According to the American author, Robery Greene, “The future belongs to those who learn new skills and combine them in creative ways.”
Learning new skills not only opens up many avenues for you in terms of job prospects but also furthers your adaptability in a fast-changing world.
Irrespective of the field, skills always come in handy in making you stay relevant and job-worthy in the present market!
Remember it is all about making yourself marketable in today’s age!
Top 5 Skills You Must Acquire In 2021
Learning a new skill only has benefits, doesn’t it? Of course, it is easier to use some sources and buy homework online. But talking about skills is like opening a pandora’s box! The choices are plenty!
Listed below are 5 skills that we think will look good on your CV in 2021:
1. Information Technology and Cybersecurity
With the world coming to a standstill in 2020 and crippling back with the help of IT, tech skills are crucial to survive and sustain in a pandemic and post-pandemic era. It proved the existing huge gap between the needs and the existing human resource.
Further, with a lot of security concerns rising and companies facing huge cybersecurity threats, learning this skill might lead you to become the next cybersecurity professional in a reputed company with many companies reporting to have spent about $15 billion per week just to cyber secure their systems. The importance of cybersecurity has been raised, and companies started to educate their employees about the need and benefits of cybersecurity. Some of these customizable cybersecurity presentation slides helped them in achieving this.
Varsha Barooah, Director at Michael Page, India claimed, “The demand for roles such as security engineers, cybersecurity analysts and cybersecurity engineers is on the rise.”
There are studies that claim cyberattacks are considered to be one of the fastest-growing threats in the US.
While everybody is aware of the dangers of cyberattacks, not many organisations are well-equipped with cybersecurity professionals or practices that make them more vulnerable to such attacks.
Robert McKay, the Senior Vice President at Neustar said, “Cybersecurity experts predict that in 2021 there will be a cyber attack incident every 11 seconds. This is nearly twice what it was in 2019 (every 19 seconds), and four times the rate five years ago (every 40 seconds in 2016).”
As per the reports of Cybersecurity Venture, “It will cost global organizations over $6 trilliion per year to fight cyber crimes and there will be around 3.5 million unfilled security jobs.”
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However, all of them are for people who are tech-savvy.
What if you are less technically inclined? Don’t lose heart! You can still pick up basic skills from related fields like Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Mobile App Development, Machine Learning, and so on. Working knowledge in these will give you an extra edge over the others the next time you walk in for a job interview.
2. Foreign Languages and Translation
While the English language continues to dominate the global market, interacting with people in their choice of language always helps in winning the first round! Not only does it make communication easier, but it also improves interpersonal skills to a large extent. Thus, being multilingual never hurt anyone!
Learning a new language is always fun and it can help you improve your career prospects, aid in school and college admissions, emigration, and so on.
While many languages would allure you, always remember to pick up a language that would help you in your future education as well as career prospects. Do not pick up a language because it is easy or just popular!
Did you know that knowing an extra language can boost your compensation by a significant percentage?
Worried about where to learn new languages from in this age of social distancing?
No need to panic or look further. Many online portals can help you in this cause! Some of them are Rosetta Stone, Duolingo, Babbel, Tandem and so on. All of these have excellent language learning features with some even offering their service for free!
With learning new languages, you might want to even try your hands at translation as well. With people sitting at home amidst the pandemic, more and more are getting attracted to the computer. Multilingual content at this stage would shoot up businesses.
With language and translation skills in place, you are sure to never go out of business! And you should also leverage the many benefits of a text expander tool, since it will help you save time thanks to the templates you can save in any languages you want!
3. Video and Audio Production
Come on! Let’s be honest and admit to watching at least a few Tik Tok videos during the lockdown! Like them or not, Tik Tok, Insta reels are grabbing the headlines with their ability to produce engaging content.
The buzz about digital content is partly due to the ease of access and the entertainment involved.
While print advertising is slowly giving way to digital advertising, surveys show that at least 54% of consumers wished to see the video content of brands of their choice.
Honing video production skills will increase your chances to feature in an ad agency or as a part of the brand image creation department.
Along with video production, audio production isn’t far away. Podcasts are the latest in business. You can up your skills using many of the new age apps available on the internet. OpenShot, GarageBand, Audacity are some to name a few.
4. Data Analysis
Want to come across as someone desirable in the job market? You just need a basic knowledge of knowing and understanding information.
‘Data’ continues to be the magic word even in 2021!
Which series will the readers want to watch next? Which documentary would attract more eyes? Data analysis today is not just limited to business choices but also aiding in quick advertising of content and products.
Be it Hotstar, Netflix, Amazon, data analysis is used to plan future data. If you have the skill of analytics, you are sure to gain priority in both advertising and marketing as this is one field that promises continued growth and demand.
Companies are looking for data analysts who would drive data-based marketing and increase viewership of all web-based platforms.
If you are interested, there are many courses available online that will help you strengthen your data analysis skills. There are various courses offered by Stanford, Texas universities and also MOOCs that provide detailed training in understanding and interpreting data for better market benefits.
5. Extended Reality – Virtual and Augmented
With the pandemic creating havoc, the scope of augmented reality (AR) has increased manifolds. But wait! While AR was all about fun and games till 2020, post that it has become a thing of utility. Some of the important fields where AR has made inroads are:
- Healthcare: Most of us have already experienced doctor’s appointments online during the pandemic. Now with AR creating magic, a lot of medical procedures along with other interventions are using this technology for treatment.
- Diagnostics: On-call mechanics or other repair workers are slowly becoming a thing of the past. Every time an appliance stops working, would you not rather look up any video that offers a DIY tutorial rather than spend hours dialing in the appliance executive’s number only to be left disappointed at the end?
The above are just to name a few. AR has also made its way into Retail, Art, and many other areas. Survey predicts that in the next five years, the demand for skilled technicians with sound knowledge of Extended Reality (XR) will grow unexpectedly.
There are many courses and online apps that can help you learn AR. University of Michigan, University of London, University of Toronto among many others offer courses on how to build AR and VR apps.
To sum up
While these are all tech-based skills that you can master to stay abreast with ever-changing tides, there are many other skills that you can try your hands on as well – Photography, braiding, cooking, graphic design, coin-collecting, gardening, cabinetry, film-making, and the list goes on.
Though we are living in a candidate-driven job market, it takes a lot of hard work to be noticed by recruiters.
You are trying your best to be on top of the game- upping your skills, learning new technologies, being up to date with the market and so on. But in all probability, everyone around you is doing the same as well!
Then, what sets you apart? Studies show that it is the ‘soft skills that determine your future! Be it time management, creativity, business communication, verbal communication, and so on. They give you this extra edge over the others and make your profile more likeable.
What are you waiting for? In the age and time of social distancing where the ‘work-from-home’ culture is the new normal, dominating the market and impending lockdowns looming large, this is the perfect time to learn a new skill or two and make it big at your next interview!
Feel free to let us know in the Comments section below what skill would you like to add to this list.
Good luck with your career!
