There is a version of you sitting in an interview right now trying to explain your five-year plan and you haven’t even Googled (at the very least) what your industry looks like in five years. That’s the problem. Not AI or the economy. And not the hiring freeze. You.
Let me be honest with you, because I think you can handle it and because the internet has enough soft takes.
Most people are approaching the AI conversation the same way they approach everything uncomfortable: reactively. They see a LinkedIn post about someone losing their job to automation, panic-purchase a ChatGPT course, learn how to write a prompt, and call themselves “AI-literate.” That is the equivalent of learning how to send a fax in 1998 and calling yourself tech-savvy. You are not ahead. You are barely in the room.
The people who are going to win in this economy, in this job market, in this era, are the ones asking a completely different question. Not “how do I survive AI?” but “what does the world need in five to ten years and how do I become that person right now?”
That’s it. That is the whole strategy.
Why “Catching Up” Is Already the Wrong Move
The Speed of This Thing Is Not What You Think It Is
People talk about AI like it’s a wave approaching the shore. Something you can watch, time, and then dive under before it hits. It is not a wave. It is already the ocean and most people are still standing on the beach debating if they should jump in or not. Come on now, it’s time to get your head in the game.
Consider what’s happened just in the last twelve months with Claude alone, one of the leading AI models built by Anthropic. Claude Opus 4.6 launched in February 2026 with a one-million token context window and the ability to generate up to 128,000 output tokens in a single response. That means Claude can now process an entire year of financial filings, a 300-file codebase, or a complete research project in one conversation. Sonnet 4.6 followed shortly after, delivering near-Opus performance at a fraction of the cost.
And if you think the product updates are impressive, the integration news is what should really be turning heads for anyone in the workforce.
Claude x Smartsheet: The Integration I’m Genuinely Excited About
I’ll be transparent: I have been following the Smartsheet and Claude integration closely and it is one of those developments that doesn’t get enough noise outside of the project management world, which is a shame because it affects a lot of us. I’m also a total Smartsheet geek so keep that in mind.
Smartsheet recently launched its MCP-enabled connector with Claude, meaning you can now analyze your project data, update rows, search across sheets, and generate summaries… all through a conversation. No manual data entry. No toggling between platforms. You literally ask Claude a question about your Smartsheet data in plain English and it answers from your live data in real time.
For teams managing complex workflows, this is not a nice-to-have. It is the kind of automation that used to require a dedicated ops person, and now it requires a good question.
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The MCP (Model Context Protocol) piece is also significant because it future-proofs the integration. As Smartsheet explained it, MCP is essentially a universal remote control for AI tools. Instead of custom code for every new application, MCP lets Claude talk to Smartsheet today and will connect to any new MCP-enabled tool your organization adopts later. You build the connection once. It scales with you.
That kind of infrastructure-level thinking is exactly what I mean when I say we need to be operating five to ten years ahead.
What This Means for White Collar Workers
The Interview Landscape Has Already Shifted
I host an annual Women in Tech Networking Dinner (more on that in a second) and the conversations I have been having with recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates have been telling.
Job seekers are not walking into interviews with resumes anymore. They are walking in with presentations. Personal projects that move the needle. Ninety-day impact plans. Quantified outcomes from work they have not even been hired to do yet.
This is the new floor, not the ceiling. If you are still submitting a one-page resume and hoping your experience speaks for itself, I need you to understand: the people who are getting the roles you want have already anticipated the problems your future team has not named yet and shown up with a solution.
That is a level of preparation that most people will dismiss as “extra.” Those people will also be the first ones complaining that the job market is impossible.
The Skills That Will Matter Are Not What You Think
Here is what AI cannot replace anytime soon, and I want to be precise here because vague reassurances are useless:
- Systems thinking. The ability to see how pieces connect, anticipate downstream effects, and design for what comes next. This is a deeply human skill that AI can support but cannot originate.
- Contextual judgment. Knowing when the data is wrong. Knowing when the room is off. Knowing that the “correct” answer is still the wrong one for this situation.
- Relationship architecture. Not networking. Not schmoozing. The intentional, long-game building of trust and influence with people who matter in your field.
- Creative direction. AI generates. Humans curate, refine, and decide what is worth generating in the first place.
- Ethical reasoning at scale. As organizations deploy more AI, someone has to be the person in the room asking “should we?” not just “can we?”
If you are developing any of those skills right now, you are not behind. You are building the thing that keeps you relevant when the tools change again next year.
The Manifesting Part (Yes, I’m going there… because it matters; but I’ll be quick)
I want to say something that I believe deeply. It’s what the people who roll their eyes at “manifestation talk” always seem to learn the hard way.
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Your relationship with AI is, in part, a reflection of your relationship with your own potential.
