Forecast
What skills will be important in your sector by 2025? From the finance to legal sector, the skills of tomorrow will require more business know-how, a questioning mind and the ability to harness digitalisation for a growth mindset. Words NATALIE A. GERHARDSTEIN
GUY CASTEGNARO Founding & managing partner Castegnaro
ROBERT WHITE Assurance real estate partner, markets leader EY Luxembourg Having a critical mind, asking better questions and approaching things with a growth mindset are increasingly important, says White. “There’s been an absolute explosion in the availability of codified information… we don’t need people to recite fact after fact.” The partner says the firm is increasingly looking for two key elements when recruiting. First, the ability to digitally utilise and harvest the wide body of codified information so that real trends and insights can be gleaned from it. “We’re certainly looking in areas such as mathematics, engineering, everything on the digital spectrum,” he adds. The second element is one which White finds more interesting: “We need people who are able to learn, are wildly inquisitive and brave enough to ask questions.” Such recruits could come from studies like humanities, literature--and “from education systems that no longer operate rote learning systems”. The past years have brought about Brexit, covid-19, the conflict in Ukraine, he recalls: “You won’t find anything in any standard anywhere that anticipated those three seismic events.”
“The future lawyer must work alongside technology.”
EY Luxembourg, Matic Zorman
“We need people who are able to learn, are wildly inquisitive and brave enough to ask questions.”
A range of emerging legal issues will impact the future of the legal sector, according to Castegnaro. He predicts environmental, space and data law protection will be increasingly in focus. Also important: developments in employment law, e.g., linked to new working arrangements, as well as ethics issues ranging from discrimination to whistleblowing. For Castegnaro, law firms in general are “getting more familiar with digitalisation and AI” while at the same time will need “substantial” IT security investments. “Small-sized firms risk to disappear due to the needs for important financial investment, for example, in IT security and other digital tools.” So what does the lawyer of the future look like? “The future lawyer must work alongside technology,” Castegnaro says--not just for the aforementioned reasons, but he or she should be able “to use AI to predict judicial decisions, to use social networks for professional purposes,” etc. Lawyers should also be on board with better communication and a business approach, to both appreciate clients and offer them tailor-made solutions.
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JUNE 2022 HR & RECRUITMENT
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