Opportunity in the In-Between: The Value of Upskilling for New Grads and Job Seekers
If I could describe the past eight months since the COVID-19 pandemic began, including the past three and half months I’ve spent in the job search process, in one word, it would be “learning”. Learning about myself. Learning how to adjust my expectations. Learning how to move forward and identify what is in my control and what I can do about it.
Another thing I’ve learned is the value of learning, itself.
Being able to take learning into your own hands and dive deep into whatever interests you, can be a fun experience. And as a recent grad and job seeker, it’s become an important part of my own job search strategy through upskilling.
It’s important for job seekers and new grads to upskill and self-learn anyway, and the situation for many amid the reality of the pandemic might actually provide more of an opportunity to take that on.
In light of this, this article aims to outline, for new grads and job seekers, the importance of upskilling, the type of skills to learn, and where/how you can learn them.
Why Recent Grads Need to Upskill
One of the main things I noticed during my co-op work terms was the gap between the work I was doing/the knowledge I needed to learn and what I was learning in school. Though I had anticipated a lot of learning entering into a professional environment, I found that bridging my studies and my role was a bit more difficult than I had thought.
This isn’t uncommon. According to Marc Zao-Sanders and Kelly Palmer, university programs struggle to keep up due to the rapidly changing workforce and the skill expectations that come with it. This leads to more and larger skills gaps and, consequently, the opportunity and necessity to upskill.
The concepts of “learnability” and ”learning agility” also provide a valuable incentive to upskill. Learnability means “being curious and having a hungry mind”, and always striving to learn new skills throughout your career. Closely related is learning agility: “the ability to unlearn and learn new things and apply what you know in rapidly changing contexts.” Cultivating learnability and growing in learning agility is a skill in itself and is often a key indicator of career potential.
Upskilling helps provide new grads and job seekers with the answer to university program skills gaps and the asset of learnability/learning agility. A two for one, upskilling helps to fill in a gap and push you ahead.
What Should You Learn?
When it comes to identifying what skills you should learn, I found it helpful to approach it two different ways: 1) translating existing skills and 2) learning totally new ones.
The first approach, translating skills, starts with taking an inventory of the skills you’ve laid the groundwork for through your undergrad/extracurriculars. This is similar to identifying transferable skills, however, I found that connecting my academic skills to my workplace responsibilities was not as simple as transferring them from one space to another — it required a more intentional translation of them into a whole new language.
Once you’ve identified these skills, do some research to investigate how they can be translated into a professional role. Learning how to take these existing skills and tweak them to meet the needs of a more value-driven audience is central to this first approach to upskilling.
For example, one of the skills that I identified as needing translating was writing. Where academic writing is typically long, blocky, and wordy, writing for marketing content needs to be simple and straightforward enough to provide value off the bat and keep audiences easily engaged.
The second approach, learning totally new skills, can be the more challenging of the two — but, as I see it, also the most exciting and fun.
This approach, like the first, begins with taking inventory of the skills needed for the type of role you are pursuing. This can be done through research — job postings, articles, and informational interviews.
In my experience, these skills are typically the more technical/business-specific skills. Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, marketing automation, web analytics, and coding languages are a few in my own context of marketing.
Additionally, it’s also beneficial to consider skilling up according to things that fascinate you. These could either be related to the roles you want or completely separate. Having a mix of both types of learning helps you to be well-rounded and can open up doors to more opportunities.
While the types of skills to learn depend on your desired role, I’ve listed a few below that have often come up in conversation and articles for entry-level marketing roles. Some are translatable skills, some are new skills.
Hard skills
- Data Analytics
→ Spreadsheet modelling
→ Reports, dashboards, and some specific analytics platforms/processes (Einstein Analytics, Tableau, SQL, etc.)
- Writing
→ Long-form writing
→ Copywriting
- Digital Marketing
→ Search engine optimization (SEO) & Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
→ Social Media
→ Email Marketing
Soft Skills
- Adaptability
- Problem Solving
- Critical Thinking
- Communication
- Teamwork/Collaboration
Where/How Should You Learn?
So where do you go to practically upskill? Erika Andersen, as featured in the Get Hired newsletter from LinkedIn, explains that you need to be a “good consumer” when it comes to finding courses, certifications, and other upskilling opportunities. With so many different options available, it’s best to check reviews, get recommendations from friends and colleagues, and pay attention to the source of the material.
