by Artur Meyster
You’ve suddenly found yourself out of work during a global pandemic and are wondering what to do. Without a doubt, this has the potential to be one of the most worrisome moments in your entire life so far. Keeping this in mind, rest assured that you are not alone in this situation and that there are others who are in the exact same shoes as you. It may seem difficult now, but focus on getting your career back on its feet and you’ll be doing better than ever in the near future.
With that in mind, do not immediately jump back into the workforce, as tempting as it may be. Doing so may simply result in you getting shoved out of the workforce again when technological disruption inevitably occurs. To that end, there are a few steps you should follow, in the below order, that will help you to reset your career in the best way possible. Doing so will help you to become an asset in the future of work and set you apart from any potential competition.
Look Into Modern Tech Trends
Studying the trends of today will give you an indication as to what the future of work will look like. This information can be helpful in making the decision of what skills to focus on developing now. For example, coding and programming are two important skills now that were simple trends as of a decade ago. Despite this, entire fields have evolved from these skills alone.
Focus on identifying which trends are popular now and seeing if they have the potential to evolve into fields. As a tip, coding is likely not going anywhere for years to come, so learning how to code could be a great strategy now that you have time on your hands. There are also free options that are completely online which is helpful when you are trying to not dip into your savings.
Deciding the trends today that will pave the future can even help with coding classes. For example, is there a field you want to go into that uses an up-and-coming coding skill now? If so, identifying that language may be helpful today.
Attend an Educational Institution
After successfully identifying a tech trend that resonates with you and seems like it will survive far into the future of work, you must go about developing the skills needed to enter that field. You could attend a coding bootcamp, as outlined above, or you could take it a step further, assuming you are willing to spend a little more time and money.
Trade schools are a popular option that has emerged in recent years that teach students the skills needed to enter a specific career. For example, General Assembly teaches students a number of skills ranging from data science to UX design, depending on the chosen path. There is no shortage of trade schools around the country and most have online options, which means you don’t even need to travel anywhere.
After losing your job during this pandemic, you may need to switch careers fast. Unfortunately, a standard graduate program from a university typically takes two years, whereas trade schools take one. Past reports have even shown that there are always jobs available for trade school graduates that may not even be available to university graduates.
Learn How to Interview
Assuming you have found a career path that suits your interests and pursued it via some sort of educational source, you now have to brush up your interview skills. Over the years, interviews have become far more technical and candidates are expected to even be able to complete mock job tasks in interviews. Research past interviews for the career you are pursuing to gain a sense of what the interview process will be like. From there, you can identify a strategy to nail the interview, such as the STAR method. At the very least, do a little bit of research to make sure you aren’t going into the process blind.
Conclusion
We are living in unprecedented times that the world has never seen before. Millions have lost their jobs and find themselves in the same exact position as you, which should help to put your mind at ease. However, it is important that you don’t expect a new career to simply fall into your lap with no effort whatsoever. Take the time now and treat this as a learning experience, so that you can develop new skills that will make you a valuable employee in the future. You may not have been able to control getting fired now, but you can certainly control what happens from here on out.
