What do you do if your GIS skills are becoming outdated due to emerging trends?

To keep your GIS skills up to date with emerging trends, regularly engage in learning opportunities such as online courses, workshops, and conferences. Additionally, explore new technologies and tools, collaborate with peers, and seek mentorship to stay current in the field.

Having knowledge in GIS and proficiency in a GIS software, namely ArcGIS Pro, ArcMap, QGIS, etc gives you the ability to get an edge over other things in GIS. Having that knowledge of the software is a plus point in GIS. When you apply for jobs in GIS, having specific skillset, look for the skillset and try to fulfill every skillset in the JD. You can also select and browse through various JDs that match your job criteria. You need to identify the areas or skills you need improvement or enhancement and then identify the skills you are actually good at. Always try to be as creative as you can be in this field as this is a field where you can be more and more creative with experience and with course of time. Try to experiment various things.

Learn from your peers. Try to learn from them and play around with different things and experiment with GIS concepts and software. The most important thing in this field is to stay updated with news. Anything happening, you should be aware of it, then only you can use GIS to solve that issue. Enroll in courses, increase your knowledge, get a training and certification in GIS courses. That's what I did to understand GIS better. Listen to top GIS enthusiasts and lecturers, speakers and professionals. Understand their GIS journey. Try to have a conversation with people in your GIS industry and learn from their experiences. This will help you learn GIS faster and more efficiently. Try to ask questions while you are understanding the concepts.

GIS is all about exploring and experimenting with latest tech and software as well as with latest tools. Experiment makes you more better at identifying problems and solving real-world problems in GIS through various means. Explore different GIS software. Currently, the industry standard is ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Pro. People are currently in the phase of migrating to ArcGIS Pro. Learn about the software and tools. There are other software like QGIS, Google Earth, Mapbox, CARTO, ArcGIS Field Maps, QField, Mappit, etc which has different functionality and are GIS related. Experiment with Python programming, Javascript and any language with which you can automate GIS processes and tasks, as this will make your GIS work more easier. Learn AI

Networking with peers in the same industry will help you understand each one's point of view towards the industry they are in. As a fresher in the field, it is really important to network and know about other professionals and their experience in the field of GIS. Each professional in this field has an inspirational story behind his journey in GIS. Try to understand to their story. All people go through a tough struggle, not in GIS but in any field you take. Be it It, Data Science, AI, Machine Learning, etc. Try to imitate them the first time you are doing GIS work and then try to analyze yourself b asking questions and solving GIS issues on your own. Networking helps you to actually get a job in GIS and gives a chance to prove your skills.