FIND OUT THE HIGH-INCOME SKILLS YOU CAN IMPROVE TO ADVANCE YOUR CURRENT CAREER, PLUS SOME IN-DEMAND SKILLS TO CONSIDER FOR A CAREER CHANGE.
Regardless of where you are in your career, chances are that you want to continue to improve your earning potential. But how can you do that? An effective way to improve your potential earnings is to find out what employees want from a high-performance employee and then work to become that person.
High-income individuals come from various backgrounds and have many different roles. However, some of the traits of a high earner are universal and some professions pay more than others. These are some in-demand soft and hard skills:
HIGH-INCOME SOFT SKILLS THAT CAN BOOST YOUR CAREER
Skills are either job-specific or universally valuable. The former are called hard skills, while the latter are soft skills. While you can improve your earnings by getting better at what you currently do, working on your soft skills can open up many doors, both at your current workplace and somewhere else. Having strong soft skills can also be very helpful if you ever decide to change careers, as their interpersonal nature can help you effectively collaborate with a wide variety of people.
Some soft skills that can improve your earnings and workplace performance are:
Sales
Sales is also a job-specific skill, but sales skills are valuable even to people who don't directly sell goods or services for a living. You're selling your personality and job skills every day to your coworkers, supervisors, and customers, whether you realize it or not. You're also selling yourself when uploading a resume on a job website. Everyone wants to believe they're being objectively judged by others based on their skills and achievements. However, most people won't notice your qualities without a little nudge. You sometimes need to showcase them, and sales skills help you do that.
Project management
Just like sales, you don't only need strong project management skills if you're a project manager. Many high-income roles involve planning out complex projects, listing their tasks, assigning people to complete them, and tracking overall progress. Even setting up an office party requires project management skills. Successfully coordinating people, resources, and tasks is likely to help you ascend to a high-income position.
Communication
Unless you're an eccentric genius working from a tower somewhere, communicating well with others is essential to professional success in virtually every field. Communicating effectively and efficiently can boost your productivity and can also help your colleagues, as clearly expressing your feedback may help them improve their output. Some key elements of effective communication are:
- Talking:Verbally expressing your ideas clearly and concisely can improve your interaction with others.
- Writing: Not all communication is verbal and writing effective messages and emails can be vital for your success.
- Listening: Communication isn't only about expressing your thoughts and ideas. It's a two-way street that requires understanding and resonating with others.
- Non-verbal communication: Adapting your body language to the tone of each conversation can help improve your interactions.
- Emotional regulation: Everybody has to deal with emotions, sometimes under less-than-ideal circumstances. Being able to manage your emotions can help your career.
HIGH-INCOME HARD SKILLS TO LEARN FOR A CAREER CHANGE
While improving your soft skills can help you on your current career path, sometimes you need a radical change to dramatically improve your income. These are some hard skills that can lead to highly lucrative careers:
Digital marketing
Nowadays nearly all businesses need a strong online presence to keep up, regardless of the field they operate in. Digital marketing skills are generally a mix of traditional marketing skills and the ability to use them in an online setting. Knowing how to promote a brand's goods or services through emails, social media posts, blogs, and other forms of online mass communication can help lead to a lucrative career.
Coding
Every website and software application requires coding to build and update. This makes coding a highly desirable and high-income skill. It's also one that you can learn by yourself, with some dedication and practice. You can choose a specific coding language to learn, depending on your career plans, and practice until you're knowledgeable enough to try out for coding jobs. As more and more of our everyday activities transition to online settings, the demand for coders is likely to grow over the next few years, along with their income.
Copywriting
Writing isn't only an interesting way to make a living but can also be a highly paid profession. It's also one that you can do from virtually anywhere as long as you have a decent internet connection. Copywriting is a relatively easy career to get into, mainly because it doesn't require specific education or certifications. It does require the ability to write effectively, however, as well as the sales skills to understand the target customer and how to effectively approach them.
Whether you're looking to improve your earnings in your current profession or trying to start a new career, knowing the skills you can improve is usually a major step. Regardless of where you are in your career, improving your in-demand skills is likely to lead to professional and financial success.