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Why Studying Is The Best Thing You Can Do While Unemployed

Person Studying at Laptop

Covid-19 increased unemployment in many countries. The United States suffered from business closures, wage cuts, and massive layoffs due to the pandemic's economic effects. If you lost your job during the virus, you should know that there are still many alternatives to generate income and access professional training. In this article, you will learn why it is essential to study during unemployment and how this knowledge will help you earn more money and have stability.

A Bootcamp May Be the Solution

Even though universities closed during the virus, many educational companies took advantage of this opportunity to prepare new students. Bootcamps were the main winners in this context. These schools have physical locations, but they also allow their students to attend classes online and earn a degree.

If you are unemployed, it is time to use your savings for a smart investment: education. How effective is studying in a bootcamp? Much more than you think! Check out the main advantages of these courses:

You can expand your knowledge to improve your skills or start from scratch

Bootcamps are a great idea for the unemployed. If you were in a technology company and were laid off, you can now reinforce all your knowledge and add new skills to your resume. If you want to learn, you can access beginner courses in different careers, including data science, software engineering, coding, cybersecurity, and much more.

You can start a free course and pay for it when you get a job

If you are looking for a smart way to invest your savings, you may like the bootcamp option. An average course costs between $7,000-$13,000. But you should also know the free option, with which you can take the full course and pay for it when you get a job.

You can work in a large company in the United States

Despite the coronavirus, many tech companies continue to hire employees. This is your chance to start a bootcamp and land the job of your dreams. General Assembly, one of the best bootcamps in the country according to Career Karma, has hiring partners companies such as Condé Nast, Visa, Google, L'Oreal, and Microsoft.

Learning A New Language

The pandemic was the opportunity for many unemployed people to start learning a new language. This knowledge is more important than you think and can be decisive if you are looking for a new job. Pay attention to the following advantages of knowing another language:

Increase your chances of getting a job

According to CNN, approximately 50 million Americans speak Spanish: this is 13 percent of the population. This figure is small, considering that in Germany almost 50 percent of the population can speak English. This means that there are people capable of working in bilingual jobs or jobs assigned to a specific language in the United States. Speaking a second language doubles your chances of getting a job, not only in physical companies but in freelance contracts.

Improve your professional level

If your resume shows that you speak two or more languages, then your professional image improves considerably. Learning a new language is a long process, but it allows you better communication with other people, more comfort, more chances of finding work, and new ways of understanding cultures. If you are unemployed and need to optimize your professional experience, a new language will be a perfect idea.

Take an Online Course to Learn Something New

While bootcamps and language courses help you directly with your job performance, it is not a bad idea to learn about thematic classes. According to The Conversation, online courses received massive numbers of students during Covid-19. This website published that the Coursera platform increased 640 percent this March compared to March 2019. Do you think it is a bad idea to take a course?

This new knowledge also allows you to discover new areas of your life, learn exciting skills, and generate money. One of the advantages of the Internet is that it offers many offers for all tastes: you can learn to cook, repair your PC, design with Adobe Illustrator, create clean energy, and much more!

Conclusion

Being out of work is a challenging experience. We know it perfectly. Therefore, you must take these tips into account. Investing in education can be essential in your future since this knowledge will serve you for new jobs or ventures. Use the tools you have and overcome any obstacle—at the end of the day, you will be grateful.

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

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5 Smart Tips for Safe Online Shopping in 2021

Laptop Credit Card - Online Shopping

Online shopping is fast becoming the new norm. Thanks to the freedom, convenience, and ease it offers, you're probably thinking of doing it yourself. However, one of the biggest concerns most online shoppers have is security. How secure are your financial details on shopping websites?

Here are a few tips that can help you stay safe in 2021.

1.     Start with trusted sites

There are millions of online retail sites today. Most of them are legitimate, but some contain links to spam and malicious content. You, therefore, need to be extra careful when searching for a shopping website.

First, start with the popular and well-known sites like Amazon.com or Ebay.com. You're less likely to be scammed on these sites since you've probably used them before. You can also try your favorite retail stores if they're online, but ensure you know the right web addresses.

Be on the lookout for the popular domain misspelling scams, for instance, a hacker may use Amazon.net instead of Amazon.com. These tricks have been successful for years because they're not conspicuous at first glance.

2.     Look for HTTPS URL and a padlock icon

Before sharing your credit or debit card information on an online shopping site, here are the two rules you should follow: Ensure the site’s URL starts with HTTPS, and confirm that a locked padlock icon appears slightly left of the URL bar.

The (S) in HTTPS stands for secure and shows that the shopping website has integrated a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. The locked padlock (sometimes green) indicates that your connection to the website is secure.

