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independently.
    The message here is pretty simple: The skills you have right now might not be relevant tomorrow. So you’d better get trained for the skills you need while enhancing the ones you already have. Justin Orkin, a sales executive at AOL’s Advertising.com , put it beautifully: “I read a lot of blogs, have weekly meetings with our team,” he says. “I’m also a council member of the advertising board. You have to do lots of reading and listening to stay fresh and current. The past is great, but everyone wants to know about the future. The future is today.”
    So are you up for the task? I know that this may sound a little daunting, but the truth is that if you’re willing to put in the work, you will be able to find a job in the new economy. And you will be able to keep that job from being outsourced. Of course, whether you decide to do this or not is up to you, but I can guarantee you that it’s far better to be seen as someone who is actively contributing and managing their career than someone who is just sitting back and praying for something to happen. By acquiring all the necessary skills and using them to make meaningful contributions, you can’t help but get ahead in your career. Management won’t promote you until you promote yourself first—by acquiring the right skills and marketing them. You need to give them a reason to pay attention to you. And you’ll do that by making yourself so good that they can’t avoid you. Remember, the people higher up in the org chart than you are looking for all-stars like you, people whose skills can help push the company forward (and advance the manager’s career in the process).
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    The Indispensable Employee: Hard Skills
    Hard skills are the practical, technical skills you need to fulfill your job description; they’re about getting the job done. Without them, you’d never be able to get an interview, let alone an actual job. Hard skills are measurable—how many lines of code can you write in a week? How good are you at Excel? How fast can you type? And you’ll be able to use them in a variety of positions and companies. For example, if you’re in accounting, generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) will apply whether you’re in a bank or a bakery. Because hard skills are easy to quantify, it’s often possible to earn certificates and awards for acquiring them.
    Here’s a quick list of hard skills, quite a few of which are technology-related, but as technology changes, so will the hard skills required. A lot of the skills that are absolutely essential to running today’s businesses (coding, Web site design, and social media just to name a few) didn’t exist ten years ago. And ten years from now, there will be a huge demand for people with skills no one has ever heard of today. I partnered with oDesk.com on a study that found that 94 percent of freelancers believe that learning new skills throughout your career is either very or extremely important. As we go through this chapter, be aware that learning hard skills isn’t something you do only once. Keeping your skills current is an ongoing process.
    â€¢ Project management
    â€¢ Financial management
    â€¢ Budgeting
    â€¢ Contract negotiating
    â€¢ Sales forecasting
    â€¢ Engineering (mechanical or software)
    â€¢ Using office software
    â€¢ Proficiency in a second language
    â€¢ Web design
    â€¢ Business writing
    So how important are hard skills? Let me give you a few numbers. My company surveyed 1,000 managers and 1,000 young workers about hard skills. Here’s what we found:
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    â€¢ Sixty-five percent of managers and 61 percent of young workers said that having technical ability is a “very important” or “the most important” factor when considering employees for management roles.
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    â€¢ Eighty percent of managers and 79 percent of young workers said that