Career skills you can learn at home to amp up your resume

Creating a marketable resume can seem like a daunting task when you don’t necessarily have the in-office skills and experience many job descriptions ask for. Whether you’re freshly out of school, been subject to budget cuts, or are looking to make a career change, these are four career skills you can learn at home to boost your resume power.

As a growing number of career opportunities are heading online, learning to code, even at a rudimentary level, can give you an edge during the hiring process. Coding is an extremely marketable skill to have on your resume in today’s economy and more than traditional programmer jobs, coding skills can be beneficial in creative fields like UX design, content marketing, and technical writing. Harvard University offers a free 12-week Introduction to Computer Science course that teaches the basics of web development, software engineering, and different coding languages, find it here.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is essentially the process of getting people to your website through organic (or unpaid) search engine results. Why do you need to know about SEO? Knowing how to maximize a website’s ranking (think the first page of Google) is extremely important in any business that depends on its internet presence. Those with or looking for careers in marketing, copywriting, web development, and business would benefit from having basic SEO skills on their resume.

Photoshop is one of those skills you think you’ll be able to do offhand if ever pressed but soon realize it’s far more difficult than you could have ever imagined. Photoshop isn’t just a relevant skill to have if you work in graphic design or are an inspiring blogger. Designers, web developers, and creative directors all regularly use Photoshop in their professions. And while Photoshop itself will cost you money, you can learn from a bevy of free websites on how to conquer it.

According to Statista, the average social media user spends 144 minutes on social media apps every single day, up from 90 minutes in 2012. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are some of our biggest time wasters, averaging close to an hour a day for both Zuckerberg-owned apps. Why should this matter to you (aside from our increased global likelihood of premature arthritis)? Having a successful social media strategy is one of the single most important factors behind growing a business and connecting with users in 2020.

Marketers are spending more on social media than on traditional advertising and according to projections, this is only set to continue. Social media marketing is a massively growing industry and according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “a 10% rate of job growth is expected for marketing managers from 2016 to 2026.” A resume skill worth looking into, wouldn’t you say?