India officially in "technical recession".Time to upskill?

By Souvik Nath

For the first time in its history,India has entered into an official "technical recession". But what exactly is a recession? Should you be worried about it? What should you do now? What does the future hold? In this post,I will try to make things as clear for you as possible and most importantly,in the simplest possible ways.

Technical recession,eh,what?

The RBI( Reserved Bank of India) issues a bulletin every month. In its latest monthly bulletin for the month of November,the Reserve Bank of India has dedicated a chapter on the “State of the economy”. The fundamental idea behind it is to give a brief overview of the state of Indian economy.As a part of it,they tried 'nowcasting' the economy. Basically,nowcasting is an effort to predict the state of economy in the near future. And it predicted that India’s economy will contract by 8.6% by the second quarter of the financial year. Any recessionary period that sustains long enough is called recession.Typically,a recession lasts for a few quarters. 

But what are you supposed to do?

With uncertainity lurking over us, the one thing you should do right now is UPSKILL! There will never be a better time to work on your skills, especially when it is the need of the hour. In an era of information,there is abundant available material free of cost.Yes you read that right,absolutely free of cost .I'm going to tell you in brief about what skills you can learn how you can learn those skills. Let's get started without much ado.

1.CONTENT WRITING

Time and again,you must have come across this phrase "CONTENT IS KING".Content indeed is the king,because although other factors are very vital for your online presence,content is why people seek you over others. So if you have a knack for writing,this is definitely your thing.

What exactly will you have to do?

Content writing is an umbrella terminology and it isn't as easy as it sounds.You'll have to learn article and blog writing,academic writing and research, copywriting, creative writing, editing and proofreading. But what really matters is relevance!Quality content won't have an impact until it is relevant.So know your skills, get insights on whom you're writing for and what works best.

How?

Get on freelancing sites like fiverr, freelancer or upwork. Start bidding on projects. A lot of you might be very inclined towards internships, which definitely aren't a bad place to get started, but remember this: "NEVER EVER SELL YOURSELF FOR LESS THAN WHAT YOU DESERVE"

For more insights on content writing,check out this amazing post.

2.MARKETING

This is the skill everyone is crazy about right now.Ask people around you about what skills they are learning,and most will say , digital marketing. Marketing is an experiment. Yes you read that right, you experiment of customer's behavioural  pattern and find out what works best.

What exactly will you have to do?

Digitial part of marketing is mostly about running ads on different social media platforms like youtube, facebook and instagram. But before that, try to understand what the biggies try to do. Go to your email, open the spam folder and check out the ads over there. See how they target, see if you'll do anything different or better.

How?

Learn skills like Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Google Analytics etc. and start bidding for projects.

3.WEB DEVELOPMENT

The site you are reading this blog post on ,is a website. Almost every business today needs internet presence and for that,they hire web developers. Being one of the most in-demand skills, a lot of people will tell you that the market is already saturated. Well, you haven't missed the bus.

What exactly will you have to do?

Make websites for clients that serves their purpose. If you are dedicated enough, it won't take you over 4 months to become a full-stack dveloper and start earning.

How?

Start with HTML,CSS  and Javascript. And then move to back-end, MERN stack being a good option. Keep building projects to make a great portfolio and start bidding!

4.DESIGN

Go to instagram or any website in that case, see what catches your attention even before you start reading the content. The graphics, isn't it? This is what exactly you need to do. Make beautiful designs for clients.

What exactly will you have to do?  

There are a lot of branches of designing. Some of them are User Interface(UI) and User Experience(UX), Web Design, illustrations, logos, animations, presentations, video production etc. Find you niche and stick to it.

How?

The easiest way to getting started is to learn photoshop or illustrator and understand the basics of designing. Make and strong portfolio and you're on!

5.APP DEVELOPMENT

App Development sounds like the coolest kid in the class. I am assuming most of the readers are reading this on their mobile phones. This is the age is mobile phones and there will never be a better time to learn app development .

What exactly will you have to do?  

As the name suggests you'll have to make applications for android, windows and ios devices.

How?

Get to udacity or any learning site that gives you course material for free and start learning the front-end part(APIs). App Dev will take a fairly good amount of time to learn and knowing java basics will help. Once you are done learning, you are ready to get going!

So make use of time and find your niche. Enjoy the process of learning and master one of these because the future will be one of skills and not one of certificates and degrees.

THANK YOU.