Robotics is creating jobs and more wealth for the U.S. economy as I shared in my last article. This article attracted interest from WGN Radio. I was interviewed by host Steve Grzanich on their “Opening Bell” show on Tuesday, January 22, 2019.
Below are the questions Steve asked me as well as my responses in italics. I hope you enjoy this.
Will robots take over on some level, true or no?
If you look at history, and history repeats itself Steve, when the e (commerce) age with digital computers came along, people like typists lost their jobs. However, other jobs were created like Cyber Security experts and Java programmers. That is a normal trend in job history.
This is already happening again in the robot age because robotics companies need to recruit talent to program, repair and develop new robots including new vision systems and artificial intelligence or AI programs to drive the robots.
Talk to us about recruiting for this area. Robotics engineering probably covers a lot of technical, engineering and scientific talent areas. What are employers looking for right now and how can you help them?
Steve, there are a lot of aspects to a robot. There is the actual hardware and design of robots. As the previous guest mentioned there is the artificial intelligence, or AI, aspect to drive the robot. As a result, there are job candidates needed to develop new vision systems, programming robot sensors, developing the AI and machine learning systems that drive robots and maintenance people to repair the robots.
Unemployment in areas related to robotics is near zero. There are more job openings than candidates for those jobs. Therefore, employers need to be more creative and vigilant in their robot scientist, engineer, IT and technical candidate recruiting efforts.
We’re in a hot jobs market and technology keeps moving forward. Will that improve?
It will, but there is a caveat. Because there is a recently released report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which is a top technical, scientific and engineering think tank, says the U.S. is falling behind other countries in robotics.
China, for example, is recruiting robots at a much faster rate than anyone else in the world. As a result, within a decade (China) could lead the world in robotics.
The U.S. needs to engage in more recruitment of robotics (engineers). This is a hot technical, engineering and scientific field, which will do a lot to create even more jobs and help our economy.
Young people are now thinking about what they should do with their lives. Should they examine this area more closely?
Exactly…the field is changing so rapidly, college classes and books are not always the best way to learn about robotics because they are not keeping up with the current robot trends.
Instead, I recommend reading all the journals you can on robots, artificial intelligence, machine learning and sensors. Also, join robotics groups including (groups) on LinkedIn such as Medical Robotics.
What separates one candidate apart from another? How can they market themselves better?
One of the keys to landing a job is selling yourself in the interview. A lot of job candidates perform poorly at this.
One of my mantras from my award winning interview preparation video is, “Sell, Sell, Sell.” What that means is (at) every chance you have; you want to sell yourself as a solution to the hiring company’s needs.
To do an excellent job selling yourself in the interview you need to research the company. A sales pitch to one employer will not work for another. To that end, put yourself in the hiring company’s shoes and ask yourself the question, “How can I benefit this employer?”
In a hot market such as this is, can you walk in and say what your salary should be?
No, as I also share in my award winning interview preparation video, one of the other mantras I mention is, “Keep open on the money. The key is the job opportunity.”
This is the case because whatever you state in a first interview will always be too high or too low. If it’s too high you will knock yourself out of job consideration and if it’s too low you may cheat yourself out of a higher salary.
It’s never to your advantage to state a specific salary amount on the first interview. Instead, stay open on your salary, qualify for the job and negotiate your salary and compensation in later interview rounds.
Are there a few places in the country where robotics is hot? Are there a few cities or is it geographically spread out?
Robotics job recruiting is spread out across the country. However, the cities around the Silicon Valley and Austin, Texas are hot beds for robotics jobs recruiting.
Do robots working side by side with humans mean a higher GDP? A healthy and happy economy? Is that the best-case scenario?
Correct, then there is a lot a potential worst-case job scenario. Robots are going to replace jobs. Unless people retrain for other jobs… there will be a loss of jobs.
This puts an emphasis on political leaders to invest in more and better STEM (Science, Technical, Engineering and Math) education, which the U.S. has been slipping in. It’s a double-edged sword. We are going to loose jobs, but we also are going to need to recruit more jobs in robotics. So we need to improve the STEM education in our country.
How much responsibility do employers have in training adults who have worked their entire lives in these areas?
A lot of companies like Amazon are actually spending a lot of money in retraining workers. This is the case because the educational system in our country has been slipping in STEM.
So there needs to be more of a push to retrain workers including a partnership between employers and political leaders to invest in STEM education. This needs to be done to actuate the future recruitment of engineers in robotics and other technology fields that take off in the future.
Call me today at 312-944-4000 to discuss how we can assist with your robotics engineering efforts. Or click here for my full contact information.
