Career Development – Surprising Success

I started this resolution and commitment in the hope that it would spur me on in to developing my overall skills to further my career. As you know I was unemployed last year for some time and it scared me that some skills I didn’t have in order to succeed and get another job.  I committed to making some changes so that I never have the fear again and that my skill set is broad and yet specific enough for an employer (if that makes sense)  When I sat down this evening to review this resolution I am quite surprised to say that I am meeting this one head on and very proud of what I have achieved so far.  This calls for a big smiley face.

Gaining an official accreditation

Gain an official accreditation is important to me – by this i am a qualification from a College rather than an online school, which I will explain more about later in the post.

I am currently undertaking a computer course which will provide me with the official qualification to match my actual skills.  A note for some out there, unfortunately just because you can do something doesn’t necessarily mean that a recruiter will believe you.  They like to see X certificate on your CV and if not it is damn hard to prove otherwise. With this in mind, I am currently two modules through 5 module course to validate my current skills.

Constantly Update your CV

Since I started my new job I have gone back to my CV twice and I have updated it with skills and tasks that I am currently learning or undertaking on a regular basis.  This is one thing I did not do enough of in my previous job, therefore I am sure that some of my skills and tasks I regularly completed were not on the CV.  However having just updated and looked over my current CV with my current job in mind, I can honestly say I have expanded on my current skill set to take in to account more skills to my hat –  Marketing and Social Media Management.   This is fantastic – this is going to look great on my CV for when the time comes ( hopefully it won’t)

Always keep learning

In our working lives we really should never stop learning and never stop trying to develop our skill set so that we can not only better ourselves and keep a healthy mind, but that we also remain competitive in our industries – no matter what that might be.  There is always room for improvement and development – always room to be the best that we can possibly be.

I have a long list of courses stacked up in my to do list for this year.  Some of them are free online courses and others well they have to be paid for so hopefully I can find the money somewhere.   The free online courses are great for expanding your knowledge, but it is important to remember, that whilst you are completing them and gaining knowledge in certain areas, these “qualficiations” received are not like those from a Third Level Institution of University.  They are expanding your mind and knowledge, but not really your CV as such only than to say I have a working knowledge or understanding of x,y,z topics. I have found the below picture detailing some places where you and I can get some free online courses in order to help our own skills develop over the coming year.

Are you doing any courses this year?