These are unusual, even unprecedented times; with the coronavirus and COVID-19 ravaging the global population, entire nations are on government-mandated lockdown. Even if the place where you live hasn’t yet made it compulsory to stay at home for the foreseeable future, most companies and businesses — or at least the ones that are deemed “non-essential” — have either shut down entirely, reduced their employees to a skeleton staff, or made telecommuting the norm. There are a lot of people who are sitting on their couches these days, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for a new Tiger King episode to drop while they wait to resume their professional life.
If you’ve worked your way through your streaming-service queues, caught up on your favorite podcasts, and played all the video games you can stomach for a while, maybe it’s time to try something new — like boosting your skills and making yourself even more valuable as an employee. Whether you’re expecting to be called back to the front lines of your former position or you are casting about for a new opportunity, why not take this time to improve your marketability? Here are a few great ways to go about that.
- Retool and Fine-Tune Your Resume
How is your resume looking these days? If you’ve been at your current job for a while, it might be pretty stale by now. And there’s never been a better time to sit down and polish it up. Although it’s ideal to tailor your resume, CV, and/or cover letter to each position you apply for, it’s nevertheless a good idea to have a master of each that you can work from. Having an all-purpose resume can be useful to send out to recruiters who want to get a sense of your career, even if there’s no particular position involved.
- Build (or Update) Your Blog
Do you have an ancient blog, lying dusty and forgotten in the far corners of the WordPress basement? Why not dig it up, dust it off, and make it as good as new again? If you have never succumbed to the siren song of blogging, or if your old blog no longer reflects who you are professionally and what you do, start fresh.
There are oodles of DIY blogging instructions, tutorials, videos, tip lists, and other materials out there. In fact, the danger with developing your blog is not in finding enough guidance, it’s in sifting the wheat from the chaff and not falling too far down the rabbit hole.
- Teach Yourself a New Skill
There’s a good chance that you’ve uttered a sentiment along the lines of “Gee, I wish I knew how to do ________, but I really don’t have time to learn.” Well, now you have the time.
What do you want to learn? Do you want a skill that could actively help you in your career, like a new language, Photoshop, the fundamentals of English grammar, or how to network effectively? Or do you want to make yourself a more well-rounded person and blow off some steam by learning the art of origami, yoga for beginners, or how to make a killer thin-crust pizza entirely from scratch?? Either way, there are resources out there to teach you. Some are for pay; others are entirely free.
- Take a Course
Similarly, universities across the nation and the world are opening their hallowed halls and letting anyone enroll in the courses they offer, in a wide array of subjects.
Both Yale and Harvard are opening up enrollment to their respective “Happiness” classes. Why not take both and see how they stack up? Or maybe a class in literature, gender studies, film theory, linguistics, biology, or military history is more your speed?
You can audit classes at any of a number of accredited institutions of higher education, or for a nominal fee (ranging between $40 and $150 or thereabouts) receive a verified certificate of completion that you can use in your resume or LinkedIn profile. Take an interesting course just for fun, or make yourself more marketable during this downtime.
- Get Inspired By the Great Leaders
Who is your career hero? You know, that accomplished CEO or winning football coach whose quotes grace motivational posters? If you don’t have one, why not start your search? There is an absolute embarrassment of riches these days when it comes to inspirational and thought-provoking business and leadership books.
Some are straight-up how-tos, while others are memoirs that happen to include some very sage advice. If you’re not already sick of seeing your colleagues’ messy living rooms and listening to their yappy dogs bark all the way through your weekly conference, why not suggest a remote book club? This would be a super way to really learn the tenets you read about, by applying them directly to your own professional situation.
Or maybe you will be inspired by business’s great leaders to pursue leadership training of your own.
What Do You Want to Do or Learn?
Have you ever heard the expression “boredom is a luxury good”? If you find yourself getting restless or antsy during the lockdown, you have only yourself to blame. There is a wealth of information and entertainment out there, just waiting for you to log on and type in a URL. Get busy improving your skills, learning something new, dreaming of the heights you can achieve, or branching out into a creative venture!
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