Curiosity Is the New Career Advantage - Preparing for Work in the Age of AI with Liz Moran

Career Intelligence Podcast...: Welcome to the Career Intelligence Podcast, where we explore how work is changing and how people can navigate their careers in a world shaped by AI, technology, and rapid workplace transformation. I'm your host, Betsy Jewell, career coach and founder of Betsy Jewell Career Coaching. My guest today is Liz Moran, Director of Academic Programs and Certification at SAS. I am super grateful to Liz for joining me today. I really appreciate her perspective, especially her insight into the gap between the AI hype we're hearing and the reality of how companies are actually implementing it. I also loved the part of our conversation around curiosity as a hiring signal, how organizations like SAS are learning to assess for potential, and the idea of approaching learning in short sprints as technology and careers continue to evolve.

Betsy: Hi Liz, thanks so much for being here today on the Career Intelligence Podcast. I am thrilled that you're joining me.

Liz Moran: Thanks so much for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Betsy: Yeah, me too. I'm so glad our paths cross because you are one of those people, first of all, we found out in our introduction call, we could probably talk for a very long time. ⁓ But don't listeners, we'll put a cap on it today, although maybe we'll continue in another at another time. But if you could just take a minute or so and just a quick intro about yourself, kind of where you are now, what you did before, kind of how you got there.

Career Intelligence Podcast...: Liz has spent more than two decades working across both higher education and industry, focused on how people learn, teach, and apply technology in real world settings. At SAS, she leads initiatives that support students and educators in data science and education. Before joining SAS, she spent 15 years in public higher education, including serving as assistant dean of academic programs at North Carolina State University. I especially appreciated Liz's insight on how universities are navigating these changes, the evolving role of micro-credentials, and why understanding things like data ethics and AI governance is becoming relevant for professionals across many different fields. If you'd like to connect with Liz, the best place to find her is on LinkedIn, and I'll include that link in the show notes.

Liz Moran: So currently, I lead academic programs and certification at SAS, which is a global data and AI company. What that means, because it is a somewhat unusual role, is I focus on the development of learners primarily in higher education, working to support faculty as they teach, students as they learn. And the objective is to ensure that we've got talent coming out of our universities that are ready to take on the challenges.

Career Intelligence Podcast...: Because Liz has worked on both sides, in universities and in industry, she brings a unique perspective to the conversation around career readiness, AI adoption inside organizations, and how education and employers are adapting to rapid technological change. In this episode, we talk about the reality of AI adoption inside companies, the skills that matter most in an uncertain job market, and what both students and employers should be thinking about as careers evolve. If you're a college student, recent grad, or a parent of a young adult trying to navigate today's early career job market, that's exactly the work I do. Through Betsy Jewel Career Coaching, I help young adults signal career readiness, build real world experience, and develop AI literacy so they can stand out and succeed in a rapidly changing workforce. You can learn more at betsyjewelcoaching.com or connect with me on LinkedIn. If you enjoyed this episode,

Liz Moran: in this rapidly changing world of technology. ⁓ Prior to coming to SAS, I spent about 15 years in public higher education, most recently as an assistant dean of academic programs. I've been involved in everything from undergraduate admissions to global partnerships, working closely with faculty and institutions as they try to do the same thing from the other side of the relationship. And that's prepare students for the world of work.

Career Intelligence Podcast...: Now let's get started. Be sure to follow the Career Intelligence podcast. Share it with someone who might benefit from the conversation and stay tuned for more discussions about the future of work and how to build a resilient career. Thanks for listening. We'll be back soon with another episode. In the meantime, stay curious, keep learning and keep building your career intelligence.

Betsy: I love that you have experience on what I call both sides of the fence. I talk to a lot of people in higher ed and they've been in higher ed pretty much their whole career. And of course I talk to a lot of people in industry and business and they've not worked in higher ed. I find it really valuable that you have perspective from both of those points of view. And we're gonna talk a little bit about that today. So thank you. Let's set some context. So AI hype versus reality in companies. What are you seeing at SAS and ⁓ is that unfolding?

