Monday, April 18, 2011

Think You Have Enough Career Skills? You Probably Don't

One of the things you will learn while progressing through today's job market is that the wider variety of career skills you have, the better chance you will have in getting work. This is particuarly true in the case of not for profit jobs, where you will often be required to wear multiple "hats."  So while you might think that what you studied in college gives you all the skills you need for the kind of work you want, it not always enough.

To help your career skills development in today's day and age, I would suggest one particular path: web development (and this is not just because this is the secondary path that I took).  There may be no skill that is more important to have today than some basic HTML knowledge.  Even if you aren't interested in getting into the nitty-gritty world of Javascript, you should at least consider taking some basic HTML courses.  Most local colleges offer these courses, so it shouldn't be hard for you to find one.  Like most of the business world, nonprofits are quickly taking advantage of all the things the Internet has to offer by expanding their websites, and jumping into the social media arena, so brushing up on your skills in web deveopment can do nothing but improve your chances of landing a non profit job.

If you have even just a basic knowledge of HTML, you will be even more attractive to not for profits.  Yes, it may not be what you studied in school for 4+ years, but you have to do everything you can these days to get a leg up in a compeitive job market.  Of course, this isn't the only career skill you can develop; I would recommend researching the kind of different skills that some of the top non profits are looking for, and consider taking continuing education courses in those subjects as well.

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