Climbing the Career Ladder: 5 Tips For Gaining New Skills And Boosting Your Income

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What can you say about magicians? They are surprisingly honest about the world and life, and in the case of Amit Kalantri, he once gave a very shareable quote. “Schooling doesn’t assure employment…but skill does.”

It may be an uncomfortable truth to embrace now, before you go to school, and before you devote 20 years of your life to a company expecting to be awarded on merit alone. Success in business is about knowing the market and picking up the skills necessary to sell that product or service.

In this article, we’re going to discuss a few actionable tips for gaining these indispensable skills, and how it’s going to boost your income in the coming years.

1. Learn to anticipate the future and plan ahead.

While the future is unpredictable, we can always make educated guesses about the world we live in. It’s the same thing investors do, and there’s no reason why you can’t do it as well. Anticipating what might happen is the first step to preparing for uncertainty.

And it’s not just about survival, but also profit. By visualizing the future, based on your past experiences and knowledge in a chosen career field, you can start predicting tomorrow’s trends and find new ways to make an income that’s not quite common knowledge yet.

It’s all about using the resources at your disposal to fill a market need. If you know the market, you can start finding and storing commodities that you can sell later – even if it’s virtual.

2. Build a reputation of reliability.

If you don’t manage your own reputation, other people start to give you one. This can be a bad thing, if others don’t like you, or pick up on character flaws. Or, you can be proactive in building your own reputation.

Proving yourself as a reliable go-to worker is always a great way to endear yourself to a company, whether as a freelancer or an employee. Being reliable means you seldom say no. You don’t make excuses. You volunteer for assignments rather than wait for them to be given.

Your reputation grows, and soon everyone knows you’re reliable. Now they also realize you’re valuable to them because of it and they will give you greater responsibilities in time.

3. Learn better communication skills.

Communication means everything in a professional environment. Learning how to effectively communicate with a wide variety of personalities at work is also becoming an invaluable skill. As more people come on the job force, each one with their own quirks and eccentricities, knowing how to serve as a negotiator, mediator, and mentor is an important skill.

Part of effective communication is understanding emotion, general psychology, listening to other people and using their own words to further the discussion. Too many people only concentrate on their own needs and what they’re going to say.

Becoming flexible and adept in communications with others is the trait of a leader.

4. Go back to school – but for a purpose.

Most people associate going back to college with losing 4-5 years of their life. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can attend an online college and take a dream job course.

Don’t worry, you can always take a career break and it’s not that hard to come back.

Since you’re following your passions, you may find that finishing the work takes much less time than you thought – because when you’re excited about the subject matter, time goes much faster!

You can even get a simple student loan solution that’s not nearly as expensive as the traditional university student loan. Visit Sofi to learn more.

5. Have a strong social media presence.

Blogging, sharing tweets, making online connections – it’s not just about appearances. By utilizing social networks and making them part of your job, you can showcase your skills and publicize the value you bring to your industry.

Establish yourself as an authority figure and even a community leader. Employers will see first-hand what you do for them, while recruiters can also see your professional touch in action.