Have you been temporarily laid off because of Covid-19? It is very easy to sit back and wait for this to all blow over but it’s also the perfect opportunity to develop your own personal brand! See a selection of our top recommendations below.
Learn a new language
Ok so I know I’m starting off strong with this one but when are you ever going to have this much personal time? This is a really easy way to progress professionally, giving you the scope to work abroad by bulking up that C.V, it can also be incredibly helpful whilst traveling.
There are plenty of online courses to choose from like Rosetta Stone and Duolingo, both charging roughly €5 a month. These are also very helpful if you are going on short walks to listen to foreign podcasts and e-books to broaden your understanding.
Coding
Sticking with the language theme, coding is another amazing skill to have… and its id definitely a language in its own right.
There are endless jobs with now require a small bit of coding knowledge in the design world but anyone who has their own blog can benefit greatly by being able to design your own webpage. Both Envato and Skillshare have plenty of content on this.
There are endless systems you could learn but starting off with HTML will set you up to be able to create a basic functioning webpage. It may not be too pretty, but you will have the basics down. From there you can move onto CSS PHP and Java Script.
You never know you might end up changing careers to become a computer programmer, web developer or IT whiz!
Digital Marketing
I think it’s very fitting in our current situation that anyone in a commercial or marketing career would look to up-skill their digital acumen. This is a great option for anyone who wouldn’t have had the college course available when they were doing a generic marketing degree or anyone who runs an online business, leveraging our very strange situation where most of our purchasing behaviour is now forced online if it wasn’t already.
There are a lot of free resources for this, with YouTube having an incredible number of insightful videos but if you wanted to get some tangible credentials you can avail of free certifications from the likes of Google, with their Digital Marketing online course. SEMRUSH and HubSpot also offer free certifications, with the job market falling apart this could be the perfect opportunity to develop your own personal abilities to stand out from the crowd when the economy starts to pick back up again.
Cooking
I may be writing this one just to force myself to get better myself, but I do believe it is an invaluable skill which has fallen by the wayside with the rise of takeaways and delivery services. This is the perfect opportunity to don your chef hat and dust off the oven mitts.
I think it’s safe to say we all watch plenty of cooking shows such as Hell’s Kitchen or Celebrity Bake-Off, so why not take a page out of their book and start today? You can try Gordon Ramsey’s own online course, The Gordon Ramsey Masterclass or if you wanted a free option there is always Udemy!