Amidst the on-going global pandemic, what are we really supposed to do? The home-makers are working thrice as hard as before to keep the family’s hunger satiated. The bread earners are either working from home or taking a nice long rest. However, the real question is - what is the current generation doing? Well, we are students and our examinations never end. But right now we are in a situation where we don’t even know if we will have our exams this term or not. In this article, we are mentioning 13 ways to enhance your career potential in this pandemic situation.So, what do we do? Do we keep studying the same thing over and over again? Or, do we stop it now cause, “We have already prepared enough!” I say we do neither of them.What does it mean? It means that this pandemic and chaos is not going to last forever. When it gets over, we will have to take our examinations. And pressing brakes to studies is as good as studying for 1 whole year and still failing. We need to revise our lessons regularly. However, none of us really knows for how long we are stuck at home. And since we have a lot of time right now, we can divide our attention. Thus, along with regular studies, we can prepare ourselves for the life that awaits us after becoming qualified.

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How to enhance our career potential?

When we walk out of this fire, we need to be completely prepared for the aftermath. No one is going to prepare us. This is now our responsibility to polish ourselves to get our dream jobs. And this is how we do it:

Communication skills

The huge corporate world demands a strong command over a candidate’s communication skills. It is very important to brush up on our communication skills. One who has the ability to communicate is the one who can survive in this dynamic environment.

Organizational skills

A person who has organizational skills is always preferred over one who does not. What exactly do we mean by organizational skills? This includes arranging priority tasks and completing the work with neatness. Nobody wants a sloppy person to work for them. We are going to be qualified Chartered Accountants. We will have to work with a lot of files. It’d be a shame if we can’t even organize a file properly.

Management skills

Along with organization, it is important that we learn to manage. We can practice this by preparing a time table for studies and actually following it. When we assign time to a particular chapter, we manage time in a way that we complete our task in the given period of time. And when we complete our task in the predetermined period of time, we have mastered the art of management.

Getting familiar with Technology

We follow computerised accounting systems. And it is expected from us that we at least know the basics of using a computer. Once we feel confident enough with the basics, we can move on to learning Tally, Excel, etc. We can utilise this lockdown by enrolling ourselves in online courses that teach us everything related to the tools that help Chartered Accountants in their profession.

Networking

We often see people making accounts on platforms that help them connect with people from the same field. Why do people do that? People do that because we are social animals. We can’t live without human interactions. While in the ancient times, these social interactions were made in order to satiate our social emotions, today we socialise for our own benefits. We all make contacts so that we can help each other in the hour of need. Networking has become an integral part of the corporate world. In order to conduct business or practice profession, we need people. And we get to know people from other people.

Example

If Mr X is selling cookies, he will need people who consume cookies. When Mr X makes Mr Y taste the cookies, Mr Y will tell about the product to other people if he really likes them. Then other people would come and purchase cookies. Then they will tell their friends and the chain goes on until Mr X has established a strong customer base.

Researching ability

Researching does not just mean searching for a subject on Google. The scope of research goes far beyond that. It may include reading articles, magazines, books, even journals. It may even include interaction with people in order to get first hand and unbiased information. Thus, if the employer knows we are a good researcher, they can give us more exposure to the corporate world and we may learn a lot of new things.

Now, how can we practice this skill at home?

• Pick a topic. Pick literally any topic – something that you would be really interested in.
• Let’s say you choose vampires.
• Now search about everything you can find about vampires on the internet.
• Note down the important points.
• Now see if there are books on the same subject.
• If yes, download the pdf and read.
• Again, note down the important points.
• Read articles, news, newspapers, journals (all in electronic format).
• Place all the collected data in front of you.
• Write them down at one place in bullet points.
• Summarise them.

Analytical skills

Once again, the Chartered Accountants have to work with files a lot of time. They have to look at all the invoices and analyse what to do with them and what category to put them into. If we can analyse a given piece of information, it is going to be a piece of cake for us. For practising this skill, we can refer to any case law and try to analyse what happened in the case and what could be the possible solution for it. This way we prepare ourselves for the analytical skills.

Problem-solving skills

Quite similar to analytical skills, problem-solving skills require proper analysis. The main difference is that in the case of analytical skills we analyse a situation while in the case of problem-solving skills we find a solution to an issue. We can again, solve case laws for practising this.Staying up to dateIt can’t be said enough how important it is for a Chartered Accountant to stay updated. It would render us no good if we memorise old rates of taxes. We are bound to make mistake while filing returns if we don’t even know the latest provisions. In order to stay updated, read the news daily. We can read the news on the internet and even on applications specifically designed for news. Not just that, we can read them in any language we want. Along with reading news, we can keep an eye on the Institute’s website regularly. We can even follow people who post important news online. Survival of the fittest is the mantra. If we don’t keep ourselves updated, we are not going to survive for long in the corporate world.

Reading

Not a lot of people are interested in reading. However, reading helps us with the daily quota of knowledge that we all need. There are so many books related to business, profession, money-saving, money-making, start-ups, time management, anger management, investment, etc. Any of these books can help a student aspiring to become a Chartered Accountant.

Learning/memorising abilities

This skill varies from person to person. But we don’t need an expert level certificate in this field. Just a basic memory space that can roughly remember rates and provisions would do. We can keep flash notes or stick notes on walls to revise the information we want to imprint in our mind. We can use this even while studying. Writing and revising helps with learning. We can write rates and stick on the wall. We can even write formulas and stick on the wall. The only condition is – after sticking them on the wall we also read them. Otherwise, it just defeats the whole point. 

Writing

Many CA firms hire candidates who can write up letters or deeds. We can work on it by practising letter writing or even essay writing. It sounds childish but it really is a needed skill today.

Languages around the world

We can add up to our career potential by learning new languages. This increases our scope of working abroad. Plus, it shows that we are eager and willing to learn new things. If one desires to work in China, they can learn Chinese. Or like literally any other country in the world.The question is how do we learn a new language? We can take up online courses. If we don’t want to spend money, we can download apps and learn at least basics of the languages.

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These were a few of the many ways we can embrace to enhance our career potential. The point is learning does not stop with clearing CA Final. We are always a learner because learning is a never-ending process. The more we learn the more we make ourselves stand out in the crowd. Learning helps us with mental growth. It makes us different from all the other people. We might have started at the same point but there is no reason why we can’t end better than our peers. Let us utilise this time and increase our chances of being better than what we were yesterday. Our classmates are not our competitors. They are just our fellow mates. They are going through the same thing we are going through. Our real competition is with ourselves. Wake up every morning with the purpose of making ourselves better with every passing day.