Why Skilling Up is an Eye-Opening Advantage for Job Seekers
I am a huge advocate for taking classes for a variety of reasons. For job seekers, taking online classes or in-person if allowable is a great way to accomplish two things that can prove invaluable to them in their life and in their job search.
Do I Know For Sure I Want to Do This?
The first is that taking a class may demonstrate if you do have an interest in what you’re studying and perhaps if there’s a specialty you enjoy. For me, completing a 120-hour certificate course in project management was the perfect way for me to learn that I had no interest in being a project manager! For my classmates, some came to the same conclusion while others are now PMP-certified and working in jobs they wanted. I did the same thing when I thought I may be interested in accounting and cyber-security due to job demand and security and salary. If I wasn’t able to even finish the first, entry-level training, then I obviously don’t have a love for it the way I do with helping people with their job searches.
Skill Up!
The second is to skill up. If you’re in the process of a career switch or re-entering the workforce after a break, there may be new skills now considered crucial (most likely in technology) that didn’t exist before. For example, when I worked in theatrical marketing for Sony Pictures, part of the role was to scour newspapers and magazines like Us Weekly for mentions of our current crop of celebrities or releases. Looking back on that job, it was before social media really existed, so there wasn’t Twitter to review or hashtags or trends. That would now be crucial for me to learn and master if I were to try and re-enter marketing.
Useful Skilling Up Resources
This page on ABestImpression.com lists several great resources for job seekers, including opportunities to learn and improve new skillsets in technology and other things that are local to San Diego job seekers.
Here are additional hyperlinked resources as well. Some of these have to do with in-demand coding, and others are recommended life skills. All are free:
- University of Oxford Podcasts
- Code
- MIT OpenCourseWare
- Open University
- Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initative
- UC Berkeley Class Central
- Open Yale Courses
- Academic Earth
- Open Culture Online Courses
- Lifehack Fast Track Courses
- Digital Garage
- The Big Know
- Duolingo
- edX
- CodeAcademy
No Time Like Today to Get Started
With so many free resources available, it may be overwhelming. I have found that Gale Education, available for free through some libraries, to be the best so far that I’ve found. All topics are 24 lessons, each about an hour long, and you get a certificate and the video and content are quality. I’ve learned Excel (Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced levels) and Powerpoint using these, as well as the Cyber Security and Accounting courses that I mentioned earlier. It’s become my go-to where I check first, but if they don’t have a topic I need, I’ll look elsewhere.
Now if I were to go on a job interview that requires Powerpoint, I can now honestly state that I recently received a certificate of completion for Powerpoint. If I know I’m interviewing for a job for a skill I don’t yet have, I’ll at least enroll and then I can honestly state that I’m currently gaining the skills in real-time and assure them that my knowledge of the product or process will be up-to-date and current for their needs.
Now you can, too.
Good luck!
Colin
