(Top 8 Skills That Will Pay You High In The Future)
Introduction
Nowadays you must have experienced that, while recruiting freshers or candidates, big tech companies like Apple, IBM, Google, etc, who are offering decent packages, are interested in your skills rather than degree certificates. The more relevant skills you have, the more decent your salary will be.
Even if you worked hard to score high throughout your academics, your scores will hardly be considered during the job interviews. Your packages are decided on the skills you got and not the ranks or marks you scored in academics.
Secondly, even if you got the job, your salary will grow only if you have relevant skills. These skills will not only help you get good jobs and salary hikes but also will successfully grow your startups or businesses.
So, having these relevant skills has become very important to grow in career, may it be a startup, business, or job.
Now, your mind must be flooded with lots of questions like
This article has answers to all the above questions.
Why are the companies now interested in your skills rather than your degree certificates or academic scores?
To answer this question, we first need to go to the past. It all started in 1991 when India was hit with the worst economical crisis resulting in the collapse of the economy. To get out of this situation, the Government of India developed a new model called LPG ( Liberalisation, Privatisation, and Globalisation). This model allowed foreign companies to set up their factories in India with fewer taxes and tariff duties.
Foreign companies were eagerly waiting for this to happen. As soon as this model was brought into action, a lot of them begin to set up their factories in India, but they didn’t had employees who would work in these new factories. So, they hired Indians and offered them decent salaries. Due to this, the demand for engineers increased in India. But, there were very few engineering institutes at that time. To fulfill this demand, new engineering institutes with curriculum relevant to those times were established. AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) easily gave grants and permissions to new engineering colleges which grew by 2 times between the years 1998-2000, and almost 8 times by 2019.
Education became business as time changed. Faculties in the institutes were not qualified for their position, labs didn't have the proper practical setups. Things were taught only theoretically. The curriculum was not updated regularly according to changing times and changing market situations. This resulted in a decrease in the quality of education. Engineers graduating from such institutes hardly had any practical knowledge.
On one hand, companies changed their systems according to market conditions and adopted the latest technologies and automation. But, on the other hand, these updates were not included in the curriculum. This resulted in engineers who had a degree but zero practical skills and knowledge.
The condition was the same for almost all other fields. The rate of unemployment started increasing as a result of this situation. This indirectly increased the rate of underemployment, which is almost 90% in India. This 90% of people are still unaware of this changing situation. The rest 10% of people who were aware of the market situations, learned these relevant highly paid skills from external institutions or other media or on their own and companies hired them with decent packages.
The Covid-19 pandemic made this situation worse. As the exam patterns were changed and made easier, it was possible to get a degree certificate without much effort. During this time, some batches were given the degree certificates even without the exams. Also, companies knew, how most of the students studied 1-2 days before exams just to get score high scores in academics and degree certificates.
If companies are investing in you, they expect that you will in return, help the company grow by 10x or more, using your knowledge and skills. In short, companies have nothing to do with your scores or your degree certificates, they need relevant skills to grow their company.
These are the few reasons, why companies are now interested in your skills rather than your degree certificates.
What is the need for degrees? Are degrees a waste of money and time?
You must be wondering, if your skills are important, then why waste 5-10 lakhs(minimum), 4-5 years to get a degree certificate? Instead, to get a decent job, you can learn skills from many other affordable sources available in the market.
Then, my dear friend, you are wrong. The decision to apply for a degree should completely depend on what career option you want to choose. Some career options compulsory need a degree. For eg, government jobs, civil services, specialization in specific fields, etc.
Also, in engineering and other technical fields, there are few universities and colleges that update their curriculums according to the changing situations. For eg. IIT. These institutions have adopted skill-based education systems. Companies prefer students from such institutes and offer them decent packages. Good basic education in your field is also important, which can be provided only by such institutes in a structured manner along with the latest updates.
So, I will not say that degree is a waste of time and money. Instead, Degree certificates from reputed colleges or universities that supports skill-based education and change their curriculum according to technological changes and recent market situation, will always matter more than degree certificates from any other universities that follow an outdated curriculum and do not support a skill-based education system.
