to the product roadmap for next quarter and how that might impact your team. Please bring the latest roadmap with you.
    • Walk through the training presentation deck you are preparing for your new hires. Please send me your latest version tonight if you can?
    • Get feedback on whether the budget changes I made for you were helpful. Let me know if there are new numbers I should look at before we meet.
    • Hear about your vacation! Your pics looked awesome.

  Let me know what else you’d like to cover. Looking forward to catching up!

The 1:1 meeting
With an agenda set and materials pre-reviewed/in-hand, you are ready for a productive session.

• Walk through the agenda. Ask if there’s anything else to add before you dig in. Always leave a door open—sometimes an employee is holding back on something.
• If there are hard things to discuss (maybe some tough performance feedback), try to bookend it with two positive topics. That way, the close of the meeting doesn’t leave your employee feeling down. You’ve given them good feedback and some things to work on.
• Do not monopolize the conversation. This is for you each to get time to talk. Pause often and make sure there is opportunity for discussion and questions.
• Always end the meeting asking them how things are going overall and if there is anything else you can do to make them successful. Sounds awkward, but that’s your job! If your employees are a success, you are success.

After the meeting
It is important to always follow up any 1:1 (or scheduled meeting, for that matter) with notes on what was discussed, decisions made and, if relevant, any constructive feedback that will be measured going forward. Keep it short and sweet:

Jessica, good meeting today! From what we discussed:

• • Sounds like the roadmap change won’t slip the schedule much. Please share the new schedule on slack so the team can digest it before our Product group meeting.
  • Love the training deck! Let me know if you want to practice with me before you present next week. You’re going to crush it.
  • Sounds like those budget tweaks aren’t cutting it for your team’s needs. I’ll try to adjust next quarter, but right now you are going to have to work with what you have. Manage your spend carefully.
  • Thanks for letting me know you’re working on a personnel issue on your team. Let me know if I can help. Otherwise, keep me posted on how it plays out.

A recap ensures that you’re both on the same page and it serves as an audit trail if/when anything goes off the rails. Do this with ALL your employees. Otherwise, some may wonder why they’re getting follow up emails and others are not. Consistency in leadership is critical!

Remote employees and non-Directs

• 1:1s with remote employees can be tricky. I recommend using video whenever possible and, if possible, 1-2 in-person 1:1s a year to maintain the personal connection. All other suggestions above apply for the remote employee.
• It is perfectly OK to have 1:1s with junior people who do not work directly for you. Just remember, you are NOT their manager. Be clear about why you are requesting the meeting.

  Perhaps you are the CEO and want to have a 1:1 with a lead engineer to get a better understanding of a product challenge:

  • Make sure the engineer’s manager knows why you want to have the meeting.
  • Make sure the engineer understands you would like to get the detail directly vs. through other people. You are not going around their boss who knows you are requesting this meeting.
  • Be very careful about feedback. Always end such meetings with next steps being how you’ll follow up with the employee’s manager if there are any action items. Never undermine someone’s manager by giving specific direction without consulting with their manager. Especially if you are the CEO/CTO or other senior position. Often, the most simple “that sounds cool” can be heard as “do it!” from someone more senior than your boss.

Invest in your team
One-on-ones can make all the difference in how you lead. Your time invested in doing them right will pay off not only with each individual, but with how your organization functions as a team.

Have other tips on running successful 1:1s or good lessons learned from not having them? Please share in the comments.

Reprinted with permission from the author’s blog post, Mastering the 1:1.

Original Article – Harvard Business School

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When getting a bite from a candidate and then they eventually agree to meet with your client, you think to yourself, yes this is it, finally…only for them to turn around and not meet with the client and then go off the grid which is another frustrating factor for recruiters! Although it’s not most candidates that do that, when building up relationships with candidates, they find it easy to communicate with you and will let you know well in advance if they cannot make it. That is why, as in any relationship:  communication is key.

Most developers have been contacted by many other recruiters and it’s up to you how to handle them. When I chat to most developers they think you do not know what you are talking about. So for recruiters, Google is amazing. Although, if you are not sure about what some things in a spec mean, feel free to ask your devs or hiring managers as they would feel much better knowing you are trying to understand what exactly they are looking for. If all else fails…Google was created for this (hahahaha).

Most recruiters work long hours and, come home time, they turn off their PC and that’s it, no further communication to either candidate or client. That right there is the mistake most recruiters have. If you are in the tech space, you know that after hours are the only times devs have to talk to you, so you would need to put in the extra bit now and then, because if you don’t, someone else will, and you miss out on great candidates or leads.

Getting feedback from clients can also be a nightmare at times. Yes we understand that clients are busy and cannot provide feedback on the very same day, and sometimes you need to wait weeks on end. Then all of a sudden they come back with interview requests, though, by that time most of the candidates are no longer in the market. Clients need to understand that we are dealing with very sought after candidates. So if they do take their time in getting back to us regarding CV’s sent, chances are that the one they were hoping for will most likely be off the market.

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Create a prolific and intelligent online presence

Turn yourself into a brand with an original and well-informed online presence. Use all available tools to build yourself a following: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram.  Are you blogging? Are you engaging in conversation with key industry players? Are you following the influencers and staying abreast of the latest creative and technical industry news?

Your employers are bound to check your mastery of the digital realm before deciding whether to hire you. Make sure you have a lively, fresh and coherent online presence that proves you know how to use the net to make a real impact.

Know the industry inside out

Know which agencies are running which accounts. Scour the web for the latest digital and integrated campaigns, and form an educated opinion on them. Find out who is winning which awards, and follow the work of those teams. Know which agencies are hiring and which are firing; who is winning the big accounts and who is losing them. Find out why.

Useful websites such as Between 10and5, Memeburn and MarkLives will keep you up to date with local industry news.

For global happenings, follow TechCrunch, Mashable, Smashing Magazine and ReadWrite.

Network

With access to social media tools such as Twitter, networking is easier than it has ever been.  Initiate conversations with the big players and stay connected. Go to industry events such as Digital Cowboys, Creative Mornings, PechKucha and Girl Geek Dinners.Follow your favourite designers on Behance. Become an active member of the industry by staying engaged.

Research & innovate

Before going to an interview, ensure you know the agency’s work inside out. Create strategic ideas of your own that you think could strengthen a campaign or impress a client. Innovation and passion will get you everywhere.

Speak the language

It is vital that you know how to speak digital, even if you are not a developer. Know the difference between PHP and .Net, and why you would choose to code in any particular language. Gain an understanding of how certain functionality requirements need specific languages and platforms to work.

Get a grasp of the basic principles of SEO and PPC, and know which mailing systems are breaking new ground. Even if you’re on the Client Service team, know how to use Photoshop or Gimp, and the basics of HTML. Try websites such as Codeacademy for free online tutorials.

Create a (brilliant) online portfolio

Set up a bog or online portfolio of your work to present to potential employees at any given time. You can add certain elements to your LinkedIn profile, too.

Let your passion lead you

Being passionate about the digital realm will spill over into everything you do, and is sure to impress your potential employers. Demonstrate openly how much you love all things digital by staying abreast of the coolest new apps, sharing the campaigns that have impacted you and connecting with new, young talent to make creative ideas come alive.

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The Homestead actively participates in improving the plight of street children, from first contact with social workers on the street right through to mending family relationships, empowering impoverished parents through skill training projects and providing long-term placements in a permanent home.

Please feel free to drop off any old clothes at our offices or someone from Swift Momentum can come collect. Please feel free to donate anything at all that could help this awesome organisation support the homeless street kids of Cape Town.

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