24th March 2020: I will and for that matter, many Indians will never forget this day. It was around 8 PM. I was doing team reviews, planning our goals, taking updates on current prospects and upcoming training batches when I heard that the Indian prime minister has just addressed the nation. I searched, and amongst many articles read one which said:- 

‘Nationwide Complete Lockdown till 14th April 2020’

Despite this, we continued with our prospecting and B2B training calls to corporates pan India as per usual. All HRs told me 

‘Let’s look at it post 14th April 2020 when the lockdown opens up’. 

They sounded sure and confident that this was just a little roadblock which will be gone in a few weeks and business will continue ‘normally’. Little did they know that this would change the ‘normal’ completely.

As the cliché goes, 

‘Nothing could have been farther from the truth.’

As of me writing this article, on the 16th of September 2020 - 1 out of every 4 HRs, we have contacted in the last 6 months has either lost his/her job or up to 50 percent of the workforces have been fired. Other companies have shut and declared bankruptcy. 

My data includes 4,000+ unique Indian companies all from sizes 10-10,000 and 1000+ unique one on one conversations and consultations during this period. These conversations have led me to believe that the world HAS changed. 25 percent of the Indian workforce has perished. 

So, who survived this destruction? 

Astonishingly, believe it or not, a bunch of people have gotten their dream salaries/paychecks because of this pandemic. The MOST shifting phase on this planet and because I am one of them, I take the privilege of writing this article to you. Not only to help you shift your vision and look at a brighter future of the new business but also life on planet earth. The life which welcomes with both hands, lots of money, opportunities, and happiness. This is only possible IF you can adapt to the new jobs and market trends which I have outlined below:

If you are still struggling at the end of this article, you will have a choice. Either build a new thriving reality for you and your family or see others moving way ahead of you while you continue to hope that things will be like before.

According to an August 2020 article released on LinkedIn, here are certain companies and numbers for you to analyze and consider:

• Uber will be hiring 140 engineers for its tech teams in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, Economic Times reports.
• HCL Technologies plans to hire 15,000 people from campuses this fiscal year, up from 9,000 last year.
• Property portal NoBroker plans to hire nearly 300 professionals across verticals such as business, marketing and technology.
• Digital payments platform PhonePe has made around 300 fresh hires and plans to add another 400-450 in functions like tech and engineering over the next year or so.
• Tata Consultancy Services plans to hire around 40,000 freshers from Indian campuses this year – unchanged from last year.

What does all this mean for a non-tech person who doesn’t want to or has the ability to develop coding skills?

That’s the real question, right? Here is the gold mine secret: You don’t need to learn coding to have a job/business; if you do, very good, you definitely will have a very high chance of securing a job, BUT you don’t need to. 

You need to realize that coding and technology is only 1 part of the business. To run a successful and profitable organization, companies more than before NEED the following 5 sets of professionals:

1. Leaders and managers who can adapt to work from home team management
2. Sales professionals who can showcase value, and directly impact the bottom line.
3. Marketing strategists who can adapt to new realities fast, and enhance a company’s ability to showcase itself in the new world.
4. CAs, accountants, legal advisors, and all sorts of business consultants who can understand the complexities of change of the new world, and take up projects as gig workers saving their client cost, and enhancing their paycheque.
5. Technological consultants who may themselves not know how to code, but have a team of freelance coders and can help an organization make necessary technological shifts in their current business model. 

Finally, how do I build the above skill sets?

That’s a million-dollar question, or is it?

Here is a 3 step formulation that you can adapt to get yourself ready at a high speed:

• STEP 1: Commit to one of the categories above and forget the rest
• STEP 2: Join 3 (not less and not more) networking groups online under your category and book at least 5 mentorship sessions to learn from the existing experts of your field. Ensure to make a budget for yourself and chances are you will get the help you need within your budgets. If you can’t, ensure to add YouTube/Udemy to your learning source as the second-best option
• STEP 3: Don’t wait for a sunny day; start pitching potential companies from Naukri, Indeed, LinkedIn, and plain simple cold calling (even if you are not comfortable), and apply to at least 20 places showing how you can a) add value; b) save cost and c) can be trusted (Hint: Remember the mentors, get recommendation letters from them) 

If all the above sounds like a lot of work to you, you are right. But, what is also true is that the long term rewards outweigh the time and effort investment by miles. 

I wish you all the best.