乍看上去，眼下的美国就业市场跟一年前颇为相似。比如说，招聘信息搜索网站Indeed.com上的大量招工信息表明，卡车司机和注册护士依然短缺，保姆也供不应求。

另外，美国计算机行业协会发布的新报告显示，IT行业继续迅猛增长，新创造出了20万个就业机会，使总就业人数达到670万个（该行业占GDP的比重也达到创纪录的7.1%）。

然而，在这样的表象之下隐藏着两项巨大的挑战。

首先，尽管各个收入层次的就业机会层出不穷，但技术水平最高的职业和普通职业之间的差距越来越大。Indeed.com高级副总裁保罗•达西指出：“公司对高薪员工的投资比以前还要多。”举例来说，科技行业普通劳动者目前的年薪为10.54万美元，是所有劳动者平均年薪（5.16万美元）的两倍以上。达西认为：“也就是说，我们的经济呈两极分化状态。拥有恰当技能的人春风得意，其他人却像是遇到了没有尽头的衰退。”

同时，用人单位对“恰当”技能的定义正在发生改变，而且变的很快。最近找过工作的人可能已经发现，在几乎所有的白领行业，只擅长某项工作已经不够了。

“以前各个专业彼此互不相干。以前由不同部门的两个、甚至三个人干的活，现在被糅合成了一项工作。”莱恩•莫里森把2016年称为“混合型职位之年。”莫里森是本特利大学本科就业服务办公室负责人。

这个结论的依据是本特利大学和就业市场数据公司Burning Glass对2450万条招聘广告的分析。这项研究指出，“71%的技能要求都跨越了两个或者两个以上的工作类别，”这让研究人员很吃惊。同时，“此前的一些热门工作正在减少，原因是它们需要的技能已经不再属于创新能力，而是成了主流技能，并且整合到了其他职位中。”

以社交媒体策略分析师为例。五年来，对此类人才的需求量几乎下降了三分之二（64%）。但作为技能要求之一，“社交媒体策略”在人力资源类招聘广告中的增幅达到了令人侧目的376%，在招聘销售和公关人员的广告中也分别增长了115%和117%。

对于现在（或者曾经）的业务开发人才来说，他们最近找工作的时候也许会注意到，招聘业务开发经理的广告比以前少多了，大约是2011年的一半。这并不是说企业不再需要业务开发这项技能。68%以上的营销工作和29%以上的IT工作依然有这项要求。

Burning Glass的研究显示，所有用人单位都需要应聘者能从大量数据中理出头绪来。和五年前相比，包含“大数据”这个词的招聘广告爆增了3977%。

与之类似，如今要求应聘者熟悉某些软件的广告远多于以往。就在不久之前，大多数经理还可以把这样的事留给IT部门去做。Indeed.com的保罗•达西说：“我们发现软件正在取代一些管理工作。此外，应聘者至少得能顺畅地使用软件，而且还得掌握一些软件无法取代的软技能。”

莱恩•莫里森指出，随着对混合型人才的需求不断增长，“要说有什么不同的话，那就是软技能变得以前任何时候都更重要。”在他看来，主要的软技能就是求知欲。莫里森说：“要真的具有学习欲望，也就是说要承担‘有难度’的任务，而且尽可能地获取各种不同的经验。求知欲也包括承认自己的知识缺陷，有了很高成就的人确实往往很难做到这一点。”

他认为，对IT专业人士来说，不断地把新技能合并到原有技能中是一种司空见惯的做法，“他们已经习惯于在职业发展过程中取得各种各样的证书，参加各类培训，并且紧跟下一个热点。”他补充说，要跟上不断变化的就业市场，“现在我们都必须这样做。”（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

校对：詹妮

At a glance, the U.S. job market right now looks a lot like it did a year ago. Judging by the sheer numbers of job postings on career site Indeed.com, for instance, there still aren’t enough truck drivers or registered nurses to go around, and child care workers are in short supply as well. Meanwhile, information technology continues to soar, adding 200,000 jobs for a total of 6.7 million (accounting for a record 7.1% of GDP), according to a new reportfrom computer trade group CompTIA.

But beneath the surface there have been two huge changes.

For one thing, although the economy is creating jobs at every income level, the gap between the most highly skilled and everybody else is getting bigger. “Companies are investing even more in the people who are already well paid,” says Paul D’Arcy, a senior vice president at Indeed.com. The average tech industry worker, for example, now makes $105,400—more than double the annual pay of $51,600 for the workforce overall. “So we have an economy that is split in two,” D’Arcy notes. “For people with the right skills, these are the glory days. For everybody else, it’s as if the recession never ended.”

At the same time, how employers define the “right” skills is changing—and it’s happening fast. If you’ve looked for a new job lately, you’ve probably already noticed what is happening in almost every white-collar field now: Being good at just one thing is no longer enough.

“Areas of expertise that used to be separate from each other, and jobs that two or even three people in different departments used to do, are now being combined into one role,” says Len Morrison, who runs the undergraduate career services office at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass. He calls 2016 “the year of the hybrid job.”

That’s based on an analysis of 24.5 million job postings, by Bentley and labor market data firm Burning Glass. The researchers were startled to find that “71% of in-demand skills are required across two or more job categories,” the study says, and that “some previously popular jobs are in decline as their once-innovative skills have become mainstream and [are now] integrated into other roles.”

Take, for example, the job of social media strategist. Demand for people with this title has dropped by almost two-thirds (64%) over the past five years. But “social media strategy” as a required skill jumped an eye-catching 376% in postings for human resources jobs, 115% in sales, and 117% in public relations.

Or maybe you are (or were) a specialist in business development. If you’ve looked for a job lately, you may have already noticed that there are far fewer ads for business development managers—about half as many as in 2011. That doesn’t mean business development as a skill requirement has gone away. It shows up in descriptions of 68% more marketing jobs, and 29% more IT listings too.

A knack for making sense out of enormous amounts of data is in demand just about everywhere, says the Burning Glass study, noting that he words “Big Data” appear in a whopping 3,977% more job ads of all kinds than five years ago.

Likewise, many more jobs now call for the kind of familiarity with software that, until recently, most managers could leave to the IT department. “We’ve seen some management jobs being replaced altogether by software,” says Paul D’Arcy at Indeed. “But at the very least you have to be comfortable with using it, and you also need to develop the soft skills that software can’t replace.”

As demand keeps growing for people who can fill hybrid jobs, “soft skills are, if anything, more important than ever,” says Len Morrison. Chief among them, in his view, is intellectual curiosity. “Be authentic about wanting to learn, which means taking on ‘stretch’ assignments and getting as many different experiences as you can,” he says. “Part of it is admitting that you don’t know what you don’t know, which is often really difficult for high achievers to do.”

Continually combining old skills with new ones, he points out, is old hat to IT professionals. “They’re used to picking up certifications throughout their careers, going after more training, and staying current with the next ‘hot’ thing,” he says. To keep up with the job market as it’s evolving, Morrison adds, “we all have to do that now.”