Our working life will most likely be longer than that of our parents, and it will also take place in a much less predictable environment. Success in the workplace will depend to a large extent on employability, i.e. whether our profile professional is attractive to the marketplace at work and whether we manage to make that attractiveness sustainable over time. In this new environment, passive attitudes do not work and professionals seeking progression and change must actively implement strategies to generate opportunities. Today life puts us at a crossroads. We live in uncertain times. Society until before the pandemic was changing at a rapid pace and no one knows for sure where the technological revolution, globalization, the emergence of generation z and now this global health crisis are taking us. The rules of the game have changed. The conjuncture forces us to transform this confusing and painful status with maximum creativity and diligence, to improve this world that is staggering disoriented and dazed.

These changes will have major consequences and are likely to continue over time. Many people will need to retrain to ensure their employability in a market that is expected to undergo profound changes at work .

From university career services there is a movement afoot to change the way we think and the way we do our work, to help students and graduates transition from college to the world of work. Today all signs point to an integrated model of connections and professional communities, highly personalized, where the task of youth employability training is shared beyond the classroom itself. An ecosystem that involves the entire university network of students, alumni, professors, employers, families and all surrounding communities.

The core topic is here, in creating relevant and effective networking networks that drive highly differentiated value nodes. Something like the beehive networking experience. A formula to connect talent, relate knowledge and also articulate organizations, facilitating innovation, entrepreneurship and business development with a high social impact.

This reality and this historical moment encourages us and forces us to explore avenues that allow us to cross the threshold of our comfort zones and face this new context. The leading universities will be those that can recognize, understand and experience these trends. Those that act with speed, flexibility and creativity. This change is inevitable and the responses are not improvised. It requires intentional planning and the collaborative commitment of all the stakeholders involved: students, professors, Schools, the careers services, alumni, government authorities of each university, managers of collaborating companies.

Each institution must adapt its model to its culture, strategic priorities and resources, of course. Top universities such as Stanford, Boston College, University of South Florida, University of Chicago, among others, have reinforced this sensitive area. More economic resources, more scope for action and people specialized in the management of these subjects.

For this subject of virtuous ecosystems to unfold, the professionals who work in the Departments of employment opportunities universities must recognize the opportunity we have to be the communicating vessels between our students and graduates and connect them with key professionals and companies, to bring everyone together and collaborate in an environment of trust and influence, maximizing the opportunities for success and fulfillment staff and professional.

It is a change from the main purpose of the Departments of development of degree program. Weaving a model of collaborative connections with surrounding and nearby communities that complements or largely replaces training exercises in employability often bland, somewhat useless or downright unproductive.

This model of professional connections and creation of virtuous communities will allow us to discover the sometimes hidden opportunities, developing curiosity, management of risks, decision making, constancy, flexibility, optimism and the complex management of uncertainty as part of the process of development professional. Learn to love networking I would say.

The university that succeeds in closing this virtuous circle, that combines transversality, unity (which is not the same as uniformity), a fine equalization of coherence in the speech, a common message, efforts to co-create synergic networks, harmony of criteria and a 360º vision, will lead this trend, will drive change, will turn the current model upside down and will mark the guideline to be followed.

Only the flexible, the curious, the determined, the passionate and those who dare, finally, will survive all these changes. Those who assume that the world, our world, my world may never again be what it was, but it is not yet what it will definitely be. It is time to explore it.