Liz Moran: So SAS has been working to help organizations deploy AI for a long time. This is not a new thing for us. But what that means is we've got experience with how difficult it really is. Truly deploying AI and seeing meaningful results is hard. So I think most companies that are currently cutting white collar jobs or not hiring early career professionals doing so in the name of efficiency due to having implemented AI. I ⁓ don't that they're being honest. I think, yes, AI technology is incredible and capable of doing some of the work that is usually done by entry level employees. That is true. But many organizations are still stuck trying to operationalize it. ⁓ And don't just mean LLMs to help with individual productivity. I mean building decision flows and generating real actions. I think...

Betsy: Mm-hmm.

Liz Moran: The lack of hiring is more likely a result of companies doing other things like cutting jobs proactively to free up funding for capital expenditures such as data centers or new software. Maybe they're addressing financial challenges that are a result of other market forces like tariffs or lost government funding. It could even just be an excuse to meet quarterly profit goals. Because it's not that they don't genuinely want to or aren't trying.

Betsy: Mm-hmm.

Liz Moran: to advance their utilization of AI for their objectives. It's just taking longer than I think a lot of people expect that it will.

Betsy: And you see all the headlines, right? Like, AI is taking all the jobs or, recent grads, college grads aren't going to find work in the world, the world of AI. But we know that's not true. ⁓ But all that what about all those different levels? mean, my lens is obviously through early career, recent grads. But what I'm hearing from employers from early career all the way up to seasoned professionals or executives, AI adoption is much slower than everybody had hoped and is really not changing, is not the reason that hiring isn't happening. True?

Liz Moran: think that's true. Yeah, that's the experience that I've seen. You know, even if those organizations are doing what I just mentioned, they're making decisions to reduce their workforce in the name of AI, those decisions are being made at an executive leadership level. But then those have real implications for the director level and the manager level. And it might be expediting the adoption of some AI technology, because they are trying to get by with fewer resources. But it's not being done with intentionality at the highest level of saying, what is the problem or problems that we as an organization are trying to solve? And how can we leverage AI to solve them? And that's the most critical piece to AI adoption versus saying, hey, we have this technology. What can we do with it? So yeah, I do think we're going to see some expedited utilization of AI down at the workforce level.

Betsy: Mm-hmm.

Liz Moran: that will continue to maybe increase productivity and minimize the need for the same amount of workforce that we've had in the past, but it's not happening the way that it seems from the outside.

Betsy: Hmm. Well, that's good to know. And and I'm glad that you're shedding some light on that. So if companies are and we see that they are struggling to adopt AI, does that indicate or point to a talent gap?

Liz Moran: Yeah. Thanks. it's really about leadership, right? It's an end time. I think that again, going back to asking the hard questions of what is the real business problem that we're trying to solve. I mean that at the macro level of an organization or at the mid levels of leadership in an organization. What are the real problems? How do we embed this into our everyday workflows? Again, those are leadership decisions, decisions around what are the technologies, the platforms, ⁓ that we already have, how are we going to orchestrate all of this in a governed way for maximum efficiency? Those decisions have to be made before it's even at the point where we're talking about now what skills do we need to make this work for our organization? So I think a lot of organizations are getting stuck there before they're even ready to say now what talent do we need? Now let's say, let's be honest. For the previous 10 years, we really had a shortage of data science talent. I am thinking about where we're at today and the roles that are being created by AI as data scientists 2.0, right? But the roles that they are going to play in organizations are still dependent upon leadership making these important decisions and driving organizational implementation.

Betsy: Mm-hmm.

Liz Moran: building trust, building data and AI governance within an organization before you really are going to start deploying people with, quote, the right skills.

Betsy: Mm-hmm. Mm But that's so that's a big, big ask, right? To get companies. First of all, we know that the big, particularly the bigger companies aren't very agile and aren't going to be able to implement the governance and the other policies and structures, infrastructures that they need. So what do you, and I'm sort of putting you on the spot a little bit here, but what do you think that means, particularly again, for early career, it's almost like you're going in blindfolded because you're getting hired for roles potentially that haven't really been ⁓ identified or haven't been articulated yet.

