Hi everyone, its Bill at billbenoist.com. In this week's video I talk about how
you can take charge of your career, but more importantly your employability. And
by the way, if you haven't already done so, make sure that you hit the subscribe
button below as I do upload a new career strategy and tip every Tuesday.
I recently worked with a gentleman who had been laid off. He was a software
programmer with his company, that he got to play with some really cool
technologies. And what he wanted to do next was he wanted to work in the field
of either machine learning, or AI, which for those of you not technical is
artificial intelligence. Now, both of those fields require a substantial skill
in Python, which is a software programming language and he did not.
Although he had, you know, an understanding of Python, he felt he wasn't sufficiently skilled with with that language. So when
we're talking about what his options were, he was completely unaware of what
the resources were available for him out there. And although
I knew about the resources, I also recognized that I've come across this
before. Where you know, I would bring up well have you heard of Udemy or
Udacity and nobody had heard of these before. And I thought, you know this could
be a really important topic to do a video on. So here we are today. What I
want to talk with you about are resources that are available out there
that can be great tools for career development and helping you get that
next job out there. Whether it's in the same industry or maybe a slightly
different one. So in no particular order, and I seriously mean this in no particular
order, I'm gonna start with Lynda.com. In 2015, LinkedIn purchased Lynda.com and
they now refer to it as Learning. But if you've known Lynda.com in the past and
now you open up your your LinkedIn profile and you look in the upper right
hand corner, you will see a little icon there called Learning. Learning is
Lynda.com. It's just Lynda.com is now owned by LinkedIn and LinkedIn is pretty
much changed the names of learning but it's all the same platform.
Learning has over 9,000 digital courses out there ranging from technical to
programming to Cisco classes to Microsoft certification preparation
classes. All the way down to soft skills like in communications and leadership.
And I've seen things on agile out there. I've actually taken classes recently on
topics like repairing your online reputation, content writing; there's just
pretty much anything that you can think of - there's going to be a course out
there. Now, one of the things that I really like about what LinkedIn does
with learning.com is you can go ahead and take one of these courses and at the
end, you will get a certificate that you can print out. But it will also give
you the option, if you want LinkedIn to just automatically put that
certificate right on to your LinkedIn profile. And if you watch some of my
earlier videos. You know the importance of keywords, and to have a keyword of
let's say Python out there like what this gentleman would need, they
automatically put that little certificate right there down below your
education. So it's a neat little platform, a neat little perk for
doing lynda.com. The second one that I want to talk about is Udemy boasts having over 65,000 digital classes and for the fun of it I wanted
to see what they had for machine learning using Python.
Well, if you look, Python here has 458 digital classes.
Machine learning alone has 134. Deep learning 43. Look here
at this first class machine learning A through Z. 281lectures, 41 hours of training. Over 38,000 reviews giving this a 4.5
out of five stars. And everything for a whopping
$10.99. There's Udacity, and when I went to the
website for this video look at the page I landed on. New program - learne all
the essentials for AI programming with Python. I can't make this stuff up. I
literally landed on this page and I thought, "Well I'm definitely doing the
right video for the week." But look toward the bottom: In collaboration with Google,
Amazon, IBM, Nvidia, others. All of these companies recognized the relevance and
significance of Udacity, so maybe you haven't heard of Udacity but chances are
the hiring manager at these companies have definitely heard of Udacity as well
as other companies that you may be considering applying to. Coursera is
another platform that I really like. Coursera offers courses and certificate
programs from some of the best known universities across the nation. Last year,
I actually completed an online course on Positive Psychology through Martin
Seligman out of Penn State. Seligman is considered by many the founder of
Positive Psychology and although I may never have the opportunity to go for a
Master's in that discipline, I was actually able to enroll in a certificate
program through Penn State. And by the way, if you're wondering about the cost,
that program was $79 a month and I gotta tell you, the learning was incredible. So
one final note before I close this video and that is whether you're 25 or 45 or
60, please keep in mind you are the CEO of your career, and it's in your best
interest to take care of that number one employee which is you. And I can't think
of a better way to do that than through continuous learning. It's looked upon so
favorably by hiring managers that you're staying on top of industry trends.
And by
the way, if you are in the process of interviewing, don't forget I have the
free download in the notes section below: The top five interview questions
every hiring manager wants to know about you. So I hope you found this video
informative and useful, and if so make sure to subscribe as I do upload a new
career strategy every Tuesday. Again, thank you for stopping by and I will see
you in the next video