Job outlook for case consultants in the United States

How do you envision technology impacting Case Consultants in the next 5 years?

Christopher Blake Ph.D.: Generally speaking, technological change in economics-related careers has risen as computing power has increased. With greater computing power, economists can analyze more massive datasets and store more information, faster than ever. While the speed and scope of economic analysis have changed, I do not view the present trajectory of technological change as something that will fundamentally change the economic approach. Furthermore, because technological change is mostly out of future graduates' hands in economics, I think it is far more critical for graduates to focus on what they can do technologically.

First, the number and size of available datasets, available publicly and privately, have increased significantly in recent years. Graduates should keep tabs on these datasets and make sure they are up-to-date on new releases. This will help them perform economic analysis easier in any setting.

Secondly, graduates should keep the famous Bill Gates quote in mind during their data work: "I choose a lazy person to do a hard job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." As open-source coding languages like R and Python have become more ubiquitous, many very cool packages and source codes have been developed. I cannot stress enough how much graduates should take advantage of these - they will save time, energy, and sanity. When no one has created a code to do a repetitive process, a graduate should take the time to work towards putting something out there. Not only does it make their work more manageable in the future, but it gets their name out there as well.

Finally, the rise in technical communications platforms has genuinely broken the link between jobs and locations. It may be the case that a graduate could effectively turn an "in-person" appointment to one that is remote, if they can effectively convince a hiring manager. Graduates will need to get creative in these and similar ways to avoid struggling to find work as this pandemic continues.