Liz Moran: you Yeah, absolutely. think a lot of people keep coming back to, we'll focus on your professional skills, focus on the adaptability. And those are all very true. And I have some thoughts on those points of advice as well. But they're a little bit harder to grab a hold of when for so long we've talked about skills more through hard technical skills. I am a Python programmer. I feel confident that I have this skill and that is what is needed in these jobs. And now, like you mentioned, they're entering into roles where we don't even know yet what the needs are going to be. And one recommendation that I've given lately to early career professionals is try to demystify what's coming for yourself a little bit. And rather than putting all of your effort into training on technical and hard skills that you think are going to matter, spend some time studying the landscape, studying data ethics, studying what it means to have data and AI governance models at an organization because I can almost guarantee you that the people you're going to interview with, whether you are in a highly technical path or not, are going to be impressed that you are thinking about that. You don't have to be an expert, but that you are thinking about it, you're learning about it, because it's going to impact

Betsy: Hmm.

Liz Moran: everybody at every organization at some.

Betsy: Let's talk about learning. And this is a topic I talk about quite frequently both on the podcast and off. Higher ed universities. What I'm seeing, and you know, from my little corner of the world, but I'm reading all the things and trying to stay on top of the news, I don't see a lot of. career readiness and preparedness coming out of colleges and universities. No shade on the teachers, on the staff. It's just, somebody always said to me, it's like higher ed moves at a glacial pace. They just can't catch up, because they're not built for where we are today, right? What are you seeing and what do you think could be done differently?

Liz Moran: That's a great question. You're right. think that ⁓ are getting a lot of criticism right now. They're receiving it because they may not be meeting these expectations. But I often think about, gosh, the four-year bachelor's degree was created how long ago at a time when people pursued careers ⁓ for a lifetime? And those days are long gone. ⁓ do think universities are doing a good job with balancing all that's been thrust upon them, which is, ⁓

Betsy: Mm-hmm. Sure.

Liz Moran: deliver well-rounded global citizens, the liberal arts education, by the way, train them for the workforce, by the way, do it with less cost. ⁓ But than continuing to ask all of that of universities, which I think is unreasonable, I do hope that as a society we can rethink our educational structures. There is an important place for that arts well-rounded ⁓ critical thinking global citizen training, ⁓ but they have to do it all. And the ways that they are adapting is I am seeing a lot of embedding of micro-credentials. I do think faculty and departments are very thoughtful about considering what micro-credentials they should incorporate. But that thoughtfulness usually means a year of going through a course and curriculum committee to approve and then another year before it gets implemented. So we're already two years kind of behind what the trends are in the market. which is putting a lot more of the responsibility for career readiness on the students themselves and that's hard. But so my advice in terms, can't change the glacial pace of higher education. I continue to work very closely with them both at an administrative level and at the faculty levels, I have a faculty advisory board of my own here for the work that I do to get feedback from them and keep them connected to where tech is moving.

Betsy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Liz Moran: But if I shift my advice to the students, it's higher education is much like the previous 12 years of education and training that you've had, where you've been trained to be a box-sitter. I see that in my own teenage daughter. She wants to get the grades, wants to join the organization, wants to build a resume to get to the next thing, and then she'll check all the boxes there and move on to the next phase of her life. And higher education has been great for box-sitters. checkers, get the grades, get the GPA, so that you can get the interview, join the honor society, and do whatever it might be. But those boxes are not going to get you the job. And I want to say that I'm sorry, students. I'm sorry that I, you know, advice you're probably receiving from me and others is that a lot of this is going to be on you right now to meet those gaps. But it's the reality of where we're at. ⁓ about if you're in higher ed, right now, if you're in a university, whatever level you're in, trying to stop thinking about all that you're learning and all that you're doing is just checking a box and practice being the best learner that you can be. Learning is going to be the skill that you're going to need in your career because let's say in your computer science program or a data science program, even better, and you've spent the last three years being trained on Python. And now you're heading out into the world and people say, well, I have co-pilots that can do this coding for me. Uh-oh, now what? Oh, you have to learn a new technology to deploy in that role. And that's going to keep happening. And instead of being upset about it, embrace the learning. But that's going to start with how you embrace even your college education experience right now.