Choosing the right college related to your field and getting degree certificates from such colleges, along with relevant skills will also be valued in the future for both jobs and businesses.
What are those relevant highly paid skills that will help you to get dream jobs and grow your businesses/startups?
No matter what field you are in, you must have the following highly paid skills. These will help you to boost your career.
Good communication skills will help you to understand and convey information or knowledge more effectively. With the help of communication skills, you can establish and maintain good relationships with anyone in your professional life or personal life. They include listening actively, presenting well, written and oral skills, respect, confidence, body language, etc.
People are more afraid of Public Speaking than of death. According to NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health), 75% of people have fear of public speaking. This skill has very high demand and hence is considered one of the highly paid skills. It can help you to form connections, influence others’ decisions, share your knowledge confidently with a large number of people, and motivate people.
Mastering this skill doesn’t mean that you have to do sales and marketing for a product or service. When you enter the corporate world after graduation, you are a product. This skill will help you to present yourself in the best possible way. And how well you market yourself will decide what your value(salary) is.
Also, sales and marketing help businesses generate revenue for their products or services. If there are no sales the economy will crash. And if there is no proper marketing strategy, sales will drop. As this skill is a crucial part of economic growth, which regulates the economy of the country and the finances of the company, it is considered one of the highly paid skills.
In today's digital world, content is the kingdom. Content creation is helpful in two ways, one for building your personal brand and influencing people, and two for creating marketing strategies for businesses(content marketing). Due to these reasons, content creation is considered one of the top highly paid skills.
If you are an expert in a particular field, you can create content related to the same, and share it with society to help other people. This will build your personal brand. Or, you can build marketing strategies using content creation, which will help the business to inform and educate people, build trust and loyalty, create brand awareness, make the right buying decisions, etc. This will directly or indirectly increase sales.
Coding is important because it is part of digital transformation. All the traditional businesses have already started their digital journey. Digitalization had experienced exponential growth in the past few years. So the demand for a good coder is very high in all the fields. But there are very few good coders out there, so this skill is considered one of the top highly paid skills today. Coding can also help in being creative, developing a problem-solving attitude, improving logical and critical thinking, etc.
Knowledge is power, so the more knowledge you have, the better you will be as a human being. In this rapidly changing world, you need to stay updated with knowledge of new technologies, history, ways of thinking of other successful people, and many other things. Universities will not teach you all this stuff. Also, Continuous Learning will help you in right decision-making to grow in your career. It will also make you confident, change your perspective from wrong to right and enhance your productivity.
Time is more important than money. If you lose all your money, you can earn it again. But once the time is gone it will never return. Time management will help you to prioritize your tasks, which will indirectly increase your productivity and quality of work. It will increase your focus to complete your goals, ultimately leading to less stress and anxiety.
8. Leadership
Leadership is also one of the crucial skills. Leaders help others and themselves to do the right things at right time. To build a successful business you need a team. And the team is managed by leaders who influence, motivate, and inspire their teams.
These were a few skills that will pay you high and could be learned along with degree certificates to get decent packages in top companies. Your value in the market will be decided on the number of the above mentioned skills you have. The more the number of skills, the higher will be your value in the market.
How and from where can you learn and master these highly paid skills with minimal cost?
Few institutes already include these skills in their curriculum, but if you didn't manage to get admission to those institutes, then following are some other options from where you can master these highly paid skills, along with a degree from a normal college.
Self-help or Technical Books.
Internet (free sources like youtube/ educational websites).
Digital free or paid courses.
Offline institutes.
Internships or Freelancing.
Conclusion
Having a degree from the right universities matters. A degree can give you basic knowledge about particular fields, but building the above highly paid skills side by side along with a degree is also very very important to grow in your career. Skills and degree certificates are two sides of the same coin. Skills will reflect your personality, values, goals, and mission. On the other hand, a degree may help you get an entry-level job. Skills will help you advance. Without the necessary skills, you won’t move into higher roles and responsibilities. In a constantly changing environment, along with a degree, having relevant skills is an essential part of being able to meet the challenges of everyday life.
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