At least in the US, 50% of college graduates this year will graduate either unemployed or underemployed, and credit card debt is being outpaced by student loan debt for the first time in history.
This is Ryan Roslansky, CEO of LinkedIn. He took LinkedIn from 7 billion to 17 billion in revenue and crossed a billion members by betting big on AI, smarter hiring tools, skills-based matching, and a massive push into video. LinkedIn is the definitive labor market platform of the world. We have amazing insights into what is happening across the world. His data doesn't predict the job market; it *is* the job market.
Entry-level jobs across the world right now—the hiring rate that we see—are down roughly 12%. While we see that hiring is sluggish across most markets, the reason that it's sluggish doesn't have anything to do with AI.
Do you think college is just kind of fading away? When I talk to people about what they should do with their career, it's less about where do you want to be in five years and more about, over the next few months, what new skills do you want to learn? So what are the top skills people should be adding to their LinkedIn right now?
Ryan, thank you so much and welcome to Silicon Valley Girl.
Great to be here.
I am so happy to have you. So you're the CEO of LinkedIn and also executive vice president of Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Office, and we're at Davos today. So what is everyone talking about?
I think there's a lot of things that I'm seeing, but I think one of the things that's probably most interesting to you potentially is this: if we were here maybe like three years ago, a lot of the conversations we would be having would be with traditional media. And this year, it's amazing to see the creator influence up and down the promenade and the role that creators are playing in this new economy. We see it on LinkedIn. There's four million members now whose official job title is "creator." It's just amazing to watch this new industry explode to where it is today and be recognized at Davos, for example.
That is amazing and I'm happy to be part of it. It's amazing to see; starting 12 years ago and being a creator now is just a huge difference. What do people say about AI? Do you think people here feel more positive or negative?
It's interesting. I think people are all over the place because their opinions are based on what they heard from the last conversation. What I love about LinkedIn is that, as the definitive labor market platform of the world, we have amazing insights into what is happening across the world.
It's interesting—while we see that hiring is sluggish across most markets, the reason that it's sluggish doesn't have anything to do with AI, in our opinion. It's more due to macro conditions and interest rates, not AI. As it relates to AI, we see something totally different. There's been almost 1.3 million brand new net jobs on LinkedIn for AI roles like data annotators. Over 600,000 new data center jobs exist on LinkedIn for deployed engineers that companies need to understand AI. So, at least in terms of what we're seeing in the LinkedIn data right now, AI is a net positive addition to the job market, not something that's detracting jobs.
That's great. But what about entry-level jobs?
Entry-level jobs across the world right now—the hiring rate that we see—are down roughly 12%. But they are not disproportionate to any of the other jobs. They're down just as much as all the other jobs in the world. A lot of that contraction is due in large part to the macroeconomic climate and interest rates, with companies investing less in general.
So then the question becomes: what do professionals do? We're seeing two trends emerge. One is micro-entrepreneurship and a rise in creators. If the traditional path doesn't exist, I need to take my career into my own hands. And number two is a real affinity now towards trade roles. A couple of years ago, people weren't as into these trade roles as they are right now, but Gen Z especially sees them as a much safer option.
What do you mean by "trade"? Like first-line jobs, typical trade roles, not office jobs?
Exactly, and they see those as more resilient in an AI world. These are the types of jobs that AI probably won't take. So we're seeing more affinity towards that as well.
Interesting. Have you seen a huge uptick in creators? Like when people put "creator" as their job title?
Right now, there are 75 million people on LinkedIn that somewhere in their profile say they're a creator, and there's 4 million people that say their 100% full-time job is creator. So it's fantastic. And look at what you started!
How do career paths change? Because you also track people through their career inside the company—you start as an assistant and go up and up. But I think I heard you at one of the conferences talking about how a lot of people are hiring generalists now. So you don't necessarily climb up the ladder; you expand horizontally, acquiring new skills. Do you see that trend as well?
Since the beginning of LinkedIn, the feature that is requested most from members is: "Show me what a typical career path is supposed to look like." People think: "LinkedIn, you have all this data. So if I want to become a CFO or a CEO or an accountant, what is the path that people take?" The reality is that, in the data, there is no such thing as a linear career path. It's all over the place. The more that people recognize that you have to take your career into your own hands—that there's no natural path that you just get on—the better.
Right now it's more important than ever because skills are changing. The types of skills that are necessary for a specific role on LinkedIn have changed north of 25% over the last couple of years alone. We expect they'll change by 70% by 2030, largely influenced by AI and new tools. So when I talk to people about what they should do with their career, it's less about "where do you want to be in five years?" and more about "over the next few months, what new skills do you want to learn?" These roles are flattening. Generalists are more and more where people are going these days.
So, what are the top skills people should be adding to their LinkedIn right now?
It's funny, there's this huge demand on both sides of the spectrum. Obviously, AI literacy is important. No matter what your role or profession, familiarizing yourself with these tools is a really smart investment in your own career. You don't have to love them, you don't have to use them all the time, but just familiarizing yourself and putting yourself in the mindset of "I'm going to figure out how I can be better at my job through AI" is key.
But just as important on the other side are human skills: curiosity, creativity, courage, communication, and compassion. The ability to work with other people, to sit down with someone and have a conversation. You can't just be mired in using technology in a bubble and be successful. In a lot of work settings, you have to be able to disagree and commit, to communicate, and to help galvanize people to get something done. So I think the key right now is that combination: learn those AI skills, and then find a way to be strong on those human skills. They're typically called "soft skills," but I think that's a misnomer. "Soft" feels like it's less important; I think they're more important than ever.
