By the time you enter college, the one thing that goes on your mind is: “What next?” you start thinking about what you should do next to secure your life.
In most cases, you’ll notice your parents advising you to prepare for a job. Indeed, they want you to have a protected future. But what they are not aware of is the current job market trends.
Today, if you have to acquire a prestigious position in a job, you have to possess a few skills. When it comes to learning skills, the earlier you start, the better you learn and the earlier you get opportunities.
So, in this blog, we have come up with a comprehensive list of the top 5 skills that every student should learn before completing graduation.
Now, you may wonder why is it important to learn these skills so early. Well, the market and economy are constantly changing. The faster you can adapt to it, the better position you can enjoy.
Besides talking about the top 5 skills, you’ll also learn some soft skills that every student must possess.
Are you ready to know more about the skills you should hone before stepping out of the college gates? Let’s begin.
Why should you focus on skills?
A few years back, companies used to recruit employees based on their degrees. Back then, the only thing that mattered was how educated you were.
What’s the current scenario?
Well, today, the overall market has evolved. Whether you want to secure or job or go ahead with a startup, the kind of skills you have stands more important than your educational degrees.
Think of several businesses these days. Almost all of them have an online presence. How do you create this? It involves website creation skills, search engine optimization skills, digital marketing skills, and content management skills.
Although all of these skills are at the core of creating an online platform, the major and the basic one here without which all else fails is computer knowledge.
When it comes to developing and acquiring skills, you can divide them into hard skills and soft skills. The hard skills are those that help you perform the job or the task better. These are the technical aspects required in a job for better functioning as an employee.
On the other hand, soft skills are your traits and habits that help you work better in an organization. While hard skills help you to be more attentive towards the technical aspect of a job, soft skills are necessary to suit yourself to the working environment.
Some of the hard skills include database management, SEO, SEM marketing, digital marketing, mobile development, website creation, etc. Effective communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, open-mindedness, empathy, etc. are all examples of soft skills.
Top 5 skills for students to learn before graduating
As mentioned, skills these days are getting more important than degrees, here are the top 5 skills every student must learn before getting their graduation certificates.
- Computer knowledge
Today, everything is done with a single click. Not knowing how to operate a computer is sure to fall heavy on you. Every business you come across today operates everything via computer.
Gone are the days when things were done manually. Gradually, people realized the manual entry of data leads to various mistakes. Besides, it takes a lot of time as well. That is why businesses these days shifted to using computers.
So, learning the various intricacies of using a computer is a must today. Here, is a pro tip for you. make sure to never miss out on learning Microsoft Excel. Some companies prefer hiring people with in-depth knowledge of Microsoft Excel.
- MS Office
Microsoft Office is a cloud-based platform offering several apps to improve your business productivity. These days, it is one of the most widely used tools that helps businesses keep track of their work.
If you are a beginner, start with learning the basics and then proceed to the advanced courses. To prove statistically, 1.2 billion people are using MS Office daily. This stands for almost 20% of the population of the whole world.
Even if you are planning to develop a startup or have a business plan of your own, learning MS Office will be beneficial in both cases.
- Email Writing
Emails facilitate communication between a company and its employees, partners, and clients. It is essential that your emails are crafted to be both proficient and concise while still conveying necessary information effectively.
This ensures that recipients can easily comprehend your message, thereby promoting effective business communication. Conversely, poorly written emails can create misunderstandings and hinder business relationships.
When it comes to learning email Writing, it includes learning to write attractive subject lines, body, and conclusion. Email Writing generally involves learning both writing professional emails and newsletters.
- Coding
Another effective skill that college students should get into as early as possible is coding. Currently, it’s ruling the world. Whatever software you see or apps you use are all based on coding. So, learning code is surely going to be highly profitable now.
If you want to make a career as a software engineer, coding is the primary skill you should learn. Right from small startups to big software enterprises, everyone today is on the lookout for efficient coders.
Besides, adding the skill of coding to your resume can make it stand out. You understand the technical aspect much better than those who lack the knowledge of coding. Further, you can establish yourself as a freelancer as well.
- Public speaking
Whether you want to be a business professional or a service professional, learning the art of public speaking will help you in every field.
It teaches you how you should talk in the professional world. You get to learn formality and certain professional terms to communicate better. Public speaking helps you to convey your ideas better to others.
You learn how to persuade others effectively and change their mind. If you have to be an effective leader, learning the art of speaking to persuade people will help you in the long run.
What soft skills should college students learn?
Along with the hard skills mentioned above, you need some soft skills as well to rule the market. These are the essential soft skills that can help college students.
- Effective communication
The art of business and professionalism lies in how you speak. It is important to speak with clarity so that people understand your views and thoughts. You cannot master the art of communication in a day. Instead, start working on your communication skills right from your college days.
- Time management
Time management is something that most people suck in. If you don’t know how to manage your time, you’ll fail to maintain a work-life balance. The skill of time management matters most, especially when you are a business professional. Here, you have to maintain your work as well as several other things, mainly in the initial days of your business.
- Critical thinking
Once you develop the skill of critical thinking, you learn to look into essential matters from a different angle. In short, you start adding more perspectives into a simple thought. You learn to solve problems creatively. In the curriculum of critical thinking, you’ll generally have logic, reasoning, argumentation, and more.
- Teamwork and collaboration
When you enter into the professional world, you need to work with various people as a team. Be it a professional service or entrepreneurship, your job will be to ensure that the work is done with the effective collaboration of your team members. So, learning how to function in a team without getting into heated arguments can help you.
Conclusion
Therefore, if you are a college student now, we suggest you start learning these skills from now on for effective results.
Wondering where to learn? DigitalGlad Academy is here to help you. It is a comprehensive Ed-Tech platform where you get access to courses on several skills. What makes them different is the doubt-clearing classes they offer. DigitalGlad believes in helping students build successful careers with the at-home learning approach.
