Adaptability is just about everywhere you look–from our small screens, via the post-apocalyptic hit show The Last of Us, to the U.S. jobs market, where the shifts in how we work and what we need as employees have been almost as rapid as those fast-moving zombies on HBO.

Take findings reported last year by Pew Research Center, which found that 59% of U.S. workers whose jobs can be done remotely were now working from home “all or most of the time.” Meanwhile, 57% of that same population said they had “rarely or never worked from home” before Covid-19 hit.

Gregory Gary has witnessed this total transformation firsthand in his role as senior director of business at Broadleaf, a talent-management company that has been around for almost 60 years. “People are saying they want the flexibility and organizations are having to sit down and say, ‘What strategies do we have to attract talent and retain them?’” he said.

Gary was part of panel of experts who spoke last month at From Day One’s Atlanta conference on the skills and competencies workforce leaders need to consider if they want to keep growing and advancing.

Kicking off the conversation, panel moderator Carrie Teegarden, an investigative journalist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, acknowledged the dramatic changes seen across her own industry. Journalism is no stranger to being upended in the digital age. She shared an anecdote about how her son–now in college–was informed during freshman orientation that the jobs available in four years when he graduates may be completely different than what’s out there now.

So it’s no wonder that the qualities you need to foster may go deeper than just the specific knowledge about, say, how to use Photoshop or put numbers into a spreadsheet. Who knows what platforms will be most widely in use by then? Confirming this trend, here’s what made Fast Company’s list of qualities to get hired in 2023: Curiosity, learning agility, and critical analysis. And Forbes? “Resilience and grit” and–you guessed it–the ability to roll with the punches.

Also key are flexibility and empathy, said Katie Hall, founder and CEO of Claira, an AI-powered competency-analytics engine that helps organizations better understand their employees and hire more precisely. For Hall, the ability to measure these so-called “soft skills” is something that will help companies find the employees they need in an unpredictable world. Many of the competencies that companies have used in the past to assess their hires are old and outdated.

Before she started Claira, Hall worked for a decade in workforce-development across the country, in cities like Detroit and New Orleans. In one instance, a manufacturing company she had as a client said they wanted to create more opportunities for promotion among current employees. However, that internal hiring process kept getting stuck because of dusty old, one-size-fits-all standards. 

One such client, a logistics company in Michigan, would go on to hire 25 of the 35 people that Hall sent them–without requiring degrees or resumes–because they were willing to shift their view on the competencies actually needed for the job, the majority of which those hirees possessed. “Competencies are a way to level the playing field,” Hall said, adding that often retention and diversity increase.

And then there’s technology, that most feared and celebrated of topics in the working world. Jodi Weintraub, global chief people officer for GroupM Nexus, pointed out that the work she’s doing for her company now, placing ads on Meta platforms worldwide, literally “didn’t exist before the social-media platforms everyone interacts with today.” As new platforms continue to surface, new roles will also appear–probably “15 new jobs in my division within a year that don’t exist today,” she said.

At the same time, it’s also crucial to retain the core of what you do, and the humanness of it, according to Chris Bartlett, VP of HR, people and culture at United Parcel Service, who has worked for the company for three decades. He pointed out that, for his team, “the pandemic did not shut down business. Hundreds of employees went out every day and delivered. For the first time, many people may have learned the first name of their UPS driver.”  

“We always know we’re working toward these ideals, these goals, making sure our customers are served,” Bartlett said. “As we work through a sea of change, we have this north star.”

Data, technology and AI are “like anything in this world–you need a balanced approach,” said Gregory Gary. “Tech and AI are not going away any time soon. The focus needs to be on strategies you’re going to put in place.”

Debbie Morris, senior director of talent management of Newell Brands, which makes everything from Sharpies to Elmer’s Glue, said it’s also a matter of owning the responsibility for implementing data processes and knowing why you’re doing it. “If you’re going to be data-driven, there are things you have to put in place. Everyone must buy into it. You have to have employees who see movement in what is important to them today,” she said. “I’m not going to allow you to wait on data to have a conversation with your employees about their careers. You don’t need data to have a fruitful conversation.”

That sentiment goes for hiring, too–especially with who’s writing job descriptions and how we’re using data to inform our searches for talent. As Gary points out, “You have to be deliberate to attract diverse talent. Women only apply to things that they feel like they meet 75% of the job description. Men, because we’re men, will apply to anything.” There is some evidence that women are more selective than men in applying for jobs, though the reasons vary.

Morris added that you can spend all your budget on building out programs and processes at your company, but without a strong culture and robust communication, and time investment with your teams, these newfangled tools won’t fix anything. And perhaps that’s good news for us humans–that the rich qualities that make us people are the same ones that may keep us progressing, and finding meaning, in our careers.

Alexis Hauk is an Atlanta-based  journalist and communications director whose work has appear in TIME, the Atlantic, Washington City Paper, Atlanta magazine, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, among others. In addition to her freelance writing, she works full-time as communications director for Emory Heart & Vascular Center.