Some people are still in the mindset that to learn anything to a suitable standard to add it to your resume, you need to go to college or do some other form of formal training with a qualification at the end of it. This is absolutely no longer the case, and considering the amount of money it costs to go to college or return for a postgrad course, there are some serious financial benefits to finding your own way to new skills. If you have weaknesses in your existing skillset, want to get a specific new skill for a career you are interested in, or simply want to add new strings to your bow, by enhancing your skills using free or inexpensive online resources you can make yourself vastly more employable, and even open up completely new career paths for yourself.

Here are some things to consider doing:

Learn a New Language

There are some great resources available to help you learn a new language from scratch, or perhaps get back language skills you picked up at school but have since forgotten. There are different methods of learning languages, but research into which are most effective has been put into the development of apps and online tools – and surprisingly, those classroom methods of learning verb tables aren’t as effective as you might think. Apps like Duolingo are completely free, and allow you to learn any of a wide range of languages in a ‘gamified’ way that is fun, and helps you track your progress. A few months of regular use will get you to a reasonable conversational standard, but you can take it all the way to fluency if you want!

Improve Core Skills

If your math or writing skills aren’t as good as you’ll like them to be, or you’d like to expand further on your knowledge in areas like science or history, you can also find online resources that will give you lessons and test your progress. Khan Academy is one such system that can really help you develop your math skills, going from high school level to far beyond, and it is completely free to use.

Learn Marketable Technical Skills

If you would really like to work in a technical field, or you have a business idea that you’ll need technology skills to bring to reality, then these are also something you can gain by yourself online. Courses like DataCamp’s intro to Python can help you get started in programming languages, and you can also find all kinds of tutorials and courses to help you learn modern tech skills like HTML 5.0 and SEO, which are useful in all kinds of roles.

When you make use of the vast range of free or cheap resources on the web to study, you can very easily ramp up your knowledge and skills without incurring any debt, and all at a pace that suits you. Why not start adding new skills on your resume with some of these ideas?

Categories: Credit