Staying competitive as a Busy Professional. My 4 Learnings.
2020 has not been kind to anyone. It’s sh*tiness has not only affected people’s health but also their livelihoods.
The economy looks increasingly grim and friends all around me are finding themselves unemployed and looking for opportunities. As someone who has very recently gone through the job hunt process, I’d like to share some of the things I learned along the way for staying competitive within my industry — Tech. However, these learnings are applicable to any industry.
Step 1. Identify gaps in your knowledge which are relevant to your domain
The first question you should ask yourself is: what do I know and what things are still fuzzy? For example, I’m a machine learning engineer. My knowledge gaps tended to be: how do we put software products on the web? how do we scale these products? how are teams managed? how do we prioritize features when building products?
For someone pursuing a career in business, these gaps could be: what are the latest best practices for SEO? how do we optimize sales funnels in 2020? what are some new tools/techniques for growth?
Step 2. Identify high quality sources of information which can fill those gaps.
High quality sources are those produced by reliable and established individuals and organizations. Here are a couple of sources broken down by medium:
- Audio: Podion.co (great for marketing, product and soft skills), Podcasts (HBR Ideacast, The Knowledge Project, Listen Money Matters)
- Video: Udemy (for technical skills), EDX (for institutional courses), Coursera (for topics you want recognition for), Udacity (if you’re an ML geek like me).
- Reading: Medium articles, FirstRoundReview, A16z, Domain-specific Newsletters.
Vary learning mediums to keep yourself interested.
Audio is great when you’re doing something else like running or cooking. Video requires more dedication and reading is ideal before bed or early in the morning.
Step 3. Follow a curriculum. Do not hop from tutorial to tutorial.
Tutorial addiction is a thing. Always be mindful of the amount of new insights you get per lesson. The best thing to do while learning is to follow a curriculum. This ensures you cover all your bases and allows you to continuously build on what you’ve learnt. Plenty of the learning resources I’ve listed above display clear curriculums.
Step 4. Flash what you’ve learnt on social media and in networking events
While learning in of itself is a great achievement, we live in a world where personal brand unfortunately matters. The best way to keep that brand alive is to show off your learning achievements. Post insights from your recent findings. Rewriting or simplifying what you learnt as if you were “teaching” someone actually helps memorizing better! Share interesting articles you’ve read. There are ways of doing this without coming off as inauthentic (see example below)
Conclusion
In conclusion, always maintain your insatiable appetite for learning. It is absolutely key for keeping you competitive as a working professional in what has already become a ridiculous decade for work.