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When you talk about soft skills—as someone who hires on LinkedIn, I don't really sort people by "creative," but I read their posts. What I found really helpful in hiring is that now we hire based on content that they post because it shows their personality and how deep they are in the subject. We just hired a YouTube strategist purely based on what he was posting about building a YouTube channel.
I love that. We always thought that the extension of your LinkedIn profile isn't just where you went to school or where you've worked, but the ability to demonstrate the actual knowledge that you have in your head by posting on LinkedIn. It's awesome to hear that you use that as a way to understand someone's identity better.
Yeah, you don't have to jump on a call; you just read the posts. It saves a lot of time. I started posting actively on LinkedIn last year and we made the equivalent of a full-time salary just from LinkedIn. We grew from 10,000 to almost 50,000 in a year.
Wow, congratulations.
LinkedIn is definitely the social network right now. Any tips to grow on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is unique because our platform exists to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Our feed exists as a mechanism to showcase your identity, so that if you're trying to get hired or want to make a name for yourself in a specific field, the content you share is a way to do that. Other platforms tend to stem from entertainment or large engagement. Our largest business is in recruiting, so we don't come at it from a perspective of trying to help you get a gazillion likes. We're trying to help you create authentic content that only you can do based on the skills you have.
You may not get the views you get on other platforms, but the quality of the audience and the opportunities that come are what we're really trying to provide.
You get the right views. Also, what I noticed as a creator is that telling your personal stories, especially if they're tied to some events, really helps growth.
It's interesting. Especially in the younger generation, it always kind of felt taboo to talk about anything that wasn't "buttoned up" and professional on LinkedIn. But more and more, the next generation is okay with it. It tells a lot more about who they are, their personality, how they think—it's really refreshing to see that happen on LinkedIn.
Absolutely. Let's go back to our LinkedIn profiles. There's a huge section for education, right? And a lot of people would take small courses at top universities just to have that name, because it meant a lot. Do you think college means as much these days, or is it kind of fading away because we can acquire any skill online?
Two things. One, I dropped out of college very early on and was really focused on the skills I needed to start a company. So I had a mixed view on that. I do know right now, at least in the US, 50% of college graduates this year will graduate either unemployed or underemployed. And credit card debt is being outpaced by student loan debt for the first time in history. So, there's something that's not really working in the current system.
I am nowhere close to saying college isn't worth it. The social experience, the learning of soft skills, and being around people are critical. If you're fortunate enough to be in a college environment, I think it's really worth it. But it's really more about those soft skills for most professions than the typical hard skills we thought about in the past. More importantly, when recruiters hire on LinkedIn, they aren't looking at what school you went to as much as what skills you have or what your last post looked like.
Are you still betting on college for your daughters?
Absolutely. Again, the social components are critical. It's a great place to learn how to grow up, how to interact with other people, to form a network, and to make mistakes. My oldest one has taken that path and she's having a wonderful time.
Have you ever regretted dropping out?
I think I missed a lot of really fun years by leaving college early. That's for sure.
You are releasing a book, *Open to Work*. Can you talk about how someone can use this book to navigate their future?
I've spent 25 years building internet products where you can test things out and change them quickly. When you write a book, it's final. *Open to Work* was written to help people understand what career paths look like in an AI-first world. There's a lot of uncertainty and people are scared. This book acts as a guide to help you understand how to think through it—what AI can and cannot do, and the importance of those human skills we talked about.
It's not a crystal ball, but we leverage what we see on LinkedIn to help people make smarter career decisions. Especially when you're starting out, there's just so much "uniqueness" in the world right now regarding what AI means for jobs.
Is there a principle from that book that you can share?
I see people on LinkedIn absolutely hyper-focused on hard skills and AI skills, and they're completely dismissing human skills. We talk about the "Five Cs" that are critical for you to master to stand out in the future: Curiosity, Courage, Creativity, Compassion, and Communication. Learning and understanding the importance of those five skills is where I would invest the majority of my time right now as a professional.
It's interesting because we have a lot of tools for hard skills, but how do you even acquire curiosity?
It's hard. Some people are born with it. But we do a lot through LinkedIn Learning to teach techniques and how to think about many of these soft skills.
People think they can't be learned, but they really can.
They need to be practiced like any other skill. But again, it's that misnomer that "soft" means it wasn't as important. Bringing that to the forefront is the most important thing right now.
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I've heard someone say that in the next five to ten years, you either become an entrepreneur or you "die." What would you say to that?
I hope that's not the case! I expect that AI is going to democratize access to opportunity. So many people who have always wanted to start something will finally have the tools to do it. I don't think it's going to be the *only* path, but we will see many more entrepreneurs, and I think that's a really good thing.
Can you give me the top three jobs for the next three to five years?
Number one is a role called **Data Annotator**. Anytime you use a large language model, there are human beings being paid to evaluate the output based on their expertise. For example, a cardiologist might be paid to mark up the model's responses to questions about heart health. Every niche topic and language needs to be covered, so that's going to be a very hot job.
Number two: anything related to **building out data centers**. This includes trade jobs, hyper-technical jobs, and maintenance. Building that foundation is critical for AI to flourish.
And the third one is a **Forward Deployed Engineer**. Historically, pulling AI into a company was left to the IT department. But this new role involves someone sitting in the marketing or product departments who understands both business needs and how AI works to make that connection and return real value to the business.
And "Creator"—that's my fourth really important job.
Are there any jobs that you think are disappearing?
If your job is just a set of tasks that can be automated, you need to start finding a new job. AI is currently very good at summarizing, rewriting, or translating. Those types of jobs are where you should be adding more skills to future-proof yourself.
Thank you so much, Ryan. That was so insightful. I hope everybody watching goes and starts posting on LinkedIn! The algorithm is really working. Thank you again for being here.
Thank you.