Below I list some of the resources that I’ve found valuable in my continuing journey:
Free (+ Freemium) Resources:
LinkedIn Learning: If you’re a LinkedIn Premium member, you have access to LinkedIn Learning (and if you are still in school, you also likely have access through your university credentials). You can learn nearly anything on LinkedIn Learning! Specific tools and practices for marketing, coding languages, animation, and creative software — even music production.
Khan Academy: Khan Academy provides content for learning a wide range of subjects, from computing to economics to career skills and beyond. Personally, I’ve used Khan Academy to improve my SQL skills.
Salesforce’s Trailhead: Trailhead is Salesforce’s free learning platform and includes learning paths (called ‘trails’) and modules ranging from specific skills across the Salesforce platform to soft skills like public speaking, storytelling, and interview strategies. Trailhead is gamified too, so you can earn badges, accumulate points, and progress through the ranks.
Hubspot Academy: Hubspot Academy is Hubspot’s free learning platform and, like Trailhead, offers a variety of learning content from platform-specific courses to broader skills, like content marketing and writing.
YouTube: When in doubt, YouTube’s bound to have some helpful content for your upskilling journey. One-off videos, whole series, and channels. It’s a gold mine out in the open. Just remember to be a good consumer.
Read books:
A particular practice I’ve grown in during the pandemic is reading. Biographies, business-related books, health and fitness, philosophy — I eat it up. Though I’ve always loved to read and knew it was a valuable practice, CEO of Drift, David Cancel’s explanation of reading’s value made me consider it in a new light:
“Reading allows the synthesis to happen with your own thoughts and the ideas in the pages that you’re reading or listening to, and those things come together to help you form new ideas and help you clarify some of the thoughts that you may have in your head.”
So while reading can help you learn specific information about topics or skills (as I’ve traditionally approached it), it also has value in providing an opportunity to take new information and make connections between your existing knowledge more generally, encouraging new ideas and perspectives.
If you want to save a few bucks on books or access them more easily, I recommend checking out the Kindle app and Kindle versions of books from Amazon. If you don’t mind reading on your phone, tablet, or laptop, this is a great option. I’ve found incredible reads for as low as $2.
Another resource is the ebook/audiobook app, Libby. With Libby, you can connect to your local library to access all of the free online resources they have available. For books that I just want to check out but not commit to or would rather listen to, this is my go-to.
Learning from peers & connections:
Learning from peers and connections has also been a wildly valuable exercise when it comes to identifying upskilling resources and the types of skills to focus on in the first place.
Set up virtual coffees and informational interviews to get the perspectives of those in roles you are interested in. Check in with your peers to see what types of skills they’ve started learning themselves or to recommend skills to them that you’ve found helpful.
Your network is valuable and filled with useful perspectives and expertise.
Making the time:
Now, you might be saying to yourself — “I don’t have time to focus on upskilling and completing online courses and reading books, etc.” I can relate.
It becomes so easy to get overwhelmed in the midst of the job search process with being “productive” — and by “productive” (how I initially understood it when setting off on my job search) I mean submitting applications and getting interviews. Though both undeniably important, I’ve learned that a holistic, strategic approach to job searching and job search productivity requires taking a step back and defining what “productivity” means in the long run.
For me, I’ve found “productivity” to be a case of putting myself in a better/improved position in my career and wellbeing than I was before. Yes, getting a job is the end goal of the job search, but the practices you set out for yourself have so much potential to extend beyond your season of job searching and can benefit you exponentially.
I hope my perspective and recommendations were helpful to you as you consider approaching your own upskilling journey. To end, I want to leave you with a few encouragements that will hopefully get you motivated to start.
First, remember that “learnability” and “learning agility” are skills in themselves. Just taking the first step and approaching learning with a curious and optimistic attitude puts you on better footing in your professional and personal life, and can build up within you a growth mindset — believing that you can develop and improve yourself and then taking the initiative to do so.
Second, upskilling can be an empowering and motivating experience. Learning new skills and building on existing ones can help build confidence not only as a result of the additional skills you acquire but also from the very act of challenging yourself and achieving a goal.
And third, on top of learning new things, upskilling presents the opportunity to uncover hidden skills and areas of interest. For myself, I’ve uncovered a deeper interest in writing and a desire to cultivate that skill more and discover where I can apply it in different areas of my life.
Curiosity and learning don’t stop — so while the skills you are learning may change as your career progresses, one thing should stick with you through it all: a love and eagerness for learning.
So build on what you already know, identify what you want to learn, and have at it!
Would love to hear from you! Are there any learning resources or upskilling strategies that you’ve found valuable? Let me know!
Would love to connect on LinkedIn!
