The past two years will be remembered in history as the most challenging years for the entire world. Our generation has never heard and seen anything like this before. We all have shared the same experience, fear and challenges. We have heard stories that gave us chills. I don’t even have to tell what I am talking about. My question to you is, Are you prepared for the new order of the changing world?
Don’t be scared. All the recent study shows light on the concept of Digital work. It’s no longer a secret that working from home or remote work is the new normal. You may ask me what difference it makes to you as a student? It makes a huge difference; it opens up a vast door of opportunity and creates a challenge by you competing for a role across India or the world. It also means that you will have to develop a new set of skills. Think of it as how the internet was unknown in the year 2000, and students were new to the kind of new jobs it created.
Working Remotely changes a lot of things for you. You will have to perform at a different paradigm. I have written an article on my website titled “Making Indian Youth more employable”. I spoke about those skills in detail, and more than 1500 students viewed them. The main takeaway from the article was that the human skills that you need to learn to work in a remote company are a bit different. You can either learn it on the job or learn it while you are still in college. The choice of shaping your career is with you. You can always pace your learning curve and craft your skills at your speed. The only thing you have to do is learn it by doing and not by reading about it. Reading is good to gather information, but if you want results, you must do something about it.
You can gain these skills faster if your online community of like-minded people and a mentor is ready to invest time in your development. In today’s world, this is far easy to do. You only need a will to change along with the new world. You don’t have the choice because otherwise, you may miss opportunities. Let me tell you my story. I am doing skills at work which was not there during my college time. I am a social seller, podcaster, digital marketer, data science enthusiast etc. No one defined any of the job roles, and I had to navigate them while building my business, even if you are planning to take a job. Some skills will define your growth at your workplace, and you should start mastering them at a young age.
I cannot explain what you need to do to learn those skills. Your ability to navigate the internet to find the answer yourself will set you up for success. I have given a guest session to the student of our college about 10 Skills that you need to cultivate. Those are some of the human skills (soft skills) you may be aware of. The question is, “How are you going to apply it in the remote work environment?” My suggestion for you is to get some work that you can do as a project or one time guided work. The only condition is to do it work from home. The learning can be from finding such jobs, completing them on time, taking feedback from the mentors and sharing your experience with the rest of the world.
If you think you cannot do it while in college, talk about this idea with your friends. Tell them that Vikram Shetty of 73bit has shared this idea which doesn’t sound realistic. Do you own research by reaching out to business owners and startup founders on Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram? Ask for some work that they think you can do it? Be very specific about how you can bring value to them? I am not a fan of free labour, so you set up some fees for your work. Start with small and see if you can find a job and learn some skills while working.
Vikram Shetty 