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4 Ways to Improve Your Career Prospects During the Pandemic

Whether you have found yourself out of work, furloughed for the foreseeable future, or working from home while uncertain about what’s going to happen with your job as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, you’re not alone. For many people, COVID-19 has turned their career in a direction that they were never expecting, both good and bad. Some people have been able to start profitable businesses during the pandemic, while for others, whether or not they will have a job at the end of it all is unknown. But with all this free time on your hands, you might be wondering if there’s anything that you can do to boost your knowledge and skills and improve your career prospects during the pandemic. Here are a few ideas.

Take an Online Course

Online courses have soared in popularity during the lockdown, with many people taking advantage of the free time that they have and putting it to use gaining a new skill or learning something new. If you’ve always wanted to try something but have never had the time to get around to it, now might be the perfect time to sign up for an online course, particularly with sites like Udemy offering some rather generous discounts throughout the pandemic.

Start an Online Degree

While the pandemic will hopefully be over by the time you have graduated, there’s no time like the present to consider enrolling in an online degree. The Open University has an excellent selection of courses that you can study from home, or you can check out UCAS for a list of universities that offer distance learning for the subjects you are interested in. To excel your learning further, one of these undergraduate tutors from Tavistock Tutors could help you make the most of your studies. Studying from home isn’t always easy, so having a tutor who knows what it’s like to complete an undergraduate course could make all the difference.

Online Networking

Networking events and conferences might be off the cards right now as social distancing measures are still in place, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t still reap the benefits of expanding your professional network. With online the only option for many professionals, LinkedIn is an excellent resource to use if you want to meet and chat with other likeminded professionals; be proactive at sending out requests and expanding your network and get involved with LinkedIn groups that are relevant to your career.

Practice

Practice makes perfect, so why not spend the extra time you have during the pandemic brushing up on the skills that you already have? If you work in an area like web design, graphic design, or marketing, for example, you can take on personal projects or even offer your services as a freelancer to give yourself a chance to keep your skills sharp and perhaps even learn new things. And if you’ve been furloughed or are out of work due to the pandemic, putting your skills to use as a freelancer can be a great way to bring in some extra cash.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused havoc for many people’s careers, but the good news is that there are plenty of things you can do during the lockdown to improve your future career prospects.

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