Betsy: Mm-hmm. That is a sound bite right there. embrace the learning. And I always say, ABC, always be curious. Always take what your professors are teaching you, go back and think about it and how you can apply it in real life. I have a couple of clients who ⁓ to become AI literate, Want to be able to use it their job. They're not ⁓ technical, just people who are curious and ⁓ interested and they're learning how to use it, how to use it in processes. They're even teaching themselves Claude code to actually do prompting for a code. And I keep saying to them, these are the skills you can demonstrate, your ability to learn, your willingness to learn, because no matter what environment you're going into, AI is gonna be there, like it or not, and ⁓ you better be kind of ready to use it. So I agree with you, there's a lot on the students.

Liz Moran: Great.

Betsy: And might say, well, you're paying a lot of money for a four year or more education ⁓ they're coming out and they can't get jobs. ⁓ it's not their fault, right? They're doing, to your point, they're checking all the boxes ⁓ they're doing all the things they were told to do. And now they come out and they can't get a job. So I wanna shift to the employer a little bit because I feel like they have accountability here. What are your thoughts on that?

Liz Moran: I agree. And I think we're hearing a lot of great sound bites from employers that, for example, we are going to be hiring based on skills rather than degrees. Well, we've been hearing that for years, but has it happened? In some cases, that's because it's hard to match the training that's needed for specific careers without the degree. Let's talk about medical professionals. Or obviously, that's a clear one. I think computer developers or other things, can be hard, software developers, excuse me. But I think until we actually provide solid alternative pathways, it's going to continue to be difficult for employers to just hire on skills. But yes, there does need to be accountability on the employer side and an openness to assess people on these. these skills like curiosity. In fact, when I first came to SAS, I remember being a new employee orientation and they went through our corporate values and one of them was curiosity. Curiosity is our code. And I thought, this is some really cute corporate jargon. Yeah, that's nice. Way to go, SAS. But what I've realized now, having been here eight years and been in a position for hiring new team members is that we have actually operationalized

Betsy: Right.

Liz Moran: how to assess candidates on curiosity. And it's incredible. And I think it's helped me as a manager. It's helped me as a people leader. It is across the organization that people are trained on how to assess for this versus just the existing skills. You know, we say, hire for potential, not existing capability. Well, if somebody doesn't know how to do that, what do they do? So we actually have training.

Betsy: Great.

Liz Moran: that teaches that every hiring manager has to go through before they're ever allowed to even post a job that teaches us how to look for potential. What are the right questions to ask? How to create a comfortable environment so that people can share how they are curious and how they approach learning and challenges? And I think it's... It's proving that it works well if you look at our company pull through and the success that we have as an organization.

Betsy: That sounds amazing. if a young adult was going to apply to SAS and expect that kind of interview, what kinds of things do you think they should be preparing, thinking about, ready to talk about?

Liz Moran: One thing I'll say is our interview process, this was started years ago, even before ⁓ more recent advances and increased utilization of AI, was we did implement something called HireVue, which is a recorded interview platform. And I think when it first came out, there were probably some criticisms. Why not have that first round be more personal? Well.

Betsy: ⁓ yeah, I've seen it.

Liz Moran: I will say that from a hiring manager perspective, trying to find time on my calendar for all the first, second, third round interviews is really difficult. But the recorded interview allows me to watch it while I'm sitting in the car at my daughter's soccer practice with my laptop on hotspot, you know, and get that chance to actually hear directly from the candidates versus just them talking to the recruiter. ⁓ But even early as recorded interviews, ⁓

Betsy: Mm-hmm.

