Just learn that skill !

 I saw the movie Dr Strange, where he asks The Ancient One how to practice the mystic arts how can he become a master of unknown skills, she replies "how did you become a renowned neuro surgeon" he replies "Study and practice, years of it" The Ancient One replies "Perhaps, that's the only way!"

This scene made even more confident of a fact that anything can be learnt at any point in life and nothing is worthless, to learn and every skill has its own value to deliver and get better. 

The scene of that movie was so staggering that a egoistic surgeon who thought that he was the best and none less of the fact, he didn't knew anything but neuro science, his accident made him realize that his skills is of no use to him, when he needs it in order survive and live life he had a learn a new skill and persist in the ecosystem.

Imagine that scene in your life, where all of a sudden whatever your skills you have got may not be valued or are relevant for the employers or company or for even work, how would you feel it to be. The solution is having multiple skill sets, and investing those multiple skill sets in your work which can help you deliver more quality work. Although mastering a skill is never a end point, but once you get the knack of it, you end up having get the grip of the skill. 

Having multiple skillsets is equivalent to having saved enough money at multiple resources like in Bank Account, or SIP or FD, stocks and what not. It's also equivalent to companies having non core/sister concern companies for driving more business and have multiple revenue streams, it's equivalent to having more than one friend who we think of depending on in the time of need. 

That's why I believe, learning and building multiple skill set is important.  Important making friends too, your friends may leave you but you skills may not. You may not get the desired ROI from any other investment but you'll definitely get the desired ROI by investing your time and effort on learning and master skills or should I say new skills.

Although learning a new skill or subject will not definitely add any value in the short term but has a lot of value in the long term, you are more confident, you are more definite in terms of approach and challenge management, you are comfortable about how things work and how to mix up two things, you manage innovation easily, you work flow is more agile, you focus on the outcome and not the output. The learning possibilities are endless. 

How to learn that thing ?

Many of us tend to think of how to take out time to learn things. I understand things are not that easy as its said. Its always great to see the plan and often difficult to make the plan work. 

Experts in the education field suggest that dedicating one hour time in the morning is more productive, but that depends on person to person. If the person wakes up to realize the need of that particular skill or the need for self improvement, I don't think any alarm would require to wake up. As the realization is the biggest alarm. 

Elon Musk says that colleges are just for fun and prove your chores, basically everything is available almost for free. Everything is available for free on internet. Colleges are useless, which I too agree extremely. 

The bad thing about colleges is that the courses are available for exorbitantly high fees, which makes the student end up taking fee in return for almost nothing. The same degree is almost not acknowledged by employers for various reasons. People end up doing different jobs than what they study and what they aspire, which is purely a system failure. 

Nevertheless in this blog I am going to share you some of the courses which are super helpful for  a long period of time as the world is sequentially moving in that direction which makes sense to acquire skills of that direction as going forward that's going to be most in demand skills. 

Almost of the courses are not available in the market. These are not taught in the industry. Many courses and careers sprout up based on the self interest and curiosity of the particular company/person/job role, which becomes a very unique in demand skill at an initial period of time and going forward that becomes a full fledged course to pursue as a career. As things are new, almost everyone continues to try that and that try forms the basis for creating an in depth course and that propels as a career. 

In this digital era, acquiring skills, which are more tech based are nice to have but going forward it will be must have skills, as Mckinsey report states in just 2 years down the line, it will be a pre-requisite to must have a technical skill. STEM education is taking giant leaps for promoting more and more careers for reducing the shortage of short supply in the years to come. For those who don't know what STEM  is, it stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education and skills.

Its important to build new skills and practice in regularly in whatever way possible. 

As the world is moving forward, the need for upskilling and self improvement is moving forward. It can be clearly stated that the IT industry will surpass the agriculture industry in terms of employment. All the job roles in IT industry will be based on new skills, newer technologies, newer approach which are here to stay for a long period of time. Harnessing one such skills will definitely lead you to a promising career. 

What happens is whenever a newer technology or new skills comes out in the market it doesn't have a clear structure to impart learning outcomes. It takes a good amount of time to reach to the market. 

