What skills should you upgrade when COVID-19 spreads
This is a special period. Everyone is facing economic recession, salary deduction, even massive unemployment. As an IT people, we have to think about where the future is, and what we should do to prepare for it.
Industry structure is changing
A lot of industries are changing rapidly because of the pandemic. Especially some population-intensive businesses like some non-essential manufacturing, cinema, bar, and casino. People stay at home and what they need is only the necessities of life. So you can have a think about your industry you are serving and its value chain. How is it impacted by the virus? Is this impact short-term or long-term? I'm not encouraging you leave your company right now, but just think about it right now.
Currently, everybody knows only the essential industries are stable. Food, water, power and healthcare, they are necessary for our daily life. However they won't provide many opportunities to us IT practitioners. We have to focus something else. Everything is changing to remote, remote meeting, remote teaching, even remote gym. Meanwhile the online entertainment is booming. The VR and AI technology maybe attract capital again.
If you are interested in these industries, maybe you can start learn from now.
Scale your skills horizontally
If you live in a small country, like me, I suggest you should scale your IT skills horizontally.
Small country usually has more small-medium enterprises(SME), and SME needs employees can do everything. The most important thing to SME is surviving, so do we.
If you are a front-end developer, then study some back-end skills to become a full-stack developer. If you are an IT supporter, maybe you can consider to learn some coding skills.
The battle is not only about the pandemic, but also the economic recovering. We will win this battle, the question is when.