Supply chain leaders complain of a lack of qualified talent, while job-seekers say they can't find employment. Where's the disconnect? Mia Mazal, co-founder and chief operating officer of Talento, explains.

There seems to be a essential disconnect in today's supply chain and logistics job market. On one hand, businesses speak of a shortage of talent in key functions. On the other, job seekers complain about taking months to find positions. What's going on?

As Mazal explains, there's a significant change underway in the nature of work. While certain job titles haven't changed, what's required of employees has. Tasks that humans used to carry out are now being performed by artificial intelligence and other forms of automation. "Individuals haven't adapted to that yet," she says.

Today, routine queries and communications between companies and their customers can be carried out by AI agents. That puts humans in the situation of having to learn to work with the technology in a more complex manner — including learning how to prompt AI for the desired results.

At the same time, Mazal says, people are still needed to handle the exceptions — they should be focused on "5% to 10% of the cases that didn't go perfectly." That might mean focusing only on "angry customers," who don't want to be dealing with AI bots to resolve their issues. Meanwhile, AI is taking care of the everyday situations. For humans, "the job is more intensive. It requires more thought."

Mazal says the education system needs to do more to prepare graduates for this new world of work. AI chatbots are changing almost weekly, and "you need to be ahead of the times." Universities simply can't alter their curricula that quickly, so it's up to students and prospective job seekers to explore and engage with AI models themselves. "Nobody's an expert," she says. "You've got to put in the effort."