How to keep yourself up-to-date with the job market
The strategy of the three concerns
The Scenario
Recent layoffs have had a significant impact on the global job market. With many companies struggling to stay afloat during these uncertain times, job security has become a significant concern for workers in all industries. As a result, it is more important than ever to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and developments in your field, in order to remain competitive and marketable in a constantly evolving job market. By taking proactive steps to improve your skills and knowledge, you can better position yourself for success, even amid economic downturns and industry upheavals.
In addition, there is also the influx of newly graduated individuals entering the job market has also had an impact on senior workers. With more competition for available positions, it is even more crucial for experienced professionals to stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends and technologies. By continuing to learn and acquire new skills, senior workers can remain competitive and valuable to their organizations, even in the face of increased competition.
What YOU can do
If you take a closer look at both scenarios I have just described, at first it seems that they are all external factors, and we are all susceptible to them with our hands tied. Of course, they are all external factors that we cannot control, but if you had a bit of attention in both paragraphs, there is a common term that is in fact an internal factor that is completely in our control, which is staying up-to-date with the latest trends.
This is a topic that I was always worried about, even before finishing my graduation. Since then, I have already done many of those small courses that you can find on these online platforms, and also some in-person ones, and now, after a bit more than 15 years working, and being able to progress in my career just the way I wanted, I have been able set up a strategy for gathering knowledge and new skills that always keeps me covered with trends and market needs, regardless of external market factors.
The Strategy
After all those years, I have taken a look at my past course history and tried to remember the decision-making process I had at that time, that took me to take that course or learn that skill.
All this observation made me notice that at all times, I was always trying to cover one of those three major concerns in my career:
- I need to get better at something required in my current job
- I need to learn something to get to a position I want to be in the future
- I need to learn this topic because this is something required in the job market I am inserted into.
Let's break down a little bit of what each of these ones represents.
1. You in the present
This concern should cover your situation at your current job, or if unemployed, your current target area or market. Focusing on this topic will make you perform your current tasks better, and therefore should increase the perception from others around regarding your performance, and also reduce the eventual risk of being fired.
2. You for the future
This concern should focus on where you wanna be. Maybe you are aiming for a promotion or a new position, or even trying to do a career transition. This can be applied to short, medium, or long-term plans. It is up to you to decide what is best, based on your current situation at the moment.
Overall, this is really important for you to be prepared, when opportunities become to pop up in front of you.
3. Your market needs
This concern has the main objective of keeping you aligned with what surrounds the market in which you are inserted. At this point, you should be looking not only at the area in which you currently are, but also some skills or knowledge that are trending in your city, region, or even country. This can also be applied to the context in which your current company is involved, but not you directly, because it can also increase your chances to be internally reallocated to some projects or teams that are more closely related to the core business of your current company.
Where to focus first?
There is no right answer to it. The idea is that you should always try to find the balance between these three concerns. In the end, it will depend on your current situation.
But from analyzing my past decisions, there is also some tips I can give to you, to help guide you in your decisions:
- If you are unemployed, focus mainly on your present needs, and dedicate also a small percentage to your market needs.
- If you have just started a new job, project, or position, focus on your present needs, based on the skills required in this new environment you are in
- If you want to grow your company but don’t know where to go or to start, focus on market needs.
- If you like where you are, focus on your future, with a small percentage of market needs
- If you want, or just relocated to a completely new country, it is good to spend some percentage on market needs.
These are some tips I can give, but please, assess yourself, your current situation, and your goals. You should be able to identify what is best for you without huge effort if you use these three main concerns as guidance to organize your thoughts.
Hope I have helped =)
