How To Upskill and Reskill Yourself to Improve Your Career Growth?

How to Re-Skill & Up-Skill? / Guidelines to Up-skill in your career / How to enhance your Skillset? / Up-Skill & Re-Skill – Need of the hour

How to Upskill and Advance Your Career? Does your career seem stuck? Are you not moving at the same pace as you had planned to go up the corporate ladder? Do you feel inadequate with regard to the skills you need, to move forward at work?

It is a typical delusion, that learning is limited only to the early years of one’s career. This is absolutely untrue; upskilling & reskilling is relevant to every individual who is either entering or already a part of the workforce.

The learning function is emerging from being an additional requirement to a fundamental approach for knowledge sharing, irrespective of geographical location, type of organization, and social strata. According to LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index 2020, in India, 64% of the professionals are likely to raise their focus on learning in the coming weeks. In addition, three out of five professionals believe, that they will attain career progression through upskilling and reskilling.

What are the Skills??

Hard skills are linked to a particular technical knowledge and training while soft skills are personality traits such as leadership, communication or planning. Both types of skills are essential in order to perform and lead successfully in your career.

In order to develop and grow in both categories of skills, we need to constantly Upskill and Reskill ourselves in our career path.

• Upskilling is the process of learning new skills or of teaching workers new skills.
• Reskilling is the process of learning new skills so you can do a different job, or of training people to do a different job.

How to Upskill or Reskill Your Soft and Hard Skills to Enhance Your Career

Every individual is responsible for the growth in their career and is accountable for their development in both hard and soft skills. Below are a few tips on how to upskill & reskill your behavioral skills.

How to improve SOFT SKILLS?

Avoid depending on your employer to commence training sessions for you on the skills imperative to advance in your job. Instead, enhance your skillset on your own.

1. Display Initiation: Be proactive and take initiative to be accountable and responsible in front of your employer. Let your manager know that you are available to take on more responsibility and constantly ask for feedback on your performance. It will assist you in knowing the gaps. If your manager is not responding or not willing to give you more responsibility, then approach your peers.

2. Advance Leadership Skills:  Be aware of all the management leadership courses and certifications with regard to your function, as large companies have the practice of providing internal and external training opportunities to you for free.

3. Inculcate Teamwork and Get a Mentor: Always be inclined to cross-train yourself with peers that have the skills and experience you aspire for. Try to build interpersonal relationships with co-workers and exchange positives with each other.
   Approach the professionals you admire, brainstorm ideas and clarify your queries with them, it will help you to gauge if they are interested in mentoring someone. Convince them to be your professional mentor.

4. Develop Your Emotional Intelligence (EQ): Develop emotional intelligence to nurture deeper awareness about the emotions within you and, consequently, understand the deeper needs of yourself and others around you.
   Its meaning is different for every individual, for some it means getting a therapist and practicing new habits such as mindfulness meditation and yoga. For others, it means reading and creating a space for yourself to think deeply about your emotions.

5. Think Creatively:  Work as a “smart creative” who fuels the healthiest environment of creativity and innovation. Avoid going with the status quo, and think of different innovative ways of dealing with situations. You should encourage brainstorming sessions with peers and know how to nurture the right environment for those at work with you.

6. Work on Stress Tolerance and Management: Determine how to detect burnout in yourself and others and how to get rid of it. Many of us think, it is the result of working long hours but that is not always the case.
   We can overcome stress by starting to love our work or setting a regime where we can practice things we like while working.

How to Improve Your HARD SKILLS?

As both hard and soft skills are important for our career growth, we should also concentrate on constantly upgrading our technical skills. One should be aware of all the current trends, Industry changes, and job changes, which are frequently happening in the market.

Our college education and degree are not sufficient to excel in this competitive market; so, stay involved in your industry. Do goal setting, be aware of the hard skills required in your industry, and position yourself for career success.

1. Look for Free or Low-Cost Training: For instance, you should check out institutions offering courses and certifications at low cost or even government-sponsored training in your area. Attend free seminars relevant to your industry and apply for correspondence courses and certifications.

2. Consider Getting Certified: Check out trending certificate programs that can add value to your profile. Many certifications can help you learn entrepreneurial skills with a smaller investment and much faster than a four-year college degree.

3. Take Free Online Courses: Benefit yourself in this digital age; you can get some of the best training at your doorstep. Try doing courses relevant to your industry from Edutech companies like Coursera, Udemy, etc. Attend Webinars of renowned personalities from your field.  

4. Set Learning Goals:  Set short-term learning goals and search for certifications or courses accordingly. This will help you to be systematic in learning. Brainstorm with people in your industry, and look out for books that can supplement classes and tutorials to achieve your goal. Your sense of accomplishment will energize you to develop new and relevant skills.

5. Explore Vocational Training:  Search for vocational training related to the job you are currently in or the job you dream of. The advantages of vocational training are two-fold:
   • These programs are run by formal schools but for shorter periods and lower tuition fees.
   • It is a more practical, hands-on experience. Sometimes you can even build a good portfolio to improve your chances for advancement or hiring.

6. Get Formal Education:  You may need a formal education to move your career forward. An individual should evaluate all the pitfalls of higher education before investing in a college degree – or a second one if you have already graduated.
   Look for the best colleges that provide you with placement services after completion of the course. A degree from a good college will always return your investment of time and money with a decent job.

7. Freelance Your New Skills: Start freelancing your newly developed skill, it will give you practical knowledge of the skill and help you tap the freelance market.
   People who look for freelancers are often willing to work with beginners in the field. It can assist you to gain experience for the job you want. Or who knows? You might excel in the freelancing world and want to remain a freelancer.

Conclusion

The importance of Upskilling and Reskilling has increased even further today owing to the rise in automation in almost every industry. The modern workforce across the globe are keen to improve their skills and are ready to spend a substantial part of their time in learning. The current progression on upskilling and reskilling only confirms this point.

So, Keep Learning and stay on top with the ever-changing trends!!