In a recent Harvard commencement speech, Mark Zuckerberg addressed his alma mater’s fresh graduates for “establishing a ‘social infrastructure’ for the world” as “generation-defining public works projects” that involve people towards a socially beneficial cause. Much like the recent technologies being developed at Facebook, his belief in a future with no job shortages despite automation was built not only “to create progress, but to create purpose”.However, at a time when the World Bank data suggests that 69% of jobs in India are susceptible to be taken over by automation, salary negotiation is often considered to be the key to topping the rat race. However, if Robotic Process Automation is truly reducing the number of jobs, is salary negotiation a risk that a jobseeker should take? While considering the influence of cutting edge technology and the emergence of the fourth Industrial Revolution termed as Industry 4.0, this article is an attempt redefine the rules of salary negotiation in an age where jobs are apparently shrinking.It’s not just the ‘Trump effect’ that jobseekers around the world need to worry about. Just like winter in The Game of Thrones, disruption is coming and will inevitably pervade every sphere of our professional, personal and social lives. Smart CCTV cameras controlled from a central desk have already compelled hordes of traditional security guards to find new jobs. Smart cars will do the same for chauffeurs or cab/truck drivers, like the billions of workers left jobless during the emergence of automated production lines. Moreover, artificial intelligence led by IBM Watson and Baidu Minwa are also endangering the majority of jobs with predictable activities in structured environments; even the white-collar ones including doctors, lawyers and analysts.Fortunately, human resources don’t depreciate over a period of time like assets; but their skills do. The World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts that 35% of the top professional skills of today would be replaced in the future. With complex problem-solving, creativity and critical thinking being the top three in-demand industry skills for 2020, there is hope alive for the humans as robots are a long way from learning and replicating these. At this point of time, every professional, irrespective of the years of experience, is required to re-assess their skills and re-skill themselves for future opportunities before being disrupted.Just like oil fields, even Forbes reports that data scientist’s role has been one of the 10 toughest vacancies to fill in 2016. While the total number of IoT devices supersedes earth’s human population this year, McKinsey reports that 1.5 million US managers and analysts will under analyze the Big Data generated as the US would face a shortage of 190,000 skilled data scientists. Thus, if Robotic Process Automation will disrupt several jobs, there will be technologies like IoT creating many more jobs necessitating critical problem solvers.The 2015 MIT Sloan Management Review reveals that 40% of the companies surveyed had struggled to find and retain qualified data analyticstalent. With even Google and IDC feeling the heat of the stunted demand-supply dynamics of new age skills like augmented/virtual reality, advanced robotics, data science, artificial intelligence and Internet of things, such skill shortage is only set to worsen even in developing economies like India.As corporates like Cisco plan to start dedicated data visualization labs across all its organisations by 2017, a creative yet strategic role of the chief visualization officer (CVO) would start to emerge. Such a person would be creating new visual capabilities and richer experiences out of the masses of digitized information collected while also acting as the company’s purveyor for the creative domain. Moreover, the CVO of an automotive firm still differing from a financial firm’s CVO would surely create a paucity of such niche skill sets in the near future.In the light of Industry 4.0, the WEF predicts advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, advanced materials, biotechnology and genomics to be the next frontier of employment. Only with requisite skills in these disruptive fields and a multi-disciplinary approach could empower future jobseekers to become critical organizational assets, in order to adequately negotiate their compensation and benefits. A new trend may emerge where such prized professionals may even set their own terms, like not disclosing their previous cost to company(CtC) while negotiating new offers. All they do is quote a price for their services and showcase their value in terms of knowledge, past work and references.Sometimes, you need to change the field in order to excel at your game and the wave of automation is no exception. All it asks from professionals is greater flexibility to adapt to new roles and work environments, while being open to continuous interdisciplinary learning.So, how ready are you now to negotiate your way to the top of Industry 4.0?(The author is co-founder and CEO, GrowthEnabler)