Many of those students who are currently studying will place more focus on completing the coursework and preparing for exams. This is all what a student life revolves around. After these milestones are out of the way, they will undoubtedly spend more time at home means having ample free time. Hardly any of you would remember that 1970s show called as ‘Why not just switch off the TV and instead do something less boring?’ There were interesting and productive things to do in earlier times in long summer and winter breaks and it was majorly found in the day’s prior to the excess usage of computer, smart phones, box sets and binge watching, but the idea still holds true. At this time of pandemic, what else can be done to make the most of time we are at home while staying safe?
Well, explore various ways where you can build and expand your skill set, build online profile, reflect on what you are looking for in career, build new connections with alumni, and practice essential interview skills all from your comfort zone; home. Look at the few advices to get started with and make the most of yourself in this hard time.
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Use online career exploration tools
Prior choosing a career, get clear about the passion and interest you hold for it. Make a deep think about what’s important to you, and does your skills and personal strength align with where you choose to walk on.
It calls for taking out time to reflect oneself. Wide-ranging online tools such as self-assessment (highlighting person personality type, values, strengths and skills) allows you to explore what sectors and roles are best for you to fit in.
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Develop online alumni network
Making a career path research on LinkedIn and connecting with an alumni network from university academic department are generally useful manner to develop knowledge about industry and job market, also know the possible career paths from the field you are in. Usually you constantly tend to build connections through online networking, but why not interact with the alumni who are currently working as where your interest lies? Find a medium the person is convenient to discuss about their work through. And for any reason, if you never had a big social circle or never got to know any alumni, simply look for the search facility on LinkedIn and connect with alumni using the platform.
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Augment knowledge and skill set through online learning
Generally every person holds some skills, not necessarily it means that it is in a direction where it is required. After self-assessment, consider the skills and areas where you lack. It can be developed and improved through online courses which allow learning new skill set and polishing the existing ones. Today, there are plenty of online learning sources such as online coding courses, LinkedIn Learning and MOOCs. Few to mention here, in order to let you start are Google Digital Garage and OpenLearn with the Open University which covers courses such as digital marketing, data and tech. These are available online and free which has created its demand as to try and learn new things without any fear of risk. In this contemporary world, coding and languages have also lend themselves to online platforms. Apps like Duolingo can be tried out. The other free online coding courses are coursera and codecademy.
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses/full-catalogue
https://learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalgarage
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/
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Get up-to-date LinkedIn profile
Many of the students, employers and employees all are familiar with LinkedIn and hold an online profile. Do you think that LinkedIn is working for you the way it should? How to check? How many times you are searched in a week? Well, check what information your profile lacks. There is useful information for students on LinkedIn to create effective headlines and summaries. It is the best time to revisit and update yours. If you have no idea about how to do all this, contact career consultant at Edvise Hub to make it easy for you. They don’t make it all to themselves, in fact allows you to learn how and when it should be done so that later you can make things work on own.
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Become an online influencer
Today, there are number of ways and platforms to share the content online and become an ‘influencer’ from YouTube to Instagram. Going broadly though, isn’t it a good idea to share hot topics and articles that are trending, also the audience who are interested in similar areas. LinkedIn provides a great opportunity to do this and it is meaningful to be active by sharing and commenting on posts. This wouldn’t just keep you updated, but also let you engage in meaningful professional conversations. Here, you’ll also activate LinkedIn algorithms and appear easily in search results. Make sure that your LinkedIn profile is updated.
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Keep one self and the social mediaup-to-date
Make effective use of social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and other job hiring groups on Facebook. Follow organizations and employers you’re interested in for up-to-date information about job openings, volunteer work, deadlines and schemes. Make sure that you’re ready to act when the time comes.
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Utilize the time by practicing using online career tools
Whether you tend to practice a case interview or experience a video interview, and to improve your psychometric testing ability, there’s an online tool to help! Today, employers are using video interviewing platforms the most. In the spare time, one can make full use of this medium to practice virtual interview, record and then review to check where the person lack behind giving a good performance .
