Covid-19 Job Hunt To do#2: Keep Learning

Credits to Daria Obymaha

Continuing to learn and improve our professional skills is enough of a generic sentiment that it doesn’t need too much of an explanation. To keep ourselves up-to-date with best practices, to make ourselves more efficient, to have additional leverage and facts we can bring to argue on our own behalf (whether interview or performance review). These are all valid reasons.

For those of us job hunting though, it really differs in that:

1. Unlike when working or in school, the time, focus, and commitment to the material can vary drastically. If I’m still working, I probably can’t commit to much more than 2~3 hours/week to extra work-related activities. After work, I just want to wind down and relax — maybe live a little. This changes when I’m unemployed and job hunting. At that point, job hunting IS my job, and learning is on-the-job training.
2. Fill in a time gap. For those of us hunting now because of being let go for Covid-19, we actually have a better reason than most other cases for having a time gap in our resume. Obviously, we were let go because of this crazy pandemic. Either way though, and especially in the future from now, recruiters WILL ask how you’ve spent your time and at that point its better to answer “learning Java” rather than “3rd rewatch of Community.”
3. Really change ourselves. Unlike learning when we’re already working, learning now in this sort of time can really give us the time and mental space to internalize what we’re learning deeply. It’s a pity that it takes times of turmoil to really enact change, but that’s human nature. If you’ve always known about some sort of flaw in your working style or knowledge but have struggled to change it, opening yourself up to new bits of knowledge during this downtime can really help internalize and set those changes in action.

Then there’s perhaps another one. Should you find that you have 0 interest at all in pursuing more learning about your field, maybe that itself is a telling sign that you should switch to something new… at which point, you definitely need to learn more about that.

So what are ways to learn?:

1. Mentorship: Thinking about switching fields? Reach out to someone already in it and ask to pick their thoughts. This can still work even if its not a dramatic career change. Find someone more experienced, same company or not, same industry or not, and just open up a friendly conversation. People are bored and isolated in these times, and so it’s a great time to connect with new people and share thoughts, direction, advice, and ideas. There’s of course Linkedin, but there’s also apps like Shapr — just keep the chats digital so you can maintain your social distance.
2. Projects and collaborations or… make some money!: Whether it be with other people or not, there’s no better way to get hands-on real world experience than just doing it. If you’re interested in programming — join something open-source or make something. If you’re a writer, write and contribute to some sort of publication. Hell, you can even make some money while doing it by joining something like Fiverr.
3. Online courses: Udemy, Coursera, MasterClass, these have become all the rage in the past few years and for good reason. Cheap, accessible online, and usually with courses packed in an activity-centered way that’ll give hands on experience. Don’t forget your alma matter either, many of them will now have pushed many of their courses online — and if not, there’s always Harvard’s free and open courses.
4. Books, articles, blogs from industry thought leaders: Duh.

In addition, remember that there’s no need to focus only on what your profession is even if you don’t plan on a career change. One of the biggest factors in professional satisfaction and growth is actually the presence of soft skills, and that includes things like how we speak, physically carry ourselves, thinking about management, or even manage relationships in and out of work.

In my own experience, it is the things that I thought most evident and innate that I found the most interesting when reading or learning. It’s why the self-help (likely better renamed as self-development) section’s top seller has always been books like How to Win Friends & Influence People. Not just as a careerist, but now is the best time ever to grow as individuals as well.