I have been having fun working on my novel. I have always loved writing, learning new things and doing puzzles. All of this reminds me of how important “soft skills” are becoming – in the age of AI taking over jobs.

I’m also reminded of how, back in the 2016-2017 time period, I was looking for a job. I had left Northern Virginia to try, one last time, to get into the film industry. It continued to be difficult so I was out of work for a year or two. Going back to what I knew - I looked for a temp job, to have some income while I was working plus some temp agencies have temp-to-hire positions. I had tried temp agencies in the south before and knew it would be difficult to find work but I tried anyway. 

Talking to the young lady at the temp agency, I told her about my resume – my years of experience and the other temp jobs I’ve had – she was focused on what I was currently doing – what I had done the last year or two. I was thinking about work, which I hadn’t been working. I then started telling her about my goal of looking for film work and in the process I have been working on a novel. The mention of writing a novel piqued her interest and she seemed excited.

I said all of that to say that, I’ve been looking for another job for a year and a half now but I haven’t been sitting around doing nothing. While looking for work I have also been teaching myself AI, I have started an online magazine (hinds this article), and I have been working on a novel (a trilogy in fact).

In Conclusion

Although my current full time job is job searching, I have also been working on my soft skills in several ways.

Adaptability/Flexibility/Problem Solving: while this administration is laying off people, companies are hesitant to hire African Americans – not wanting to be seen as doing anything DEI related. Some of these same companies are laying off people and replacing them with AI. This whole process has allowed me to increase my...

• Adaptability - times have changed when it comes to looking for work, I’ve learned to change with the times by teaching myself AI

• Flexibility - ageism has also become an issue (at least for employees - I’m still loving to learn new things), I’ve learned to be flexible in this area – if it looks like a company is not interested because of my years of experience and/or age – I just keep it pushing

• Problem Solving - I have taken a look at the current working world – companies learning more toward AI – have taken the initiative to stay current.

Creativity/Communication/Time Management: while looking for another job, I took a look at my interest and what else I would like to accomplish in my lifetime – I consider myself a writer, so I have taken the time to write and teach myself the workings of novel writing. 

• Creativity - this is so exciting to me, being able to step out of the logical box for a while and let my imagination run wild

• Communication - writing is definitely a form of communication and it’s been interesting figuring out how to put down on paper what someone is feeling, seeing, and/or thinking

• Time Management - I am job searching, working on a magazine, writing a novel, and helping my folks out (as much as possible) – time management is a much

My soft skills are solid and because I have focused so much on my hard skills (software engineering, programming, web design) and wasn’t fully aware of how strong my soft skills had become.