Avoid sharing any information on sites with just HTTP and without the padlock.

3.     Don’t shop over public wi-fi

We’ve heard stories about public wi-fi hotspots and cybercriminals countless times. By now, you should know that while shopping using public Wi-Fi seems convenient, it leaves your data in the hands of hackers.

Personal information such as your credit card details, bank details, phone number, and your emails are but a few of the data a hacker can manipulate from the vulnerabilities of unsecure Wi-Fi.

So, instead of exposing yourself to that much risk, always use your data to complete your online shopping transactions. And if you really have to use Wi-Fi, a simple VPN download will go a long way to improving your security.

But still, if you can avoid insecure public Wi-Fi, do yourself a favor and do it.

4.     Keep your software up-to-date

Updating your software is the #1 online security measure every security expert recommends. Whether you're shopping on your phone, laptop, or tablet, ensure that the operating system is up-to-date with the latest updates.

Updating your software fixes any vulnerabilities that cybercriminals may exploit to send malware into your system.

5.     Avoid ‘too good to be true’ offers

In any e-commerce store, if any product pricing appears to be too good to be true, it probably is. Don't trust any seller offering such an offer. This is usually a trap by some sellers to collect your credit card information among other data, so they can sell it.  In other cases, the product might be of very poor quality.

Conclusion

When shopping online, getting scammed isn’t just a far-fetched idea. It happens to millions of people every day. You should therefore be careful with how you go about the process if you want to avoid it. With the tips above, we’re confident that you’ll always be one step ahead of the criminals.

Photo by rupixen.com on Unsplash

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Great Marketing Strategy Nag Screen From Avast

When's the last time you were impressed and surprised by a company's marketing strategy towards you?

I'll admit it. If there's a free piece of software that works for me I will use it. And use it, and use it, and then some! I used Microsoft Defender and Windows Security Essentials for forever as my anti-virus and anti-malware services. And yes, they always worked well for me. I've never had a reason to not continue using them as I had been for years.

Well, with Windows 10 at some point I got the Avast free antivirus software installed and as before I've continued to use it because it seems to work fine for me, although I do miss my previous software installs.

Avast software includes them regularly nagging me about my PC running slow and they can improve it and blah-blah-blah. I usually click through the upgrade notifications and warnings and go along my merry way. I'm an above average computer user and can just take care of most of those things myself. It's amazing what regular maintenance activities and being aware of what's getting installed on my machines to begin with can make a difference.

Getting Surprised and Impressed by Avast

This evening though, as I was clicking through the screens to say "No Thanks" the screen featured below popped up.

Avast Sign-up Nag Screen for Marketing Strategy

In my opinion Insync.Media is a best in class marketing agency and this is a great piece of marketing strategy work. They've taken the usual motivations for "No" and clearly give you reasons to trust them and give them a try while reinforcing the low-risk and zero price commitment barriers. 

As you've probably experienced, you'll sign-up for a trial of something and before you know it the trial is over and you just got your account cha-chinged for a charge you really weren't prepared to confirm in the budget that month.

Key Marketing Strategy Points

Here are the key points I believe in this marketing strategy that you will find at thewebshop.net.au:

  • I'm reminded of the issues my PC was experiencing that this software says it will fix. In my case that's 445 performance issues (a personalized total for me as a customer)
  • Reminder that I can take advantage of the 60-day trial completely FREE
  • If I like it, on 11/04/2019 I will be charged the 1 year subscription rate (I frequently put reminders in my calendar now a couple of days ahead of these kinds of dates to remind me to take care and cancel it if I don't want it)
  • Additionally, they're letting me know (because of my behavior in the previous point) they're going to alert me a week before the deadline to cancel so I don't get surprised and irritated at them for automatically renewing my subscription.
  • Additional reminders via text
  • Nice comforting green color

I Might Actually Upgrade to the Premium Version

I'm actually pretty close to giving it a try and just seeing how I like it, and most importantly, did it clean-up those 445 performance issues and actually speed up my computer for me? One thing they left off that I think would have been beneficial, and it probably would be included in that email 7 days before! They've got an option to save more if you subscribe for 3 years at a time. It works out to $1.69/mnth billed at just over $60 for the 3 years.

What's not said in this advertisement is that this probably saves Avast a ton of headaches as well, in case you think a marketing strategy is need for your business you may find it at searchup.co.uk marketing agency website.

When's the last time you put your customer's shoes on and thought about their experience with you and your company? Ask yourself how you'd like to be treated if the roles were reversed?. Their customer service reps are probably tired of fielding calls, emails and online social media complaints about getting auto-billed and renewed for services.

What would your sales and marketing processes look like then?