{"id":389568,"date":"2026-04-09T09:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T09:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/389568\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T09:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T09:12:09","slug":"a-hr-expert-and-a-serial-entrepreneur-on-career-success-in-the-ai-era-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/389568\/","title":{"rendered":"A HR expert and a serial entrepreneur on career success in the AI era \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes a number makes you gasp. No, it\u2019s not fuel prices, although they are shocking too. It\u2019s 900,000: that\u2019s the number of jobs likely to be lost to artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI), according to figures from the Central Bank of Ireland<\/a>. <\/p>\n

A paper published by the bank last month found that between 13 per cent and 31 per cent of all those employed \u2013 standing at 2.8 million at the end of 2025 \u2013 are likely to lose their jobs due to the new technology.<\/p>\n

If this prediction comes to pass, a large percentage of our working population will be unemployed, with the report stating that younger workers and women will be more at risk. <\/p>\n

Customer service workers, clerical support workers and sales assistants are at the highest risk of replacement, while those in science, engineering, law, information and communications technology will be largely unscathed. <\/p>\n

The Central Bank urged the Government to develop policies focused on targeted reskilling, upskilling and investment in lifelong learning for impacted groups.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re a young person reaching for the next rung in the career ladder, what does this startling number mean for you?<\/p>\n

Giselle Goodwin, an expert in work and wellbeing, says the traditional \u201cstart at the bottom\u201d model is quietly breaking down. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottom rung: the admin, the summaries, the basic research, the endless \u2018can you just\u2026\u2019 tasks are exactly what AI tools are taking over. Not perfectly, but fast, cheap and good enough,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

This leaves us in a slightly awkward position. \u201cWe still expect young people to have experience, but we are steadily removing the roles that allowed them to gain it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Human resources consultant Andrea Dermody says that, despite the hype and fear around AI, nobody really knows what\u2019s going to happen with the technology and this can cause paralysis.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost organisations haven\u2019t yet quite figured out how AI is going to impact their work over the next couple of years. As much as people of this generation are confused about what the future\u2019s going to hold, their organisations haven\u2019t figured it out yet either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the job losses we\u2019re seeing at the moment may just be an opportunistic way for companies to cut costs and not directly related to AI adoption. Philip Lane<\/a>, chief economist at the European Central Bank<\/a>, said in March that there was little evidence of AI-related job losses in the euro zone so far. <\/p>\n

Either way, what should you do to make sure you\u2019re strategising and preparing your next move?<\/p>\n

Get curious, stay human<\/p>\n

If AI threatens your job, you should try to move quickly from panic to curiosity and strategic thinking. We tend to focus on jobs and job roles but AI tends to replace tasks within a profession and not the whole job.<\/p>\n

Dermody says that if she were at this stage in her career she would be embracing two things: AI\/digital adoption and human skills. Use this as an opportunity to get curious and learn as much as possible, she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re lucky enough to be in a job, talk to more senior people. Talk to the people who are involved and responsible for the AI projects. Absorb what\u2019s happening in your industry and come to your own conclusions,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve built that expertise and confidence, raise your hand for every opportunity to get engaged in AI and how it is being shaped in your organisation.<\/p>\n

When you talk to people in the later stages of their career you find they\u2019ve typically been promoted because of technical expertise. As managers though, they need to rely on soft skills and then they\u2019re suddenly lost, she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not good communicators or they\u2019re not good at building relationships. And historically, it\u2019s at that stage of the career that gap becomes most visible. Now we\u2019re seeing a shift as you need to develop those human skills much earlier in your career,\u201d says Dermody.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, build your network, think about your visibility and have mentors and sponsors in the organisation who help build those relationships. Think about your personal brand. It\u2019s never enough to do a good job. You need to be sharing what you\u2019re thinking and what you\u2019re learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parents of humanities graduates may soon rejoice too. \u201cWe\u2019re going to see the emergence of an increased valuation of the humanities-type education where you learn critical evaluation and have really good research skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone, for example, who is in debate club at school and understands how to interrogate both sides of an argument is going to find that they have value to add in this new world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Create your own path<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s difficult to know where things will be in three years\u2019 time you need to envisage your future state of work. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of things do I want to be doing? What do I want my day to look like? Do I want to be educating others or do I want to be building relationships?\u201d says Dermody.<\/p>\n

Everything you do \u2013 from networking, increasing your visibility, choice of mentor to the type of projects you put your hand up for \u2013 should all be framed in that desired visionary state. <\/p>\n

Goodwin, who is also a serial entrepreneur, says young people today need to think less about following a prescribed path and more about creating their own. \u201cThat inevitably sounds like a call to entrepreneurship, which many people still assume is reserved for the bold, the brash and the naturally confident. It isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnterprise is just as much about curiosity, creativity and a willingness to try things that might not work. The trade-off is that you don\u2019t get to coast. Lifelong learning becomes non-negotiable, and so does building relationships. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn a world that is increasingly online and automated, the most valuable skills are becoming very human ones: judgment, communication and the ability to work with and understand other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

A generational shift is already happening in how young people network. <\/p>\n

\u201cA friend of mine, a successful entrepreneur, is encouraging his children to get on to LinkedIn early, not for vanity but for visibility. To start thinking about how they present themselves, what they are interested in and who they are connecting with. The idea that you write a CV at 21 and hope for the best is being replaced by something much more continuous and much more public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of fearing the changes that AI brings, embrace the opportunity to reshape the old models. If AI is going to disrupt work, it also gives us permission to rethink it. The nine-to-five model was designed for an industrial economy that no longer exists. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe now have the chance to design work around outcomes rather than hours, and to build roles that offer more autonomy and, ultimately, better wellbeing. The evidence is already clear that people do better work when they have more control over how they do it,\u201d says Goodwin.<\/p>\n

Her advice to her own teenage children and to others their age is relatively simple. \u201cGet clear on what you are good at and keep getting better at it. Use AI as a tool to accelerate your thinking, not replace it. And don\u2019t assume someone will offer you the first rung of the ladder. Increasingly, you may have to build it yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Margaret E Ward is chief executive of Clear Eye, a leadership consultancy. margaret@cleareye.ie<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sometimes a number makes you gasp. No, it\u2019s not fuel prices, although they are shocking too. It\u2019s 900,000:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[218,72,4505,61,60,26698,1962],"class_list":{"0":"post-389568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-central-bank","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-philip-lane","14":"tag-work"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}