6 in-demand skills you can master in a few weeks

1. Layout and web design basics

Being able to work with digital illustrations and graphics is great. You can become a demigod in the web design market if you can breathe life into your art and create a product. In 2020, designers are competing not only on artistic style, but also on knowledge of web technologies. It is important to know how to layout sites and pages, how frontend differs from backend, what the syntax of HTML and CSS consists of.

Not only that, web designers should be familiar with interfaces and be able to create a user-friendly path for the site user. In other words, design a page on which you want to spend a lot of time and use the services. If you can become such a specialist, you will be of value to any brand or business. It takes only a month and a half to understand the basic layout rules.

2. Typography and text management

The coolest story and the coolest project can be spoiled by such a "trifle" as the wrong choice of font. If a reader's eyes hurt after looking at your text, they will want to just close the page right away. It doesn't matter if the article deserves a Pulitzer Prize. The same applies to materials where the hierarchy is poorly built, the semantic blocks are incorrectly located, or the rhythm is simply created uncomfortable for reading. The reader may not know exactly what infuriates him on the page, he simply does not want to look at it.

Knowing the laws of typography, you can choose harmonious pairs of fonts, build blocks of text that cling to for each other and hold the reader's attention, create consistent longreads, where each element is on its own location. Knowledge of text composition will be useful not only for those who deal with articles, but also for all advertising specialists. The effectiveness of campaigns often depends on how far along the page the client is moving, and it is the adherence to the principles of typography that helps to keep attention to the end.

3. Create and launch podcasts

You can promote and monetize not only your blog, but also a podcast. This personal, confidential, and unobtrusive format for interacting with audiences is gaining popularity. And if you need to think through the concept and figure out on which platform it will shoot for blogging, in creating a podcast you still need to figure out the technical details. Namely: how to record and edit programs, how to make your own jingle, how to choose a cover.

You will gain practical knowledge of exactly how to package your idea into a podcast, how to record the first episode and what to do in order to be able to make money on it in the future. Becoming your own screenwriter and producer is quite real. What is there, and a sound engineer too. After all, for your podcasts to be of good quality, you need to learn how to work with sound and its purity.

4. Working with data in Excel

There are many areas of activity where promotion is possible only through Excel. It's a cool and versatile tool that makes working with data and numbers a lot easier. You can manually perform the same calculations a million times, or you can tweak a formula once and just substitute values. Clear and professional spreadsheets can help you clean up data, make representative graphs and charts, and deliver more compelling reports.

Plus, a good Excel course will give you new tools for work or business. For example, you will be able to analyze sales and advertising performance faster and more accurately, control costs or KPIs, assess traffic dynamics or other metrics. Yes, all these features and financial models are in standard Excel. But to use them, you need to dive well into the topic.

5. Creation of special projects

Smart digital storytelling can help draw attention to your agenda. This tool comes in handy in all areas: from organizing events to advertising campaigns and education. But in order to really control the attention of readers, you need to know how to create a visual concept that will catch a million eyes.

The experience of major media, knowledge of the structure and focus of the presentation will help you build on something real, and not act at random. Even if it is difficult to predict the reaction of the audience, a properly prepared project has a much better chance of “shooting”. But the course consists not only of a theoretical base. You will learn how to make up web pages on specialized platforms and collect ready-made projects, design and select the ideal format for different types of content.

6. Software testing

The more programs, applications, games and other development products come out, the higher the demand for testers. The task of testers is to provide quality control, catch bugs, and perform various checks to confirm that the program does what it should and does not do what it should not. In other words, a tester is a person who looks at a product through the eyes of a user, but at the same time communicates with developers in a technical language.

Of course, becoming an advanced test engineer requires a programming background and hands-on experience. But in order to master the base and compose your first test cases, one month of classes is enough. If the process of catching bugs takes you on, you can start building a new career right after the course.