Career Training:
Ongoing Career Development

Ongoing career training is something that can help separate you from other job searchers in more ways than one.

Specifically, I’m referring to training that can positively affect your career by helping you learn new skills or improve upon existing skills.

Other than showing potential employers that you are the type of person that understands the value of ongoing learning, career training helps keep your mind fresh and ensures that you don’t fall behind in any particular skills area.

As a recruiter, I can think of numerous occasions where companies required candidates applying for a job to have specific training - and in some cases, professional certifications - to be considered for the position.

Certainly, when new technologies or processes are released, it often results in required upskilling to actually learn and perfect them. This ensures that the people who hold various industry or job-specific training don’t simply take the course once and then forget about it.

In some cases, ongoing training to learn new versions or updated releases can become quite expensive especially if you have to cover the cost of the training yourself but if it’s a requirement of the job, it might be a cost you’ll have to bear.

Having said that, the result of career training that you undertake can end up benefiting you in the long term not only in terms of your professional development and improved skills but in terms of the improvement it makes on your resume in the eyes of potential employers as well.

You can use it to separate yourself from other people applying for the same jobs you do especially if they don't have the same training or if they hold an older and less relevant version than you do.

Ongoing Career Training Suggestions

If you are having trouble getting some career training ideas, here are a few suggestions to help get you started:

• Learning a new language
• Presentation skills training
• Project Management training
• Financial management training
• Time management training
• Assertiveness training
• Negotiation skills training
• Quality management training

Once you have completed the training – especially if it is specific to your industry or job and involves you passing a test or becoming certified – ensure that you properly document it on your resume including the name of the course and the timeframe of the training and/or certification.

In the case of professional certification, you might be allowed to display a graphic on your resume from the certification supplier to quickly enable potential hiring managers to see that you have it.