3 Tips To Stay Relevant In Your Job, From A Gen X Professional

Forbes

08-05-2025

As a member of Generation X who has tracked trends in education and employment for a living for over two decades, Steven Kurutz's article about the Gen X 'career meltdown' hit a little too close to home.
Kurutz describes the career fate of Gen X workers who work as creatives in newspaper journalism, photography, graphic arts, and related industries. He convincingly explains that, due to AI, this group of workers teeters on obsolescence when we should be at the height of our careers.
As AI becomes more of a must-know than a nice-to-know, I've been thinking about what this means for the skills, credentials, and experiences I should pursue to remain competitive and continue adding value in my career.
Over the last year, I had the opportunity to collaborate with my colleagues in Jobs for the Future (JFF)'s Center for AI and the Future of Work and a stellar advisory committee to investigate how AI could lead to quality jobs, catalyze wealth-building, and promote economic opportunity for everyone — particularly for workers in jobs that are susceptible to disruption from AI and automation. This led to AI for Economic Opportunity and Advancement: A Call to Action, a guide for how education and workforce practitioners, employers, investors and policymakers can ensure that AI makes everybody better off.
This process helped me consider some changes I need to make to stay relevant at work. I'll share them here in the event they are helpful to my fellow Gen Xers (and my younger generation colleagues, too).
Over the next three years, 92% of companies plan to increase their investments in AI. If you think you can avoid integrating AI into your skillset, it's not likely. AI is now a core feature in leading business process software. Gen X workers who want to continue to add value at work must be proactive in getting smart about AI.
Don't make the mistake of waiting for your employer to help you get up to speed. Employers are rapidly implementing AI, but few are providing support to their employees. Only 31% of workers report receiving employer-provided AI training, according to a survey that accompanied the Call to Action. Unless you work for companies like PwC and Accenture, which are investing billions of dollars in providing AI upskilling support to their teams, you are largely on your own.
Employers tend to prioritize AI skills over experience, according to a 2024 Microsoft and LinkedIn study. Specifically, 71% of business leaders would choose a less experienced candidate with AI expertise over a more experienced candidate lacking those skills, and 77% believe AI will allow early-career talent to take on greater responsibilities.
Unsurprisingly, younger generations are using AI more, with 85% of Gen Zers using it at work, compared with 76% of Gen Xers. This shift means that having more experience no longer guarantees a competitive edge for Gen X workers. Unless we acquire AI skills, we may find ourselves outpaced in job opportunities and career advancement by our Millennial and Gen Z colleagues.
No one is coming to save us.
Most of us in the 'sandwich generation' need to work at least 15 to 20 or so more years before we can comfortably retire, but there's no way to do that without learning a few more tricks. We can't fall into the cognitive trap known as the Einstellung effect, where our existing knowledge flattens and the range of ideas and solutions we consider narrows.
AI can help us get out of our own way, identify blind spots, and solve problems in ways we might not have previously envisioned, according to Harvard Business Review. But we should avoid going it alone.
Collaborating with our younger colleagues will help us go further faster. The power of unlocking innovation lies in combining the different kinds of knowledge that Gen X and younger generations of workers hold.
Let me explain:
Gen Xers have more lived experience than our Millennial and Gen Z colleagues. We have what psychologists call crystallized intelligence, the knowledge accumulated from prior learning and past experiences. Our younger colleagues tend to have more fluid intelligence, which allows them to solve new problems without relying on past knowledge. Collaborating across generations in formal and informal ways at work on teams and on projects can generate win-win solutions that enhance creativity and innovation.
As we learn more about integrating these new AI capabilities into our daily work lives, it's helpful to remember what we can do that this technology cannot. AI may be able to fulfill some technical functional aspects of your job, but it doesn't have the unique experience you bring to your work.
A key takeaway from the Call to Action is that we want AI to uplift what it means to be human. For instance, AI can efficiently manage my research on education and employment, often completing tasks faster than I can. It can also identify significant trends in my field. You may be in a similar situation if you are in a knowledge-driven profession.
However, there are certain aspects of me and my experience that AI simply can't replace. AI cannot fully grasp my perspective, which is shaped by my personal journey. The data AI is trained on doesn't adequately represent the experiences of many Americans who share a similar racial, ethnic, and economic background as mine.
I have worked at my job for 20 years, during which I have collaborated meaningfully with leading organizations and experts in my field. These experiences have given me valuable insights that I continue developing daily. In addition, my liberal arts education and multidisciplinary graduate studies give me a unique perspective on AI's outputs. While there is still much to learn, my experiences make it difficult for AI to replicate exactly what I do.
As Gen Xers navigate this new world and reimagine their careers, it's important to remember to use this technology as a support, not a replacement. Embracing AI can help reinvigorate our work when our careers are losing momentum. By leveraging our experience, unique perspectives, and the strengths that define us, we not only avoid becoming obsolete but can thrive in this next chapter.