The tuition fee of higher education seems to get higher not lower, since not all people born in rich family, many of people in our society can not afford higher education in university. most of old fashion parents still have this mindset that if their kids don’t go to university and get degree, they can’t get a good job.
Nowadays in this modern world and especially in today’s digital age we are living in, there are some alternative ways to get well paying jobs, in fact those other well-paying and fulfilling jobs are available and its skills can be learnt without gong to university and these jobs are meant for those willing to learn on their own.
Let’s take a look at some marketable skills below :
DESIGN RELATED SKILLS ( UI & UX design )
Design is a rather broad term, even graphic design is still vague term. When someone says “I’m a designer,” it is not immediately clear what they actually do day to day. There are a number of different responsibilities encompassed by the umbrella term designer.
Design-related roles exist in a range of areas from industrial design (cars, furniture) to print (magazines, other publications) to tech (websites, mobile apps). With the relatively recent influx of tech companies focused on creating interfaces for screens, many new design roles have emerged.
UI & UX DESIGNER
Job titles like UX or UI designer are confusing to the uninitiated and unfamiliar even to designers who come from other industries.
Let’s attempt to distill what each of these titles really mean within the context of the tech industry.
UX DESIGNER (USER EXPERIENCE DESIGNER )
UX designers are primarily concerned with how the product feels. A given design problem has no single right answer. UX designers explore many different approaches to solving a specific user problem. The broad responsibility of a UX designer is to ensure that the product logically flows from one step to the next. One way that a UX designer might do this is by conducting in-person user tests to observe one’s behavior. By identifying verbal and non-verbal stumbling blocks, they refine and iterate to create the “best” user experience. An example project is creating a delightful on boarding flow for a new user.
“Define interaction models, user task flows, and UI specifications. Communicate scenarios, end-to-end experiences, interaction models, and screen designs to stakeholders. Work with our creative director and visual designers to incorporate the visual identity of Twitter into features. Develop and maintain design wireframes, mockups, and specifications as needed.”
UI DESIGNER (USER INTERFACE DESIGNER)
Unlike UX designers who are concerned with the overall feel of the product, user interface designers are particular about how the product is laid out. They are in charge of designing each screen or page with which a user interacts and ensuring that the UI visually communicates the path that a UX designer has laid out. For example, a UI designer creating an analytics dashboard might front load the most important content at the top, or decide whether a slider or a control knob makes the most intuitive sense to adjust a graph. UI designers are also typically responsible for creating a cohesive style guide and ensuring that a consistent design language is applied across the product. Maintaining consistency in visual elements and defining behavior such as how to display error or warning states fall under the purview of a UI designer.
“Concept and implement the visual language of Airbnb.com. Create and advance site-wide style guides.”
UI & UX Designer help programmers to create stunning looking design which can please the users so that the software / app can attract more users and keep them using the app.
Do you guys know how Google makes most of its money ? have you thought about how they make their money ?
Google Adwords is one of their revenue streams, on 2012 alone Google has made 120 Million dollars per day through ads, where’s the money coming from ? it’s from from the companies that pay Google to show their advertising to the right audience.
Ad operation and Optimization Manager is the job title for this kind of person who manages and optimizes all the ads running.
these are the following general Job description for Ad operation and optimization manager :
- They need to make sure that the ads will be displayed to the right audience or to the most potential audience for the companies that pay Google Adwords for advertising.
- Maximize revenue from ad inventory across mobile and social apps. Perform
- Perform quantitative and qualitative analysis of key performance metrics and report findings
- Expanding ad revenue opportunities
- Keyword finding and analytic research
The list goes on as Online advertising is quite complex job and it keeps expanding as platform like Google Adwords keeps advancing their features.
The ad optimization specialist is to make sure that the ads will run using the right keywords and target the right audience.
If you want to take an online course related to Google Adwords, you can check this recommended course
WordPress is nowadays a dominant CMS platform to make website. this skill is rarely taught at college except you learn on your own. WordPress is the most used CMS platform to make Website.
There are 2 types of WordPress, if you wanna know the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org you can click here
after mastering WordPress skill you can work for web design & development agency or you can work as self-employed like being a freelancer or consultant.
however, if you learn HTML, CSS and PHP that would be huge advantage to master WordPress skill and you can customize its core code into advanced level.
If you want to take an online course about WordPress, I recommend you to take this course
Social Media is now widely used for businesses as it has huge audience to target, especially Facebook and Instagram, it’s not limited to only those 2 platforms, other social media channels also have niche audience like Linkedin and has big number of users. Most of well known social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest have their own advertising platform for specific audience.
This position is full time salaried with benefits. Specific titles and/or duties for this position may also include:
- Digital Marketing Manager
- Content Marketing Manager
- Customer Experience Manager
- Community Manager
Technical skills you should have for social media marketing :
- understand the different types of ads model or platform for each channel
- know deeply about how to make clear report and analytics
- understand how to target specific and niche audience
Popular Social Media Marketing Channels That You Should Learn :
after all, it takes time to master different types of advertising platform for each channel, at least pick the best 2 for example Facebook and Instagram which are the most used social media channels in the world.
CONCLUSION
Never stop learning new things and limiting yourself just because you can’t afford to pay college degree, there will always alternative ways out there especially nowadays since we live int he modern and more digitalized age where there are so many much cheaper or even free online course that you can take and learn from. I will make some list of online courses in the future when I have spare time to write more topics on my blog.
until then see you in the next post 🙂