We live in a technology driven world where everyone works on digital devices such as phone, laptops and computer. Even if you are in a small company or work from home the computer is the first office equipment you need to start your work. You need to be computer literate to increase your productivity and chances to get another job if you are looking for such opportunities. Today basic computer skills are the first requirement when you see the job description. Many highly qualified people have lack of confidence when it comes to computer skills. By the term computer skills I mean spreadsheet for a data entry profession, python for a data scientist, coding language for a software engineer but in this article I will only talk in general what all other skills you must need no matter what your profession is.
So, let’s discuss all of them now.
Internet basics
When you get stuck in a difficult task and you need someone’s help then what do you do? You look for an expert who can help you to complete that task; what if no one is there for your help then in that case you should be able to know how to search on google. You must be looking for authentic resources available over web because not all of them should be trusted.
When you search over google, millions of results are shown in milliseconds and some of them are not authentic. If you are not able to figure out the authenticity of the website then you may click on wrong links and may lose all of your stored files and even more worse, you may install virus in your laptop or computer. You must know what to do in such situations right! Well, you don’t need to worry, many people learn with time and you can too.
E-mail is one of the platforms for communication and most often it is used for business organizations to communicate to their customers as well as employees. There are many platforms available for the same but some are very popular – gmail, yahoo, rediff and outlook. You first have to create an account on one of them and you should choose an email id which seems professional, for example – firstname.secondname@gmail.com.
No matter how good you are in writing but when it comes to writing an email to your manager your choice of words matter. Just learn from the email samples available on internet and you will be good to go. Obviously, you should be able to send, write and forward an email whenever required.
Word Processing software
Word processing software provides you the platform to create and manage your documents. Most people use Microsoft office and G – suite for creating word document. Such software is used to write text files and also gives you amazing features to make your document presentable.
Spreadsheets
Spreadsheets are the part of MS office as well as G – suite. It gives you a way to create, store, modify the information in tabular form. For example – storing marks of each student of the class in tabular form, storing information of each employee in your company, storing your daily expenses information etc.
Spreadsheets also provides many other features like mathematical functions, filters, sorting, searching which will help you in managing tabular data easily.
Presentation
MS office as well as G – suite gives you the software to create presentation so you can explain any concept or topic to the learners or audience. Your manager can ask you to deliver a presentation in a meeting with senior executives after the completion of project so be ready before that day. Even if you are a teacher in a school you may need to prepare a presentation to explain the concepts through animations.
Learn how to make a presentation with pictures, graphs, diagrams and animations to get prepared beforehand.
Social Media
Email is not the only way to connect with your manger or coworkers; there are numerous platforms where people connect for networking. Some of the popular platforms are LinkedIn, twitter, telegram, facebook and whatsapp. Depending upon the type of profession, you need to be active on any of the above mentioned sites. You can create account and connect with people to get expert advices, if you are looking for another job you can directly send resume to HR on most popular professional platform i.e., linkedin.
Video conferencing software
Video conferencing software is a kind of software to meet anyone without the need to travel. You just need to know some popular platforms which most of the companies prefer to hold online meetings. Zoom, Skype, Teams, Meet are the widely used apps for video conferencing.
Mobile banking apps
No doubt to say, mobile payment only became most popular during world wide pandemic. People started trusting mobile banking because they had no other choice and then cashless payment got an edge over cash based payment. Using mobile banking you can do online money transactions without meeting the person physically.
You should be able to make online payments because no matter in which profession you are you may have to make financial transactions remotely using your mobile.
Bottom Line
Basic computer skills are mandatory to work in a digital environment where every other person uses laptop, computer and mobile phones to make their work easier. People in different profession require different skills but some of the skills are necessary to learn. MS power point, spreadsheets, MS word are the MS office applications which are used to create the documents and manage them efficiently. Video conferencing, mobile banking became popular in this modern world and most probably it will stay for decades; a worker should know how to use the apps available over web.
