Jobhop Jobhop's blog : Make Brushing Up Your Digital Skills Your New Years Resolution
Have you thought about the New Year? Are your digital skills up to standard?
It’s the digital age and businesses need digital skills more than ever before; it’s up to you to keep up to speed, if you don’t you’ll miss out on the good jobs.
It’s not just jobs in digital marketing or website development you’ll miss out on, these days digital is a crucial part of most businesses. Retail, engineering, pharmaceutical, farming, education, distribution, security, sports, media, name an industry... it’s more than likely you will name an industry where digital skills are required.
Back in October Go.on released data that said 12 million+ people in the UK lack basic digital skills, that is unacceptable. Basic digital skills are considered to be communicating online, managing information online, creating basic content like a status update on Facebook or doing some research like checking hotels out on Trip Advisor. For you to be reading this blog post, you’re reading it on Jobhop.co.uk or you’ve followed a shared link from a social media site, which tells me you’ve got the basic digital skills that over 12 million people in the UK are lacking. That's good news for you because it means you’ve already got a competitive advantage, what you must do now is brush up on your digital skills to propel yourself ahead of the others.
Type of jobs where digital skills are required:
Omni specialist
Mobile App developer
Distribution specialist
Games designer
Programmer
Data analyst
Digital editor
Videographer
Multimedia production assistant
Digital architect
Data scientists
User experience adviser
Audio visual engineers
Waste data handler
Retail experience advisor
Online advertising specialist
The above are just a small sample of actual digital jobs but remember even a job that is classed as non-digital will require digital skills these days as employers expect their employees to be flexible. For example, a hairdresser may be there to cut hair but the employer might also require photos’s of great haircuts to go onto Instagram. They may be required to post to Facebook if there’s a late cancellation to fill, video a colleague creating a classic prom bun and upload it to Youtube, or research the best hotel to stay in at the next Hair Convention, these are just some digital skills wanted by employers.
So where do you start if you want to brush up on your digital skills for 2016?
Completely free is The Digital Garage run by Google it’s their initiative to get Britain to learn digital skills. It’s an online training hub, you can learn at your own pace and it covers most digital subjects such as SEO, analytics, social media, email and advertising.
W3schools This is a site where you can learn web development languages such as Javascript, HTML, PHP, CSS and others. Its focus is on straightforward, effortless learning with great tutorials to follow.
Alison.com This site specialises in workplace skills. Alison.com is a great online learning hub where digital skills training can be found. Over 750, free courses can be accessed and no course has a time limit so you’ll never feel pressurised to work to a deadline.
Udemy is a platform where you can get a course on near enough anything; digital courses are plentiful. Most courses are free or at a small cost, some courses even have a certificate on completion.
Youtube Whenever you need to learn how to do something you’ll probably find someone has created a “how to” video on Youtube. Some of the greatest social media tips I know have been found on Youtube.
The above are just a few sites where you can brush up on your digital skills and obtain new ones, so what’s your New Year’s resolution?
JOIN Jobhop and spread the word.
Julie Bishop Jobhop
In:
- Digital