SKILLS NEEDED FOR CAREER ADVANCEMENT

Competition is ever growing, and productivity demands additional pressure to our career growth. With Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence taking over, our challenges are increasing. Many of the skills that were relevant a few years ago have become irrelevant today. But there are certain skills that will always put us above machines if we master them.

One must understand that if one is not making any progress, one is regressing. It is extremely important to always look for opportunities to learn and grow. Keeping this in mind, following are some important skills needed for career advancement:

1. Digital Literacy –

In today’s digital age, it is not enough to be highly intelligent or emotionally balanced – these are givens. We also need to have digital literacy. If we look around, and we’ll find that focus of the majority of conferences and workshops in India is on new technologies and digitization. It is critical for us to keep up with the new and growing trends in our respective field, whatever it may be, and educate ourselves in the Digital sector.

2. Management Skill –

Our ability to manage time and resources is a highly rated skill and will remain so … forever. Do you know the major difference between the workforce of a developed economy and that of a developing economy? The workforce of a developed economy value time – theirs as well as that of others. Once we start valuing our time, managing it becomes easier. Ditto with resources. We often undervalued our resources. If utilized optimally, advancing in a career will become easier.

3. Cross-disciplinary Literacy –

We often limit ourselves to what our job requires. In today’s fast-paced world, mastering just the skills in our discipline is not enough. We need to explore skills outside our discipline, too. There are so many ways to learn new skills from (hello, YouTube and wikiHow). Not learning is no longer an option. We need to understand concepts across different disciplines. Let’s learn new skills outside our field and expose ourselves to new experiences.

4. Problem Solving Ability –

Anyone who is able to think and come up with creative ideas to solve a need is a valuable employee to a company. You may wonder what if there’s no problem that needs to be addressed. Well, here’s a piece of good news – no matter what work you do or which field you are in, there are several problems that need immediate attention. If you’re not aware of those problems, it could be because they don’t think that you have the ability to solve them. I’m sure you can prove them wrong, so pitch for them and show them your worth. Just don’t wait for them to seek you.

5. Social Intelligence –

Social Intelligence boils down to our ability to network or connect. Whoever says that networking is not important has no idea how magical this skill is. A lot of vacancies are not advertised, so if you want to get that job, you have to network to find out about it. We tend to recommend people we like. So, while you might not have met the person who can give you that job, you might have met one of their contacts who could help you get that job.

Can you think of any other skills needed for career advancement? Let’s share and learn from each other in the comment section?