The world of work has never been more insecure than it is today. In our cut-throat, highly competitive world, jobs come and go and employment experts now suggest the average person will change career around 12 times in their lifetime – often branching into completely different sectors to prolong their employment.
Sadly, the days of a job for life seem to be long behind us, so whether you’re fresh out of college or are looking to climb the career ladder or even move sideways, having a diverse range of skills and knowledge is the best way to make yourself more employable.
Below are a fewtried-and-tested tips that will help solidify your place in the jobs market and help guarantee continued employment.
Build a professional network
Very often, who we know is more important than what we know, and having a wide range of professional connections will help introduce you to new possibilities and horizons. Also, meeting new people will broaden your skillset and knowledge and could help you identify opportunities you otherwise might miss. These days, having good networking skills is a prerequisite for most jobs and will help you whether you intend to stay with your current employer or want to move on and learn how to become an airline pilot.
Get extra qualifications
The world doesn’t stand still and with the tremendous growth in IT and the ongoing digitalization of business in recent years, commerce has never moved faster. Tech is playing an increasingly important role in all facets of society – but perhaps nowhere more so than in business.
No matter what type of work you want to take on, almost without exception, if you want to stay one step, you’ll need to have good IT skills. Taking things one step further, you could also think about retraining in the fastest-growing sector of computing – cloud computing – or at least have a basic knowledge that you could apply in a less dedicated role. Taking an AWS tutorial will let you understand the ins and outs of one of the most popular cloud systems, Amazon Web Services – knowledge that will prove useful in almost any role.
Work on your soft skills
No matter how many qualifications you have, if you can’t communicate well and work effectively with others, you’ll constantly find yourself on the back foot when it comes to both interviews and working as a team. So-called soft skills include everything from communicating and debating to time management, self-discipline and taking a flexible approach to life and work. Work on these skills and you’ll go a long way to improving your employment options – no matter what sector you work in.
Practice your interview technique
There’s little denying that interviews are stressful – they’re meant to be that way. From a prospective employer’s point of view, putting you under pressure lets them see how well you can deal with stress and gives a useful window into your personality.
The only way to get better at interviews is to mimic the same conditions and practice with a friend. At the very least, before you go for an interview, you should run over in your head the questions you think you’re likely to be asked to help prevent getting tongue-tied and lost for words.