If you’ve been reading about the economy, it seems like a fair percentage of the new jobs being created out there are going to technical people.
Even today, the number of applicants in the Silicon Valley job pool for a specific technical skill are roughly equal to the number of open jobs in that niche.
Meanwhile, local employers are telling me they get 100-300 resumes/applications for every open job they post – of which there aren’t too many right now.
Every day, more and more jobs involve technical knowledge. So what do you do about it if you aren’t a “technical person”.
Technical people
When I say “technical person”, I mean programmers, engineers and similar folks.
While some of the work these folks do can be outsourced, the work that isn’t tends to require local cultural context that isn’t often available to the technical person in another country.
Cultural context means a knowledge of the culture of the target market for the product you’re designing. Some products require it, some do not.
For example, an electrical engineer in almost any country or region of the world can design a cell phone component because “everyone” knows what a cell phone is and how it’s used.
The same isn’t always true when the design target is something in the cultural context of a particular area.
If you are in the U.S. or Canada, would you know the important aspects of designing a motorized trike designed for the streets of Kumpala, Delhi or Shanghai?
Probably not, unless you have traveled extensively and spent time in those places.
That doesn’t mean you can’t learn those critical design points or someone from that region can’t learn those specific to the U.S. and Canada, but there is a learning curve.
Not all jobs require that context. Quite often, when you look at the jobs that have been outsourced, you’ll find that those jobs were lost because those jobs *can* be outsourced.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t technical. It simply means that they are technical but anyone with the skills can perform them – no matter what culture they grew up in.
Lots of people get really angry about that, just like they got angry at steam engines, the cotton gin and other advances that changed how our economy works. Meanwhile, that outsourced job went to some guy in somewhere who’s trying to feed his kids like everyone else. He might be making $1.10 a day doing that work, but it could be twice his previous pay.
Regardless of what the pay is, that’s a job that COULD be outsourced because despite being technical, it’s too general.
I received this (redacted) email from a friend today who has forgotten more enterprise network stuff than I’ll ever know.
“So now I have another big contract.
These guys build big infrastructure for municipalities and large facilities. Perfect shovel ready stuff for millions of dollars and several years putting America back to work.
My job …. getting a working solution that allows them to move the technical work to a big city outside the US. Seems those folk need the work a LOT more than their counterparts who happen to be in, of all places, a city here in the US).
This is not the first time I have had a project where the purpose was to move American jobs overseas but it sucks more and more each time….it proves that some people truly have just about sold out to the highest bidder.”
The work described above is highly technical, but it is also pretty general.
Technical or not, the jobs that can be outsourced are often those jobs that have no local context, nothing to differentiate it, nothing to keep the work from being done elsewhere, be it Kansas or Kazakhstan.
Not a nerd?
What if you aren’t “technical” in the context I’ve described here? Let’s say you’re a cabinet maker (which seems technical to me, but I digress).
Have you made the effort to determine what needs these “nerdy” businesses have? Their success and their specialized needs might fuel yours.
Just an example, but worth some thought and, perhaps, some effort.
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a business, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site or contact him via email at mriffey at flatheadbeacon.com.