Feeling lost on what to improve your skills in? Find out about what are the hot areas that you should upskill at!

You have read about how to start your process in upskilling and why 2021 might be the best year to upskill, but you struggle to determine which areas that you want to improve yourself in.

Searching through Google returned you hundreds of recommendations that you feel overwhelmed with. Look no further, read about the 7 areas below on which areas you should focus on no matter what industry you are in.

Area #1: Finance/Investment

No matter which generation you belong to, finances and investment are areas of your life that you should always improve on no matter how knowledgeable you are.

You need upskilling in finance so that you can get a better grip on your budget, expenses and savings and ensure that you don’t make rash financial decisions. Investment knowledge is important to mitigate the effects of inflation and preserve the value of your current wealth.

Upskilling in finance and investment to, enables you to be more aware of new personal finance methods that people are using and new investment assets in the market.

For example, while exchange traded funds were introduced much earlier in the advanced markets in the 1990s, the first exchange traded fund, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI ETF was only introduced in Malaysia in 2009.

Knowledge about ETFs are still limited in Malaysia with many not realizing that you can actually diversify your investments by buying ETFs that tracks the overall market. You don’t have to actually buy many different individual stocks to diversify your holdings and incur high transaction cost.

Cryptocurrencies are also coming to the forefront as alternative investments, but you need to upskill yourself to determine which type of cryptocurrencies actually have real world applications and value.

Area #2: Programming

Much of the improvement in productivity today has been due to the renaissance in the programming field to automate processes and tasks and gather and analyze large amounts of data to improve business decisions and operations.

Of the top 10 biggest companies in the world, six of them are heavily related to the field of computer science and programming which includes the likes of Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, and Alibaba.

Whether you like it or not, many of the processes and tasks that you are currently engaged in have a high likelihood of being replaced by machines and artificial intelligence (AI). The objective of upskilling in programming is to learn how to live alongside programs and AIs, as the origination of ideas still fundamentally lies with you.

For people who are interested in learning from the very basics in a structured manner, it is advisable to learn programs such as C, Java, or Javascript. For anyone that wants to learn more practically for your work, you can take up programming courses on Excel (yes, even excel has a programming software called Microsoft Visual Basic), Python, or R.

Area #3: Communication and Negotiation

One of the things that the education system doesn’t emphasize enough is the skills of communication and negotiation. You will surely know about this when you stepped into your first job and your intelligence no longer dictates how well you will do, but rather how well you communicate with your colleagues and bosses.

Negotiation is also something that you need to pick up on when you are dealing with your clients, stakeholders, bosses, and other counterparties.

While basic communication and negotiation skills is sufficient in the beginning of your career, you will need to upskill more on them if you want to move up the corporate ladder.

This is because technical skillsets can only bring you so far in your career and to advance, you will need to be able to manage interactions with important stakeholders and other teams and departments. Win-win situations and compromises become more important to you in achieving collaborations with other people.

In this area, focus on taking courses that improves your listening and empathetic traits as the key to good communication and negotiation is that the other side feels reassured that you understand where they are coming from.

Area #4: Data and Business Analytics

Let’s face it, everyone needs to learn data and business analytics these days. While you can still get away by knowing minimal programming skills, analytics have become front and center to any businesses today.

Gone are the days where businesses make decisions based on gut feelings. Nowadays, everything needs to be backed up by data, as the difficulty of measuring data is getting lighter with advancements of measuring technologies brought upon by advances in computer science mainly.

The trend in the world today is how to make sense of the many data that are being gathered and that expertise lies in people who are experienced and knowledgeable in the field they are in.

Salesmen who normally depend on their experience and gut feeling, are increasingly making good use of data gathered on customers of their age, sex, lifestyle preferences, and many others to narrow down their customer base and implement effective sales and marketing strategies.

Having skills in data and business analytics will make you more versatile as every businesses nowadays utilize these skillsets in some form or another.

Area #5: Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is not to be confused with internet marketing, as digital marketing can take place through other platforms such as mobile devices, subway platforms, video games or smartphone applications.

The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the amount of time that people spend on electronic platforms, and hence digital marketing has been increasing in importance for businesses.

For any entrepreneurs or businesses, it is imperative that you upskill yourself in digital marketing to expand the reach of your products and services.

Recent advancement in the gig economy have also meant that anyone can now sell their products or offer their services to anyone. Digital marketing can make or break your business, as almost everyone is online and looking at advertisements.

Start now by upskilling in digital marketing for established platforms such as mobile applications and social media, or if you feel like taking higher risks in newer platforms, you can upskill on platforms such as TikTok that is now becoming the craze but have not establish a well-defined business model.

Area #6: Language Skills

You are probably multilingual considering that the Malaysian education system accommodates different kinds of languages. It is common to have learned at least two languages of Bahasa Melayu and English as all schools cover them.

However, in this increasingly globalized world, it is becoming more and more important to be fluent in more languages to smoothen discussions and build relationships with others.

While English is still the dominant lingua franca, Mandarin is fast becoming a language that is on par with English with the amount of Chinese businesses expanding in the world. If you are looking for a language to upskill in, Mandarin is probably the best language to start off with.

Another language that is worth considering is Spanish. Spanish is recognized as the official language in 20 countries and is also widely spoken in other countries such as the United States and Philippines.

Area #7: Psychology and Emotional/Mental Wellbeing

Upskilling on psychology and emotional/mental wellbeing is not usually on anyone’s recommendation list. However, it is here because this has increasingly became an invisible epidemic for everyone.

The stigma associated with mental health is still very much entrenched in the world and Malaysia, with many people still associating it with “being crazy” or “problematic”.

It is a topic that many shy away from, as nobody wants to tell another person that they are having emotional or mental problems for fear or being viewed as not normal.

However, attitudes towards mental health are increasingly being more accepting with more and more people seeking help with professionals. This article does encourage you to go seek help if you need it, but focuses more on the psychology and emotional wellbeing skills that you can adopt in maintaining a healthy mind.

You can try upskilling in emotional intelligences courses that are widely available online to properly understand your own emotions and thoughts. Recently, there have also been a boom in emotional wellness programs that focuses on understanding your thought processes, and teaching you techniques that help you to calm down and be in touch with your own self.

Conclusion

Upskilling is a never-ending process of improving yourself to adapt to this ever changing world. However, you need to be aware on the areas that will be more important in the coming days such as finance and investments, programming, communication and negotiation, data analytics, digital marketing, language, and psychology and mental wellbeing. Keep improving yourself, no matter how small, as this will strengthen yourself for the coming days.

 

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Let us know below in the comments what you are planning to upskill yourself in!