If you walk into every conversation about AI from a place of scarcity and fear, your brain is going to spend its energy defending against threat instead of identifying opportunity. You will consume content about what AI is taking instead of researching what AI is creating. You will update your resume instead of rethinking your positioning. You will try to catch up instead of getting ahead.
The energy you bring to this moment is not soft or woo-woo. It is strategic. People who believe they are the kind of person who figures it out tend to figure it out. That is not magic; it’s the compounded effect of a thousand small decisions made from a belief that the path forward exists.
If you have decided AI is your downfall, it will be. Not because of any algorithm or automation. Because you opted out before the game even started.
Now Let’s Talk About the Blue Collar Opportunity Nobody Is Discussing
The Demand for Trades Is Exploding and AI Is the Reason
Here is something that does not make it into the AI discourse nearly enough: the infrastructure that runs AI needs human hands to build it. Specifically, it needs electricians. A lot of them.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, electrician employment is projected to grow 9% from 2024 to 2034, which is faster than the average for all occupations. That translates to roughly 81,000 job openings per year over the next decade. And the shortage is real: approximately 10,000 electricians retire or leave the profession each year while only about 7,000 new ones enter.
Why does this connect to AI? Because data centers are the physical infrastructure of the AI economy and they are hungry for power. Data centers accounted for 4% of total U.S. electricity use in 2024. By 2030, that figure is projected to more than double according to Pew Research and IEA estimates. Goldman Sachs Research forecasts global data center power demand will grow 50% by 2027 and could reach 165% above 2023 levels by the end of the decade. Gartner estimates worldwide data center electricity consumption will nearly double from 448 terawatt hours in 2025 to 980 terawatt hours by 2030.
All of that power infrastructure requires installation, maintenance, and upgrades. By human beings. With electrical licenses.
The Part Where I Confess Something…
I am going to be half joking and completely serious when I say: I have been looking into becoming an electrician.
Not as a pivot away from tech. As an option if one day I get bored and want to do something completely different. That’s probably where I’d land but right now, I’m completely and insanely obsessed with my current life.
But… if you understand data infrastructure AND you understand the electrical systems that power it AND you can operate at the intersection of both… that is a lane that very few people are in right now and the demand for exactly that expertise is only growing.
The IEA projects that data center electricity consumption will grow around 15% per year from 2024 to 2030, more than four times faster than all other sectors combined. The new generation of high-density AI server racks are already consuming over 100 kilowatts per rack. The physical infrastructure of the AI economy is being built right now and someone has to wire it.
Solar, wind, EV charging networks, smart grids, data centers… these are not niche. They are the backbone of the next economy. And they all run through the electrical trade.
One in five electricians is currently over 55. Retirements are already creating vacancies faster than the pipeline can fill them. If you or someone you know is considering the trades, the timing has arguably never been better.
Speaking of Thinking Ahead… Join Me
This brings me to something I want to shamelessly plug because I built it with intention and I think it matters.
I am hosting my 2nd Women in Tech Networking Dinner and this year’s focus is exactly what we have been talking about: the job market, recruiting in the AI era, and what it actually takes to stand out as a candidate right now.
Women in Tech Orlando – The Nerd Bae
We are going to talk about the interview landscape shift I described above. We are going to hear from people who are hiring and people who have navigated this market successfully. We are going to discuss what recruiters are actually looking for in 2026 and beyond, how to position yourself when the rules keep changing, and how to build the kind of presence and relationships that make opportunities come to you.
If you are a woman in tech (or adjacent to it) who wants to be in a room full of people operating at a forward-thinking frequency, this dinner is for you.Details are coming soon. Stay locked in at thenerdbae.com and follow along so you do not miss it. Join the mailing list to be the first to know when tickets sales start!!
The Bottom Line
The job market is not broken. It is being rebuilt. And the people who will do well in it are not the ones who waited to see what the new rules were before they started playing. They are the ones who understood that the game was changing, made their bets early, and kept building while everyone else was processing.
Whether you are in tech, in the trades, in a career transition, or staring at a job description that lists twenty skills you do not have… the question to sit with is not “how do I catch up?”
It is: “What does the world need in ten years and what am I doing today to become that?”
Sources:
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Electricians
- Pew Research Center, “What We Know About Energy Use at U.S. Data Centers Amid the AI Boom,” October 2025
- International Energy Agency, “Energy and AI,” April 2025
- Goldman Sachs Research, “AI to Drive 165% Increase in Data Center Power Demand by 2030”
- Gartner, “Electricity Demand for Data Centers to Grow 16% in 2025 and Double by 2030,” November 2025
- CNBC, “America’s Demand for Skilled Electricians Is Entering a Boom Cycle,” July 2024
- Smartsheet, “Gain Deeper Insights and Drive Work Forward with the New Smartsheet MCP-Enabled Claude Integration”
- Anthropic Release Notes and Claude 4.6 Model Documentation
