Skills to Help You Get Started

There can be a lot of reasons for wanting to start a brand new career, but how do you actually do that? How do you start fresh, especially if you’ve been in one field for a long time? Here are a few basic skills that will come in handy in most every profession.

Writing Skills

I’ve talked about this before (maybe because I’m a writer and it’s just what I do). As work is continuing to move further online, being able to communicate clearly will come as a huge advantage.

Not just writing, but conversational writing. No one is going to communicate over social media, or Slack, with a ten page proper essay like you learned in English class. It’s important to learn to use contractions, and expressions, to appropriately convey your thoughts.

Development Skills (HTML & CSS)

Development is a skill I don’t particularly have, but to a small degree I understand. And it depends on the type of job you’re looking for. In general, if you’re able to understand more about other people and their jobs, it will help your career.

Understanding web design and development can give you a frame of reference for what’s being talked about in some situations, and can give you a leg up if you want to change your career in the future.

Basic Design Skills

It’s tricky to think of design as “basic”. It’s very relative to whatever you’re designing. However, there are things like shapes and colors that will be handy to understand. Say you need to create an image using Canva, how do you make something readable? Which colors tend to be the most accessible?

This comes in handy with understanding the flow of eyes down an image, or a page. Usually when I create a page for something, I want some diversity in the text to make it more interesting. Lots of headlines, and large obvious things to make the page skim-able.

Quality Communication

This will most likely come up in any job you have, but it’s also an important aspect to enjoying your career. Being able to communicate effectively will make everything easier, and will likely make your career more enjoyable. But, you may be asking, “How do I communicate effectively?”

  • Try to be clear about things
  • Give people grace
  • Be willing to apologize, and take responsibility for your actions
  • Be friendly, and light hearted

These are just a few basics to get you started off with, but hopefully they come in handy. If there are any skills you’d like me to go over in the future, please let me know in the comments, or over on social media.

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