Do you have lofty career aspirations? You’ll need to learn how to leverage your learnings. From obtaining university qualifications to upskilling with a specific diploma or certification, gaining the relevant qualifications can help you attain the career you desire.
But most important is learning how to make your educational pursuits work for you. It’s not simply a matter of just doing the studies, you also need to make the most of your accreditations.
Stay with us to learn more about leveraging your learning to get the career you want!
How to Leverage Learning: Upskilling, Reskilling and New Skilling To Get Yourself Further Professionally
When it comes to further learning, attaining a higher qualification can get you far. For a business grad, for example, taking it to the next level with a Master’s in Business Administration can help propel your professional trajectory to greater heights than previously imagined.
But in terms of upskilling, reskilling, or new skilling, what’s the difference? Let’s discuss.
Upskilling
Upskilling is the process of refreshing, enhancing and building on your existing knowledge and experience. As it enables professionals to develop and further deepen their level of expertise in their current field, it’s most beneficial when you want to go for a promotion or level up your career – usually within the same line of work as you are currently in.
Often, upskilling requires you to complete a higher level of qualification than one you’ve already obtained. Alternatively, it could just mean finally acquiring the piece of paper that formally legitimises the professional experience you’ve gained from years on the job. For instance, if you entered the industry as an unqualified entry-level assistant and are aspiring to make your way up the ranks of the corporate ladder, upskilling with a formal qualification can help you reach higher positions, including upper management.
Upskilling can also help solidify your existing skill set, and formalise your practical professional knowledge, to simply become better at your job.
Reskilling
Reskilling, on the other hand, enables professionals to diversify. As a skilled worker, reskilling can help you transition to a new profession, even if this means changing industries completely. It will usually require you to learn completely new skills or even to utilise your transferable skills in different ways.
It’s not just for people wanting a complete career change, however. Reskilling also enables employees to remain adaptable, flexible, and evolve with the times. With workplaces becoming increasingly dynamic – particularly with rapid advancements in technology constantly changing the way we operate – reskilling helps you to stay relevant and up-to-date with current and emerging initiatives.
New Skilling
Another less commonly known way to learn is a process referred to as new skilling. So, what is ‘new skilling’, exactly?
Essentially, this is a more proactive form of reskilling. It involves preemptively providing employees with access to new skills and knowledge, and predicting how these will need to change in the future.
Further to this, new skilling focuses on continuous learning and improvement. As such, it involves developing a culture of learning and curiosity. For new skilling to work, of course, employees have to want to learn. And just like reskilling, employees need to be adaptable and flexible, as well as open to change, for new skilling to be most effective.
Using Your Qualifications to Your Advantage: How to Make the Most of Your Education
It’s one thing to complete your qualification. Next, you have to make it work for you. You can do this in several ways. Some of the most effective include:
- Listing your formal qualifications prominently on your professional resume
- Ensuring you discuss your qualifications and what you have learned from them in job interviews
- Drawing from your learnings to inform your actions at work
- Sharing your knowledge with others to actively demonstrate your level of expertise (without bragging, of course!)
The most important thing to remember when it comes to leveraging your learnings is that attaining any form of education is an achievement. Be proud of your accomplishments – whether it’s the most basic diploma or certificate, or a Ph.D.
After all, what is the point of upskilling, reskilling or new skilling if you don’t make use of your new capabilities? Or, perhaps most importantly, get the career you want!
