Building a career is one of the biggest challenges one faces in their life. No matter which field you are getting into, future-proofing your career requires immense hard work and commitment. It often involves finding your strength area and creating a niche for yourself.
However, a future-proof career is not guaranteed simply by getting the right skills. Let’s understand here how to know your future career or upskill yourself in your existing one.
According to a PwC survey titled ‘India Workforce Hopes and Fears’, 71 percent of the employees in India worry about being overlooked in their jobs. Close to half of them also think that their jobs are not giving them the necessary skills to grow in the long run. This shows the insecurity that Indian professionals live with.
How to Know Your Future Career
In today’s competitive world, having future-proof skills is extremely important. According to a report by LinkedIn, hiring in India dropped by 23 percent in 2022, December. However, at the same time, about four in five people are looking for newer and better opportunities even within the job market.
Therefore, it is even more important to understand how can one negotiate the job market and continue to grow. So, here is all you can do to future-proof your career:
Upskill and Cross-Skill
So, you might have found a good job after completing your studies. You are comfortable in your role and your work gets appreciation. But, is that enough to keep you going in the long run? Perhaps, not. One of the biggest changes that have occurred in the professional world recently is the growing importance of upskilling and cross-skilling.
So, what is upskilling? Imagine you work in an organisation as a sales executive. However, the growth aspects in this area are limited owing to your current set of skills. Therefore, to find new opportunities and grow in your job, you can take some online courses like MBA which will add to your skills. This way, you may be able to get a promotion at work.
Upskilling is a rapidly expanding trend in the job market today. According to a recent survey in India, upskilling is a priority for 62 percent of CEOs. However, only 35 percent of employees stated that upskilling programs were available for them internally within the organisation.
To fill this gap, a number of online education and skilling platforms have come up in India and around the world. Reports suggest that the online education market in India is about to grow to $313 billion by the year 2030. With more than 90 percent of employees in India admitting to the need for upskilling, it has become an extremely important exercise today.
Just like upskilling, cross-skilling is also gaining a lot of traction in recent years. It is when an employee acquires new skills that are related to the current role but also offers newer opportunities for them to move into different departments.
This way, you can open up fresh pathways for yourself and grow rapidly. Today, multitasking has become extremely important irrespective of which industry you are in. At the same time, technology is becoming central to all aspects of a business.
Learning about technology like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can help you in many ways. Therefore, cross-skilling is something that can help you stay relevant and perform better than others.
How to Know Your Future Career: Find Your Niche
While you upskill and cross-skill, and acquire new knowledge, it is always important to have expertise in a particular area. You must become the go-to person for that role. This is how you can carve a niche for yourself. For this, you should be sure of what you enjoy doing and are willing to put your time into.
Therefore, give ample amount of time into figuring out your career path. But, how to know your future career when you are in college or an entry-level employee? You can work towards what you are good at and also like doing. Gradually, you can try many different things and develop a niche.
However, you don’t have to work in a single area for your entire career. You can always create a new niche for yourself once you establish yourself in one area. Experience and constant effort towards growth will help you in this.
Build a Strong Network
No matter which field you are in, one of the biggest future-proof skills to learn is to network. The people you work with can become your biggest advocates if you are able to forge strong relationships at work. You should also network with other people working in the same field as yours through professional networks, both offline and online.
This way, you will be exposed to new ideas in the industry and you can also display your expertise and knowledge in front of others. This can also help you in building a personal brand which will help you a lot when you are changing jobs or looking for new opportunities. Healthy networking skills are extremely important in today’s cluttered market and help you in standing out.
Focus on Soft-skills
While hard skills are important to give you expertise in your particular area, soft skills enable you to become a good professional. Skills like communication, growth mindset, creative thinking, teamwork, etc., are needed in every profession and they also set you apart from others.
You might be a great engineer with many interesting ideas but if you do not have the skill to communicate these ideas to others, it is of no use. Therefore, you should also work hard on your soft skills and build certain character traits that make you desirable for companies.
So, these are some of the ways in which you can future-proof your career. If you are someone who is starting out on a professional journey, remember these points and make the best of them.
Smile Foundation and Skilling
Our livelihood campaign, Tayyari Kal Ki is in strong alignment with the Government of India’s ‘Skill India’ initiative. Currently, it is operational through 81 centres across 18 cities in 16 states. In the last 15 years, Smile Foundation has trained over 65,000 youth, and placed more than 45,000 of them in over 350 formidable brands across India.
