6 Recession-Proof Skills That You Can Develop While Being Quarantined
Only the best survive.
A recession is a business cycle period when there is a decreased economic activity due to the widespread decline in consumer spends. The Pandemic has forced most of the businesses apart from essential services to shut shops. 22 million Americans have filed for the unemployment benefits as of today.
It’s scary for people like us who have just started their careers and were looking forward to the initial years of no financial baggage.
The future is hazy unless we fight the deadlier health risk in the form of Coronavirus, completely.
For people like me who are quarantined in their homes with a decent laptop, good internet, and a few hours after the work schedule, it’s the best time to invest those remaining hours in building new skills.
I am currently cruising through HubSpot's content marketing course and Moz’s SEO Course.
Let’s take a look at the skills which are going to be in-demand during the recession and how can you obtain those.
Technology
Coding is something that demands immense patience, analytical ability, and tons of time to get around with. What could be a better time to learn a new programming language or become an ethical hacker than now?
- Python
As Python is the basis of most of the data science and machine learning efforts, this language demand is hopefully going nowhere in the near future.
Benefits of Python:
- It is easier to read and write Python as compared to the other programming languages.
- A skilled Python developer could earn anything between $70K to $150K annually.
- You can automate most of your daily tasks like ordering food, watching the financial markets, vacuum cleaning your house through Python.
Resources:
- This answer by Saurav Sharma on Quora takes you into the depths of Python.
- Here is the list of free courses to get you started right away.
- Download all the tools required to run programs in Python from Python.org
- Join the Kaggle community to get all your questions answered and seek help.
2. Cybersecurity
When most companies try to save themselves by cutting costs on tech infrastructure, it gives leeway to hackers. Businesses give preference to security application developers, network security engineers, and architects.
Benefits of learning Cybersecurity:
- It literally saves lives by determining business and personal cyber threats beforehand.
- It’s completely free of maths as opposed to the programming languages.
- You can choose to work in any industry that you prefer. The average salary of an entry-level cybersecurity analyst is $90,000.
Resources:
- Cybrary.it provides numerous free courses of Cybersecurity to get you started.
- Certified Ethical Hacker course equips you with the basics of hacking.
- Certified Information Security Manager by ISACA helps you with the management, program development, and overall skillsets required for risk management.
- This site has listed the top 5 cybersecurity jobs that paid over $200,000 annually in 2019.
Financial Services
The major economic downturn due to recession also brings mergers & acquisitions for small-medium sized businesses. If you are an M&A expert then it’s time to brush your skills.
Larry Stybel predicts, “People with experience in managing the process-corporate attorneys, investment bankers, and accountants will be in demand.”
3. Basic Finance
Managing money during the economic crisis is a life-saving skill that helps you make wiser financial decisions. 78% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck which can be reduced by at least 50% if we understand profit and loss vis-a-vis spending and saving.
Benefits of basic finance:
- Understanding basic finance not only helps you with career prospects but also in your day-to-day life.
- You will be able to quantify business goals by analyzing the metrics.
- Since the flow of money will slow in the economy, you can wiser decisions related to your stock investments.
Resources:
4. Accountancy and Auditing
Lots of effort in the coming times will be focused on reducing cost and an auditor's job is to ensure that by identifying inadequate resources.
Benefits of Auditing:
- Auditing helps improve as well as protect the businesses by preventing detecting and preventing fraud.
- One of the most critical tasks of an auditor is to assist the budget by mitigating the unnecessary expenses.
- It also helps with gaining significant respect in the market by proving your business as a trusted one through regular audits.
Resources:
- Get the detailed career path analysis through Investopedia.
- American Institute of Certified Public Accountants is the non-profit professional organization of certified public accountants (CPA) in the United States.
Education
Even if the economy shuts down people will send their kids to school or opt to learn online. The demand for feasible and online education will increase as people will run to advance skills in order to compete in the market.
5. Teaching
The employment of post-secondary teachers is projected to grow 13 percent in 2024, which is higher than the average for all occupations.
Benefits of Teaching:
Come on, I don’t need to tell you this.
Resources:
- Pick up a subject and start understanding it thoroughly and later explain the micro-concepts to a 5-year-old.
- Take up a diploma course in your country.
- You can also register yourself as a freelance tutor here.
Marketing
I am not talking about fancy marketing jobs here, the real deal will be people who can produce number-driven results.
Benefits of number-driven marketing:
- It keeps the revenue in check and aids the next steps in the sales cycle.
- A focused approach towards consumers which helps in reducing churn.
- Being ahead of the market in terms of demand and supply of the product.
Resources:
- Moz recently made its SEO course free for everyone. Understanding search engine is a great path to start with.
- Google is also providing its analytics course for free in light of the current situation.
I know that being inside a house for a long period of time is tedious and not something which we really want. Utilizing this time well is only something that we can do. You can also spend more time on the content that takes longer to consume like books that you wouldn’t have read earlier.
You can also read my book suggestions in the below article:
How are you occupying yourselves apart from work and house chores? Tell me on Twitter with #ProductiveEveryday.