Liz Moran: Be yourself, be honest. Don't feel like you have to quote all of the things that you've prepared for for that interview. So the hire view will read the question and then you answer it, just like you're in an interview. And you don't always know what those are gonna be ahead of time. So don't feel like there's boxes you have to check in the interview and things that you have to say, be honest. And I'll give you some examples. So I've hired for a few interns over the last few years. And I'll ask the question, okay. So you're working with some code and you have a bug or you have a problem. You can't figure how to move forward. What do you do? Give me an example of when you've encountered this. And I've had some students who feel like they're giving me all of the quote, right answers. They're saying, well, first I check the documentation. Then I reference all of the proper tutorials and manuals. And then I will go to my professor. And then, and then, and then. it was what I think used to be the approved protocol for a student to solve a problem. And then same question, next student said, well, you know, I do try to check to see if it's in the documentation immediately because that is sourced by the software company or the open source community of language that I'm using. But honestly, then I go to Chat GPT, or then I go here and they show their creativity and they show, and then I message a friend because you know, with code, there's no single right answer. And it was just this honesty about how you really solve it rather than telling me what you think I want to hear. And I thought, that's what I want to hear. Tell me the truth. Tell me how you were creative and how you honestly approached it. And I think that was important.

Betsy: Well, and you bring up a good point. So chat, TV or AI in general. I actually just shared an article on my LinkedIn about this, about students are ⁓ quote, dumbing down their writing so it won't be perceived or flagged as AI. ⁓

Liz Moran: Yeah.

Betsy: And I had a number of people chime in and say, happened to my kid, happened to my kid. ⁓ So they're just getting mixed messages, right? And I don't know how to resolve that.

Liz Moran: Yeah, they are. And it's difficult. And as a parent of a teenager, I'm living the middle of it as well, right? Working ⁓ in tech, parenting a teenager, but having also worked in higher education. And I can see it from every perspective. I want to be really honest here. We have to teach young people the foundational critical thinking skills, the foundational writing and language skills to be able to drive the technology. rather than letting it drive them. What is that happy medium of using the technology while also teaching those skills? And I think that that, I hope that will evolve as the technology evolves, as people start leveraging it to build educationally appropriate platforms for usage ⁓ whatever level of higher education or level of education. ⁓ A couple of thoughts on that too. One is, ⁓ Our faculty advisory board will be meeting in ⁓ at our annual conference soon. And they said the thing they really want to spend some time deep discussion with us about is, What does rigor, and for them it's rigor of teaching data science, what does rigor of teaching look like in an AI-driven world? And they're admitting they don't have the answers, and they're looking to us to help. So there's a couple of universities that I'm looking to right now to see what they're doing. Where is this going to land? ⁓ One is Ohio State University, and I know they're in the news for other reasons right now, but they came out pretty early ⁓ clearly with ⁓ with a plan to ensure that every student has AI fluency. And to do so, they were going to mandate that this be implemented at the college and department levels so that it was thoughtfully integrated in ways that aligned with their discipline and their future careers. ⁓ On paper, sounds phenomenal, right? Let's use it. Let's teach them to use it in ways that are going to be appropriate for their pathways. We'll see how that plays out. I don't know, right? That relies on a lot of layers of people buying in and delivering.

Betsy: It does, yeah.

Liz Moran: ⁓ interesting ⁓ case study to follow ⁓ University of Pittsburgh has implemented quad across campuses. ⁓ And my understanding of quad education, I have not used it is that it's meant to have ⁓ some security, some guardrails and some structure that means it more like a than a totally ungated, give you any answer that it comes up with kind of models. And if that's true, what it does is it gives faculty a little bit of reassurance that it's safer to use, that it's intended for them to implement in their teaching and learning. And if it gives them that security and that confidence, maybe they're more willing to do it. ⁓ again, great intention, great plan on paper, everything sounds incredible. Let's see how it plays out.

Betsy: Those are great examples Thanks for sharing that. ⁓ I think from what I'm seeing or what I'm not seeing, I wish more schools were doing a better job of communicating exactly what you're talking about. I mean, my kids are through school or almost through school and that's the kind of stuff if I were ⁓ parent of a young adult or teen looking at colleges right now, those are some of the programs I'd be looking at because I want to see who's going to get my kid not only educated but ready for their next step. this has ⁓ so enlightening and informative. ⁓ I'd love to leave listeners with they're young adults or parents of young adults. Maybe your top what should they be about and or doing now as they prepare to launch into a career?