This can experienced in terms of Data Science, Digital Marketing and Low Code application development which are doing well presently and these subjects didn't had a clear content to learn easily as it is now. It's just since past 2 years these skills have become  a big name due to the scarcity of the skills the industry demands. 

Here are a few skills which I believe will be very helpful to learn for the future. Harnessing that skill even before it reaches to the market will represent you not only as gem, but as futuristic, concerned, planned individual to the prospective employer.

Here a few skills which you can learn

RPA or Robotic Process Automation:

Almost all the companies have either introduced automation or planned this a core part of their strategy towards automation. Presently, 2 companies are hugely successful in  terms of providing automation services to the clients i.e. Automation Anywhere and UiPath. Large scale BPO and operations companies have implement such automated workflows where human intervention is not required. Automation is being applied everywhere except in places where creative, emotional and thought based tasks are present. 

You can learn one such skill at UiPath on its website which provides a free course to learn its platfrom for free and get certified for getting a job in its client companies. 

UiPath Academy

SAP

SAP  is a German product based technology company which provides cloud based ERP solutions to its clients. Its software products/services range from industry to industry. SAPs products are very prominent in the international market which provides a specialization on almost each department based jobs. 

SAP provides its training and certification on its platform i.e. Free SAP Training | openSAP . Training is through videos, but the certification is fee and license based. 

Salesforce

Salesforce is a US software company based on cloud to create solutions on Customer Relationship Management for small and medium business as well as large businesses alike. The USP of salesforce is you can create you own customized solution for your business. Salesforce is on track to create employment for upto 250,000 people in India providing free training resources and exam practice platform. Certification would be charges additionally. You ca choose to become a Admin, Business Analyst, Developer, Support based on your interests. Click here to learn salesforce Trailhead | The fun way to learn (salesforce.com) 

AWS, Google Cloud and Azure

AWS is the market leader in the cloud category. Cloud Service operations are expected to grow more and more in the years to come as every business will eventually move to cloud eliminating the hassles of maintaining the servers and equipment. Almost all the 3 platforms provides training resources under their banner, with extensive practical training exposure. It's better to have a working knowledge of how technical things work, then cloud career would be a better choice for you to pursue. 

Although the training would be free from their charge but the certification would have some pre-requisites to adhere i.e. Google Cloud will require you to have atleast a years experience in operating the cloud platform in terms of working on a project or doing internships and even working in a formal job. Even AWS requires you to have solid understanding of how technical networking works which from my experience, it will be a easy to do course without getting stuck.

AWS Academy (amazon.com) and Google Cloud Course is available on Coursera. 

The Linux Foundation

Linux OS provides its technologies and products training free of cost in partnership with Cisco.

Most of the programs are free on Linux Foundation upto a years licensing after which you'll have to pursue re-registering for appearing an exam to re-issue the certification for validity. Linux Academy 

CyberSecurity 

As the world is getting wider each and everyday, work from home is getting permanent and the need to secure the data is also getting increased. The confidentiality of business critical information is at huge risk, at the same time malware attacks, phishing, hacking would be the key issues to be address. That's where a CyberSecurity professional comes into the picture. 

Such courses are a in depth being provides by some institutes already but few online free courses are being available on platforms such as Cybrary Insider Pro | Cybrary and even on coursera. 

SkillUp by Simplilearn is a platform where you can try a skill or course which you are interested but don't have enough confidence whether you can pull it off. In this platform courses are short and will give a glimpse of what the course is all about and what pre-requisites one should have to pursue such a career. It will also give a guided view about how a career would look like. Free Online Courses to Power Your Future | SkillUp by Simplilearn Access it here

There's one another biggest platform which I missed, its YouTube. Although one cannot guarantee the quality of such courses but there are tons of quality videos and courses by people who are enthusiasts and people who are veterans in the industries. Learning from YouTube unlocks a totally different perspectives and it can be tried for pursuing such courses without nay hesitations. The enthusiasts would also share tips, ideas and even provide indepth info about how they managed their doubts and get clarified too. 

Hope these links are helpful for you to pursue, will add more such links and courses as and when available.