Whether or not you’re currently employed with an organisation that facilitates the professional development of staff, there’s no need to wait for PD opportunities to fall in your lap. Instead, you can seek them out, and take control of your own professional, intellectual and vocational growth.
Find out what you’re eligible for
Of course, these programs don’t take the place of a nationally recognised qualification of the sort that you would gain through study or RPL with Churchill. But, for soft skills such as effective workplace communication, technology use, teamwork and niche industry topics that don’t warrant a full qualification, online courses and resources are ideal. To save you time, we’ve done the hard yards, trawled the internet and come up with the:
Top 4 Online Resources for Professional Development:
- Lynda.com is an online learning platform run by LinkedIn. You can pay a monthly fee to access any course you like, but before you do that, there’s a free 30 day trial option. On this site, there’s a range of professional, high-quality video courses taught by industry experts in business, technology, design, web development and more. Alternatives are Alison, Coursera and Udemy.
- Microsoft Virtual Academy is ideal if you feel like you need to brush up on your tech skills. For Microsoft programs including Windows10, Skype for Business, SharePoint and OneDrive, you can browse by program, and watch videos, listen to podcasts or read transcripts. For the Microsoft Office suite, (Word, Excel, Outlook etc.) visit Office Support here.
- YouTube. This one might surprise you, but it’s not all music videos and surfing dogs on YouTube! If you’re more interested in expanding your knowledge than completing a course, this is a good way to do it. Just search the topic you’re after, or find a channel you like – Stanford Graduate School of Business and Ted Institute are both good ones.
- Hubspot Academy. Want to diversify? Understanding marketing basics will always stand you in good stead, as knowing and understanding the position of the customer/user is essential to the success of any business. Hubspot Academy has training videos on aspects of digital marketing including social media, digital content creation, digital campaigns and the components of effective websites.
Let us know how you get on!
