Corona Shouldn’t Affect Your Learning and Career Development

The Covid-19 outbreak has affected more than 150 countries, 350K people, and killed more than 15K globally. Thereby, it has been announced as a Pandemic.

As a result, more than 121K schools have been closed throughout the United States. Education Week released a state-by-state report of school closures around the country. According to this report, 46 US states have already shut down the schools affecting around 54.5M students.

Likewise, thousands of people are prompted to work remotely. While this is a great opportunity to prove your capabilities to work from home and promoting this lifestyle, it is also a challenge to balance personal and professional lives amid the crises.

Additionally, coronavirus has affected the world economy as bad as the health and well-being of the people. As suggested by the World Economic Forum, a 40% decline in the economy has occurred throughout the globe. This is just a beginning, which indicates, a good chunk of individuals facing recessions, companies losing revenue and disrupting supply chains, and further devaluing of cryptocurrencies.

Currently, it is highly crucial to grasp the situation and taking the necessary measures to avoid major impacts. This can only be done by understanding what Covid-19 is, how to prevent yourself from Covid-19, and how to ensure your well-being without compromising career development and learning.

How to ensure healthy learning and career development during the time of crisis

To help our clients and employees, we have done our research and here is everything you should practice to stay at the forefront of learning and career development and to come out of this situation successfully.

1. Set a 5-year career goal

One of the most asked questions in job interviews is, "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" Despite this being a repetitive question, many of us fail to answer. How about we take this time and stress on finding a 5-year goal? This answer will not only give you clarity of what you want and what you are passionate about but, it will also give your current and prospective employer an idea to assess your skills and organizational demands w.r.t your goals.

How to set a goal? Here are a few tips,

• 1. Know what is your instinctive answer to this question
• 2. Understand your craving; what are you passionate about
• 3. Assess your skills
• 4. Analyze and fill your skills gap by engaging yourself in continuous learning

Your answers to the above-mentioned questions will give you a clear picture of 5-year career goals.

2. Assess and polish your current skills

Your skills and attitude towards your job differentiate you from other candidates. Therefore, you must assess your skills and learn how to enhance them. For example, you are a software developer who is already renowned for his work. You have the skillset to write a code in various in-demand programming languages. Now, how can you enhance your skillset when you are already awesome? The answer, by assessing your weak points and your competitor's strong points. Maybe you have the expertise to code in different languages but you write more lines of code then your competitor. So, what you can learn is how to reduce the lines of code and optimize the software. Or how to take lesser time to write a piece of code as compared to your competitor. These little things can give you a good edge over your colleagues and will help you stand out.

3. Analyze your skills gap

For individuals who want to stay a step ahead of the lot, it's crucial to know the most demanded skills in today's workplace. You can do this by listing down the in-demand skills and then analyzing your current skillset. Now, you will know what you are missing and the gains you can get by adding those skills to your skillset. This will not only help you in getting career advancements in your current job but can also help you in landing your dream job.

4. Fill your skills gap

In the time of crises, when most companies are laying off their employees, be the employee that your company fears losing. This is the right time to fill your skills gap by building the required skills. These skills can be technical, communicational, analytical, and even personal. For example, you work at an IT company as a Digital Marketer. You have the skills to market your service or product effectively but you lack research skills. You can gain that skill by understanding how to do the research and analysis to outdo your competitors. 

5. Gather learning material

You know your career goals, your current skills, and the skills you require, what is next? Find the material and start self-learning. The internet is a bundle of resources where you can easily find the content relevant to you. At QuickStart, we also offer a free subscription to IT professionals to our self-paced courses, videos, whitepapers, and practice tests. You can access an ample amount of informative courses by registering yourself and start learning right away.

6. Enroll in an online training program

Smart organizations encourage their employees to engage themselves in continuous learning. A study led by the Association for Talent Development (ATD) suggests that companies who provide training to their employees have 218% higher income per employee. Also, such organizations receive a higher profit margin of 24% than companies who don't spend on training. 

Online institutes like QuickStart offer IT training programs to these learners globally. Do not let Corona become a hurdle in your learning and career development. Seek shelter in such institutes and ask your organization to enroll you in the IT training programs. You can also register yourself to get free IT training courses.

7. Get certified

IT certifications help to provide credibility to those pursuing a career in the IT industry. According to research led by CompTIA, 72% of employers need IT certifications for certain job openings. 67% of employers measure an individual's passion and dedication to complete the job by seeing the certifications on their resume. Certifications make a great first impression. By being certified by a trusted source, those who have earned IT certifications tend to grab the employer's attention and are therefore more likely to succeed in their professions.

8. Mentor your juniors

According to a study, 55% of individuals are more inclined to join a college, 90% are more likely to become a mentor, and 130% are interested to take leadership positions after mentoring. This means mentoring doesn't necessarily help students to learn from your experience but also help you to increase your knowledge by answering their questions and problem-solving. 

By practicing the above-mentioned tips, you can not only ensure better learning and continuous career development for yourself but also prove the ability to rise and shine in any given situation. Let's promise ourselves not to compromise our personal as well as our professional life amid coronavirus crises. Stay safe and productive.