6 Changing Skill Sets in the Internet Age
If you are a big fan of the internet and, let’s face it, who isn’t, you have probably learned new skills already. And we are not talking about the ability to make memes or the skill to take the best selfie.
We are talking about skills that have made you more employable. With the popularity of the internet comes the sheer numbers of people (read: consumers) that frequent it.
With that comes the attention of companies that are trying to sell their services and wares. And with that comes the need for companies to have internet literate people on their payroll.
Here are a few skills you might already have mastered.
#1 Communication
Being able to communicate like the very best. It’s all about listening, speaking, and writing. Like a conveyer belt, production type work is disappearing, the emphasis on service has become dominant. Employers want employees who can find out what customers need and be able to engage with them in meaningful ways.
This also means a degree of attuning to how newer forms of communication, such as email, Twitter, and direct messages, need to be handled in the right way.
There are courses that can help you find the nuances between the different forms of communication, including the dos and don’ts.
Some say that there will be a cyclical move again from indirect (online) communication back again to direct forms of communication such as phone calls. The widespread popularity and adaption of (chat) bots and services such as Google Duplex might point a different direction though.
#2 Programming Languages
Speaking of bots, being able to build one is another excellent skill to have. For pretty much every programming language, there are resources and courses online to follow. You can find bot building resource page that can help you get started. Some of the best programming languages to learn are JavaScript & Python. You can take Le Wagon Data science bootcamp to learn these languages.
JavaScript is an essential programming language to learn because it’s basically everywhere and in everything. What’s great about JavaScript is that it works on both the client and server-side.
This means you can use it to build offline apps, desktop apps, native apps, and even run it on IoT (Internet of Things) devices. Once you learn JavaScript, you will be able to take a sidestep to similar languages, such as Google Apps Script (GAS).
#3 Python
Python has always been a popular programming language to learn as it’s incredibly beginner-friendly. It isn’t verbose, and you’ll be able to build your coding skills quickly.
It’s also a great language to learn due to the ever-growing demand for it in the job market. What’s more, Python will be even more relevant to learn this year as it’s also the most popular language for machine learning, which is becoming increasingly important.
Python is an essential language to learn if you are into data science, which is another very in-demand skill nowadays. Knowing Python enables you to connect to most of the data sources the internet has to offer via APIs. This means that Big Data for you no longer will be just a concept, it will become part of your toolset.
#4 ETL
And with lots of data comes ETL. ETL stands for Extract Transform Load, which basically covers the process of getting data (from somewhere), making this data insightful, and loading this into a database.
ETL effectively describes the process in which you go from raw data to something you can use to make business decisions, for example. Some would call this the ETL-pipeline. A well-known (desktop) tool for this Alteryx. In some cases, the output will just be a database which is used for something else, other times it’s a performance dashboard.
The latter is a booming industry now. With the multitude of data available and the endless types of analysis we can do, it’s sometimes hard to see what really matters. This is where data visualization experts come in.
By presenting the data in a different format than a table, they can help professionals make better business decisions. In the online marketing world, Google Data Studio has become very popular. Other solutions, which are less grounded in online marketing, are Microsoft’s Power BI and Tableau.
#5 Online Marketing Skills
Online marketing itself has also become a highly sought-after skill. Companies that are using online marketing effectively find many benefits such as nearly unlimited reach at a very cost-effective impact on marketing budgets.
Online marketing covers a wide variety of channels, but the main ones are search engine marketing, display & video marketing, and social advertising. Search engine marketing has both premium (read: paid-for) and ‘free’ parts, respectively dubbed paid and organic. Both will require at least investment in time and most likely money as well.
There are whole extensions to the online marketing domain relating to websites and data capture. For example, conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a vast topic for e-commerce companies. This involves the tweaking of a website and/or cart-to-payment process to ensure people don’t leave or abandon the process until the sale is made.
Data capture mostly deals with ensuring that client relationship management (CRM) databases grow and the information in it (such as emails) can be used effectively to further one’s business. If you think that just getting ‘an email’ is enough, you’d be mistaken.
Email marketing deals with getting the right permissions, categorizing groups within the database, and sending the right message at the right time, sometimes even with sophisticated personalization.
#6 Social Media
The list would not be complete without mentioning one obvious, but hard to achieve skill set: social media influencer. Regardless if you are a fan or a non-believer, it’s hard to deny the massive following some of the top influencers have.
This could be YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram, the fact remains that a lot of people tune in to listen to what they have to say. It’s not surprising that companies have noticed this and are in different constructions and promotion deals with them.
This is on top of the ‘creator’ fees they normally get from the likes of Google. If someone would have said 10 years ago that a person could earn tens of thousands of dollars for a 30-minute home video, not once but repeatedly, you would have called that person crazy right? But here we are. Here’s to the internet!
