Take Advantage of Quarantine and Learn New Career Skills

The COVID-19 crisis looks set to bring about consequences upon our society and the way it works, at least for the foreseeable future. Sadly, some jobs and businesses will disappear, while others with adapt or emerge. Many of us will be forced to re-evaluate our career options in the months to follow, so this is the moment to use our time in isolation to acquire in-demand, practical skills that will increase our chances of being hired or promoted to fulfil new duties.

You only need a stable Internet connection and the will to learn something new to study at home and you might just acquire a skill that completely transforms your prospects. So, here you are the skills of the future you should acquire in this quarantine to broaden your opportunities. Let’s go!

Learn a Language Online

Becoming proficient in a language besides your native tongue will add value to your CV and help you to secure a new job at an international company operating in your city or online. With the advance of globalisation, businesses are expanding all the time and being able to communicate with a native speaker means business is done faster and more efficiently across large and complex markets.

Secondly, research shows that multilingual employees are more productive, requiring less time to solve issues than their monolingual counterparts. Furthermore, knowing a language also means knowing the culture and values of a particular people, so it will be easier for you to understand your international clients’ ethics and ways of working.

While it’s likely that your isolation period will not be enough for you to achieve native-like fluency, with the help of a professional instructor, you will become proficient enough to hold basic conversations in a short time. And, of course, you can always continue your online language journey once quarantine is over or switch to face-to-face classes.

Learn How to Code

If the current pandemic has you thinking about transitioning to an online position, then coding skills are a must in today’s world. From working with large IT firms to SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) or public institutions, coding is the means to create websites, apps, software and more. It is even handy if you are a freelancer or a business owner who needs a professional website to showcase your skills and services. While WordPress or Wix offer top-notch templates that can be great starting points, they can be quite limited if you want to introduce changes down the line.

So, whether you want to make custom buttons, banners, images and even fonts for your website, or you want to try your luck in digital marketing, HTML, CSS, PHP and JS are just a few of the many in-demand programming languages you can learn at home.

Learn how to write!

Content and copywriting today are in-demand skills, as many businesses are either going online or enhancing their e-commerce. First, you need to understand the difference between these two career paths. While a content writer tries to inform by creating pieces like blog posts, infographics or interviews, a copywriter tries to sell. So, they are tasked with crafting ads, landing pages or sales letters.

Either way, becoming a professional writer requires a lot of skills, such as identifying the audience, knowing how to adapt your style to a brand’s voice, coming up with compelling calls to action and more. Luckily, there are several courses out there that can help you acquire these skills, such as AWAI’s Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting Course.

Extra tip: Learn to Work from Home!

Working from home is not exactly the same as going to the office. It can be hard to sit down and be productive when you have so many distractions, especially if you don’t live alone. If you want to avoid procrastination, then you’ll need to designate an area in your home for getting things done. For example, it would be a great idea to transform a spare bedroom into a small office where you can focus on your professional tasks. If you want to learn more tips to work from home successfully, there are dozens of free courses you can take during this quarantine period, like Udemy’s Best Practices for Working Remotely programme.

So, don’t let isolation get you down; take advantage of the extra time at home to acquire skills that broaden your professional horizons. These can even help you choose a new career path once the world is back to normal. Capitalise your time, learn new skills and bolster your CV from home!

Inspired to learn a language and boost your career skills? Get in touch with us and we will prepare an online programme that suits your level and needs. You can choose from more than 100 languages!