If you’re like most working people, the lockdown forced by the COVID-19 pandemic has meant that you have more time on your hands at this time. And you might be wondering how you’re going to spend it.
How about learning new skills that you could use in the near future?
By learning a skill, you could prepare yourself for a successful new career, or accelerate your movement up the ladder in your current one. It’s also possible that the skill you learn will help you survive the possible changes to the commercial landscape that the coronavirus pandemic will have triggered in the long run.
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Here are seven key skills you can learn now, while you’re holed up indoors.
1. Web Development
The current pandemic is likely to accelerate our already growing dependence on the internet. More than ever, we’re going to prefer shopping online, and communicating via web-based channels.
This means more individuals and businesses will be setting up websites as ‘online storefronts and offices’. But they will need web developers to write the code for those websites.
So we’re going to see more demand for web development services. If you can begin learning this skill while the lockdown persists, you could set yourself on the path to grater relevance in tomorrow’s economy.
2. Data Analytics
Data analytics involves examining data and deriving actionable insights from them.
These days, organizations work with a lot of data—sales data, customer data, market data, etc. –and they need to sift through them to get insights they could leverage to make informed decisions. Sometimes, there’s so much data to work on that they have to use special tools to get the analysis done.
As data-driven decision making becomes more commonplace among businesses, the demand for data analysts will continue to increase. The good news is, you can begin learning the skills required to work with data analytics tools right now.
3. Online Content Development
Individuals and organizations have to update their websites and portals with fresh content in order to keep their audiences coming back to them. They hire online content developers to do this on their behalf.
Web content could include blog articles, videos, photos, inforgraphics, and a lot of other material. So this isn’t really a single skill. It’s a plethora of skills, for which you could choose one or a few that you can do well at.
Because global engagement with the web is growing, online content creators aren’t likely to go out of business anytime soon. Now is probably the time to learn some video editing or content writing.
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4. Social Media Management
Isn’t this space getting saturated already?
It isn’t. In fact, there are so many businesses just getting on social media, you could pick up some good gigs right after you’ve learned the basics of social media management.
Note that there’s more to this than just posting photos, videos, texts and links. It involves understanding user engagement and social media metrics, and maintaining a unique brand voice for your employee.
Even if you’re not planning on becoming a social media manager, you can take a course on this to improve your business’s social media presence.
5. Marketing Strategy
It’s a competitive world out there. If you’re in business, you should know this already.
One way to stand out from the competition is to employ winning marketing strategies that help you grab your target audience’s attention. There are a lot of approaches you could take. You won’t really know what they are until you crack open a marketing textbook, or learn from someone who has gained the knowledge themselves.
Thankfully, there are a lot of free online courses on marketing for businesses. You can take on one of them, and sharpen your ability to communicate and persuade your ideal customers.
6. Accounting and Bookkeeping
This might be the time to confront your fear of crunching numbers on your accounting records.
There are plenty of courses in basic accounting you can take, starting now. A lot of these courses are free. They also introduce the topic in language that’s easy to understand.
An introductory course won’t make you better at building financial statements than an experienced accountant, but it will help you understand what they do. Or it could help you get better at making those statements for your business.
7. Project Management
Have you always wanted to become a project management professional? Why not start the journey while you have less on your plate.
The demand for qualified project managers isn’t letting off. As long as there are complex projects to be worked on, industries will need them.
Ultimately, you may have to attend some of those paid certification courses to get recognized in this field. But if you want to get a good head start, you can try some of the free project management courses available from online learning platforms.
Featured Image Source: TG Tech NG
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