Did COVID-19 change your career forever? Maybe you are one of the millions of people around the world who lost their job due to COVID-19. For others, the pandemic was the perfect wake up call to pivot and change careers. 

No matter your circumstances, if you’re looking for a job right now, you already know you’re not alone. 6.2% of Australians are jobless in the wake of COVID-19. 

However, whether time away from work is a good or a bad thing is ultimately up to you. Don’t give up, keep working on yourself, and continue fine-tuning how you can demonstrate your value to potential employers. 

Without further ado, Uplift Recruitment identifies the following skills as the most important for the job candidates of the future. If you find yourself lacking in a certain category, use your time away from work to up-skill using an online course in that subject. 

Adaptability

Have you noticed that our entire world changes daily with each government update? A couple of months ago, you flew home from overseas. Today, you can’t drive your car across the bridge. Tomorrow, who knows? In general, people with the ability and coping skills to adapt to rapid changes will perform better in turbulent times. Our job roles and responsibilities from three months ago may look nothing like they do today. In the future, the average worker will perform many different jobs and types of work over their career. Therefore, the ability to adapt and learn new skills as your career, work environment, or company changes is essential. 

Emotional Intelligence

As most workplace interactions now occur exclusively online via Zoom, messenger apps, and FaceTime, a person’s ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions, as well as the emotions of others, is extremely important to avoid costly miscommunication. Although many workers plan to return to the office in the coming months, experts say remote work will still be a large component of many jobs, with hybrid work schedules (2/3 days at home per week) becoming increasingly popular. Thus, hiring managers are looking for candidates who can demonstrate emotional intelligence both in real-time and online workplaces. 

Self-Motivation

Can you make your schedule and stick to it? Can you consistently produce and meet deadlines without someone looking over your shoulder? Remote workers must be able to self-manage and motivate. The time spent working from home over the past few months is a great way to test your mindset and ability to work autonomously, and improve your processes where needed. If you’ve been unemployed, have you been able to create and maintain a routine for exercise, healthy eating, working on your resume, and completing job applications? If not, start now. The proof is in the pudding.

Tech Skills 

Covid-19 has caused cutting edge tech like artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, mass data, virtual reality, and robotics to advance at a rapid pace. Companies have found these sweeping technological changes to safeguard against economic damage in the event of future pandemics. Further, AI has many medical uses including being essential in the race to find a vaccine for this virus and others in the future. Thus, skills and understanding related to new tech are in demand in nearly every type of business.

Problem Solving

When everything about life changes so rapidly, problems arise constantly across all industries. This is where a person’s critical thinking and problem-solving skills can make or break a business. Tomorrow’s candidates should be able to prove that they can think critically and find “outside the box” solutions to business problems. If you’ve been stumped by an interview question about thinking outside the box before, read this.

Data Literacy 

The aforementioned rapid improvements in technology will provide us with more information and data than ever. In particular, we will collect data about this pandemic and apply its teachings to future global events. You can even see big data at work during the Coronavirus crisis. Workers who can analyze large amounts of raw data to find trends and make decisions based on what they learn will be indispensable. Equip yourself with the skills to understand big data and you’ll be ahead of the curve.