Liz Moran: You know, I get asked more specifically of that a lot is what are the skills, what are the credentials, probably because part of my job is to lead credentialing. the answers I'm giving right now are to focus on topics that are truly interesting to you, because that's where you're going to have the most impactful learning experience. Look for learning opportunities, credentials that you can pursue, that at least the stated skills, the stated learning and assessment outcomes align with what you're seeing in jobs that are out there right now. Consider skills that you may feel like you already have and you're struggling to signal to the market, ⁓ where you think maybe a micro credential ⁓ a full blown certification or credential could help you with that. signaling, but it all needs to be done in short sprints, right? I think that, you know, I've said this before, treat your learning like sprints. In industry, for us, that's two weeks. When we are working through projects, it's two weeks sprints. Why? Because then you can stop what's working, what's not, and then you rebuild your plan from there. So, you know, pick a topic, pick a credential that you want to work towards based on those recommendations. Tackle it for two weeks. Set some learning goals for yourself for two weeks. And at the end of that, if you feel like you really enjoyed it, it helped progress your understanding in an area that you were hoping to grow in, then maybe you set the next two weeks sprint to expand upon it. If not, that's OK. ⁓ Surely you learned something and move on to the next topic or the next microcredential that you'd like to pursue. And those may sound like vague. pieces of guidance, the truth is there is no clear quantified ⁓ measure for the value of micro-credentials. The closest thing that I've seen is the Burning Glass Institute did put out a credentials value index, so you may have seen it. I admire the amount of work that probably went into building this. It's incredible. But remember, it's based on data from the past. It's based on

Betsy: I have, yep. Mm-hmm.

Liz Moran: credentials that helped, whether it be wage gains, landing new jobs, promotions over the past five, ten years. And we know that that isn't necessarily going to predict what's coming next, but it's the closest thing to really quantifying value of credentials that are in the market today.

Betsy: What are you seeing as, if you think about microcredentials, and I know your area of expertise is different than lots of other employers or people at different companies, but what are you seeing as the most valuable microcredentials?

Liz Moran: ⁓ there's so many ways to answer that. Valuable to whom and for what pathways and from what perspective? ⁓ I'll answer it through the lens of, again, AI landscape and maybe some of the challenges that we talked about at the beginning of our conversation where organizations are really struggling and it's data governance and data ethics. And I think this is gonna be important no matter

Betsy: You can answer it any way you want. Right.

Liz Moran: what career pathway you go into. Even if you are going into a non-technical role, you need to understand the importance of data and AI ethics as a user or a builder. And I think that these topics, these trainings are slowly working their way in training plans for employees, but they are not by any means common yet. So if you can, on your resume, say, you know, took this training or I earned this micro credential in data ethics, be prepared to speak to that in an interview. I think that's an important signal to an employer that you're looking at it from a bigger picture, that you're not just thinking about, know how to push the buttons and get the answers I want out of this machine. I understand the implications of this to either a broader organization or to our society.

Betsy: Oh, that's a fantastic answer. Super helpful. I have so many more questions for you. Maybe we'll do a part two at some point.

Liz Moran: It's been wonderful. It's what I live and breathe every day. I think I could talk about it forever. So thanks for giving me the chance.

Betsy: Well, and you've been very generous with information and with your time and I'm really grateful. So if anyone wants to reach out to you, what's the best way? Is it LinkedIn? Do you have an email you wanna use, anything like that? Okay. I can put the link in the show notes.

Liz Moran: Yeah, think LinkedIn is best. let's see. Sure, absolutely. LinkedIn.com

Betsy: Okay, perfect. Well, thank you again. This has been super interesting, informative, and I've really, really enjoyed it.

Liz Moran: Yeah. Well, thank you. And thank you for guiding these conversations when there's an absence of direction and voices that are reaching those who need to hear these messages the most. I'm really glad that you're doing that and you're asking the tough questions. So thank you.