Friday, November 1, 2013

Improve Yourself 12: Add New Skills & Increase Value

Online LearningThis continues our series on how to improve yourself to get the biggest raises and best promotions

Brandon worked for 15 years for a Fortune 1,000 software development company. He began in the programming group, but moved into product development and project management for 10 years. He pioneered project management techniques adopted globally by the company. He delivered clean product with fewer bugs than most project teams. He lost his job when the company was purchased and sold off for parts. Unfortunately, he had not kept current with his skills. He especially failed to comprehend and develop the skills for SAAS. As a result, he spent many months unemployed while he tried to update his skills.

Continual Learning the Demand of Today

Today’s workplace requires continual training and skill development to avoid obsolescence. Even more training to increase your value to the company.

The information age provides a multitude of training, videos, YouTube, or eLearning programs. Unfortunately, the Internet presents too great an opportunity for inaccurate, bogus, and fabricated data.  You may recognize many of our suggestions, others you may not know:

Free Sources of Training

  • Ted, Ted Talks, Ted X
  • YouTube contains training on almost any topic or skill from computers, woodworking, sales, IT, leadership, management, and so much more
  • Google, Yahoo, Chrome, Safari Internet searches can uncover wiki’, articles, blogs, and you can use scholar Google to find academic research and scholarly journals
  • Professional associations offer many articles, publications, studies, and training for free. Of course, you will usually gain access to more training and information if you pay the dues and join the organization

Sources You Must Pay to Attend

  • Western Governor’s University, University of Phoenix and other online universities
  • Kahn Academy
  • Learning Tree and other online learning programs
  • Workshops, seminars, and conventions offered by manufacturers and vendors
  • Licensing and certification programs offered through professional, trade, or industry associations
  • State Department of Licensing connects people to sources of test preparation for licensing
  • Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration including the Office of Apprenticeship
  • Joint Apprenticeship Training Committees

Monday we discover guidelines about improving your professional appearance

This blog will improve as you submit comments, questions, and experiences. We will answer your questions in future blog posts. Please submit your comments and questions so we can answer them.

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