"10 years ago, it’s ‘better be digital.’ What does digital mean? Maybe you have some apps on your phone, you're using some software beyond Microsoft Word to help you with your—you're using Google, maybe—and things like that 10 years ago. And now it’s like it’s embedded. We need to be on top of AI. Think about it as your little competitor. If you're on top of it and you know what your competitor is doing, then you'll always be one step ahead of your competitor, right? Yeah. So you think of AI—if you think of AI replacing your jobs, then AI is my competitor. Then I better be one mile in front of my competitor. Start now. I can't predict exactly what jobs will be replaced or at what rate, you know? Mm-hmm. Right now, we can only guess on some ends. But the safest net for anyone in the job market right now is to be on top. Yeah. Which means to use AI, join communities, learn together—whatever you wanna do." - Elena Chow, Founder of ConnectOne" - Elena Chow
"So when I preached the borrow to people around me—whether they are startup founders or VCs—buy is very simple: you hire your full-time employees. Build means hiring fresh grads or inexperienced talent and developing them. Borrow is the fractional piece, where you bring in expertise on demand for a specific outcome, but they aren’t part of your full-time bench. People used to be skeptical, asking, 'Why would I bring in someone like that?' and questioning the commitment. But over the last two years, cost pressures and the need for flexibility have made this model more accepted. You now see the word 'fractional' used a lot more—there was a LinkedIn or Harvard Business Review report that said LinkedIn used to have 2,000 profiles with the word 'fractional.' Guess what the number is now? 120,000. That’s the level of change in just two years." - Elena Chow, Founder of ConnectOne" - Elena Chow
"We know that AI started with language—the power of language. A year ago, we all said they're not analytically great, the scripts are wrong, the numbers they spit out are inaccurate. So we said, 'Okay, it's strong on the language front,' and that mostly affected content marketers—people who write and produce all forms of content. But now, just a year later, AI is super powerful analytically—it can write scripts for you, its databases are accurate, and that shift is dramatic. We're now going, 'Oh my gosh, analytic skills are going to go.' And alongside that, coding is also becoming more accurate. So I think, as a fresh grad, we just have to be on top—first, of what kind of skill AI will possess, and then, how that skill will either replace or reduce the need for a human to have it. That’s the way I look at it." - Elena Chow, Founder of ConnectOne" - Elena Chow
In this episode, Jeremy Au speaks on the Southeast Asia talent reset, Malaysia's rise, and how AI is reshaping hiring.
Keywords: Elena Chow, Southeast Asia Talent Reset, Malaysia Rise, AI Reshaping Hiring, Singapore, Malaysia, Southeast Asia, Artificial Intelligence, Women, Thought Leadership
