How to Upskill Yourself and Advance Professionally
Just graduated and want to learn how to upskill yourself? As an entry-level job seeker from college or university, this is the perfect time to benefit from upskilling and using it to jumpstart your career. As the business world changes, the way we work has to adapt to match it. Finding opportunities to upskill yourself ensures your skills stay relevant.
This article will delve into what upskilling means, its benefits, and how to get started.
What is Upskilling?
Put simply, upskilling yourself is learning new skills useful in the workforce.
For an employer, upskilling the workforce helps a company remain successful in its particular area. It ensures employees keep learning new skills and expanding on old ones for their mutual benefit.
However, as an entry-level graduate seeking employment, there is nothing to stop you upskilling to improve your resume and increase your chances of landing that dream job. Not only do you learn a useful skill, but you also show to prospective employers that you are prepared to use your initiative to progress in your chosen career.
The best way to find out where to focus your upskill time is by establishing where you could use a mentor or an extra boost of knowledge. Everytalent offers a 30-minute assessment that gives you information perfect for customizing the process of upskilling.
The Six Steps to Upskilling
For those new to upskilling, it’s simple once you know the steps. We’ve broken them down into six parts to help you gain new knowledge and improve your skills.
1. Set Goals
Setting goals is vital before you know what you should learn. For instance, consider which careers are interesting to you and the skills to have to make you stand out amongst other prospective candidates.
2. Know Your Gaps
Once you know your goals, think about what has stopped you from reaching them. This is a knowledge gap and can give you an idea of how to move forward. Talk to people who have done what you need to and learn more about the training that helped them get there.
3. Choose an Upskill Strategy
Once you know your knowledge gaps, it’s time to build a learning strategy. Consider the various learning options available (listed in the next section) and think about which one would work best for you.
4. Learn New Things
Having established the why, what, and how, you can start learning! Get going and learn valuable new skills at a pace that works for your lifestyle and responsibilities.
5. Get Some Practice
After learning a skill, you need to practice it. Find some time to practice what you have learnt in your daily routine. Once confident, consider how your new skills can then be used to best effect in the workplace.
6. Keep learning
Upskilling is a continuous form of learning. We don’t mean that after learning a new skill you should immediately start on another one (although there’s nothing to stop you!), but you should see it as something to do on a regular basis and which will almost certainly be a fundamental part of your professional career.
The Top Ways to Upskill Yourself
If you want to learn how to upskill yourself, there are several options. Some work better for one person than another so it all comes down to your goals and how you prefer to learn. A few of the most common ways to upskill are:
Take Upskill Courses Virtually
One of the great things about today’s digital world is that you can upskill yourself without even having to leave home. There’s no need to visit a classroom, spend time commuting, or schedule classes to brush up on your hard or soft skills.
Instead, learn when it suits you. Just go online and start learning something useful for your career.
Some of these courses are on social media, such as LinkedIn Learning. Others are on platforms, such as HubSpot Academy, SkillShare, Khan Academy, and Great Learning.
These allow you to work on things like digital marketing at your own pace, in your chosen environment. Even if you already have a demanding job or course load, you can find time to upskill.
Try Microlearning During Free Time
As you might guess, microlearning refers to small bits of learning content. You learn something small and then can build upon it with more microlearning or using other types of upskilling opportunities.
This is another excellent way to improve your digital skills by conveniently learning new subjects in an easily digestible format. The learning is broken down into the smallest possible parts, meaning there’s no need to spend hours or weeks on a topic.
One of the benefits of upskilling this way is that it can work better for your long-term memory. Research indicates that short bouts of learning make your brain retain things longer, so use a time-blocking approach to focus on each part.
Find a Mentor to Teach New Skills
When we talk about mentoring, it refers to learning something from someone who is already good at it. This could be someone you know from college, a family friend or even a neighbor with experience and skills in the relevant subject matter.
When you have a mentor available, you can watch how they do things, ask them questions about skills you’re interested in, and potentially, be taught in the environment where the skills will be used.
Choose to Utilize Coaching
Mentors and coaches are similar, but there is a difference. Coaches are individuals who are specifically trained to guide you and help you reach your goals.
When you utilize coaching to upskill yourself, the level of effectiveness is high. You can quickly close any skill gaps and reach your ultimate potential as the coaching is customized to your specific needs instead of to a group.
Using a coach gives you the ability to decide your long-term goals and then have someone guide you as you work towards them one step at a time.
The Major Benefits of Upskilling Yourself for Work
As someone new or just moving into the workplace, upskilling is helpful for several reasons. Regardless of anything else, it’s an excellent practice to get used to since it will be something a company requires you to do in order to progress in your career.
If you’re wondering what additional benefits there are to upskilling, the information below will help.
Make Additional Money
You make yourself more valuable to your company as you learn how to upskill yourself. Most learning and development experts claim that while workplace learning and development used to be great to have, it’s now considered essential.
Upskilling and reskilling have become significant priorities across many industries. Since June 2020 and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, employers have indicated that their importance has increased by 15%. In addition, working on your skills can make you even more important to an employer, which may translate to raises in the future.
Improve Your Prospects of Employment
Being good at something can be fulfilling. But if you feel that you lack knowledge in other areas that may be holding you back from finding your ideal job, that can be a real frustration. Learning how to upskill yourself can put you in a position to move forward.
When you learn something new and exciting, you gain relevant abilities required by an employer. Upskilling means you gain expertise that is in demand. In other words, it makes you more employable.
Find New Passion
Once you start upskilling yourself, you might find things you love learning about that can take you down career paths you’d never previously considered.
Not everyone starts after college in a position they want for life. However, even those who are further in their careers may find new passions that lead to a new and more satisfying job.
Experience Personal Growth
While you might upskill yourself as a means to excel in a career, it can also be an excellent form of personal development. You can improve your life and mental health by learning new things for your personal fulfillment.
In addition, learning as you get older and grow can even help with your health. Research shows that it may decrease the chance of developing dementia in later life.
How to Upskill Yourself with Everytalent
Everytalent offers a skills assessment that you can use to see where you might want to upskill. You can learn more about what you’re good at and where you have challenges that need to be addressed. The assessment is quick and easy, with lots of information to help you move into the job world.
Everytalent also offers other services, such as a candidate assessment tool for employers, virtual career fairs for students from hundreds of universities, and post-assessment recommendations that help you improve your skills to move into the position you want the most!
