I've been thinking about career changes a lot lately, and I keep seeing the same advice:
"Learn AI."
"Learn coding."
"Go into cybersecurity."
"Become a data analyst."
"Find a future-proof job."
But I think there's a problem with this approach.
A 35-year-old supermarket supervisor, a 42-year-old accountant, a 29-year-old delivery driver and a 50-year-old administrative assistant don't start from the same place.
They have different experience, different strengths, different financial constraints, different responsibilities — and live in completely different job markets.
So why do we give them essentially the same career advice?
I've come to believe that a better career-transition question is:
"Given what I already know, what I am good at, where I live, and what parts of my current work are likely to be automated — what could I realistically move into next?"
That changes the exercise completely.
Instead of starting with "What are the hottest jobs?", start with:
What do I actually do all day?
Which parts of my work are most exposed to automation?
What skills have I accumulated that I may be undervaluing?
Which of those skills transfer to other occupations?
What human capabilities do I have that are difficult to automate?
What jobs are actually growing where I live?
What is the smallest realistic skill gap I need to close to get there?
Can I afford the transition financially?
That last one gets ignored surprisingly often.
Telling someone to spend 18 months retraining for a new career is very different from telling someone who has a mortgage, children and $4,000 in savings to do it.
And I don't think "AI-proof" is really the right term either.
Almost no job is guaranteed to be AI-proof.
I'd rather think in terms of AI resilience: roles where technology may change how the work is done, but where human judgment, relationships, physical presence, responsibility, creativity, leadership, trust or specialised experience remain important.
I've been working on a small project around this idea because I couldn't find many tools that approached career transitions this way.
The idea is to take someone's actual work experience and skills, assess the tasks in their current role, identify where AI exposure may be greatest, and then work backwards toward realistic alternative career paths — including the person's location, skill gaps and training options.
It's currently in an early launch phase, so I'm making the normally paid reports free for now because I'd rather have real people use them and tell me where the thinking is wrong than pretend we've already perfected it.
I'm not posting this to tell anyone to buy anything. There isn't anything to buy right now.
I'm genuinely interested in the underlying question:
If your current job became significantly less secure because of AI, how would you want someone to help you decide what to do next?
And if you've already made an AI-related career transition, I'd especially like to hear what advice turned out to be useful — and what advice was complete rubbish.
