How to Leverage Online Professional Certification Programs

There’s a lot of ways to make your application to an employer look better and one of them is experience. Obviously experience is one of the harder things to acquire since it takes the most time in terms of things you need for a good resume. A lot of students will leave college looking for entry level jobs only to find that even the entry level jobs they want to apply for require some sort of experience outside of a degree. In this modern working era, it is extremely important to create a story with your job application that draws employers and recruiters in. A great way to do this and fill some empty space is with a good, old-fashioned certification!

I could log into YouTube right now and literally look up any number of videos that could teach me to use every app in the Adobe Creative Cloud and become more than proficient enough in it over time, without taking a formal class. The only issue with this tactic is that now I have only my portfolio to show for it, no proof of the skills I have learned and accumulated from those hours of self-teaching.

This is where online certifications come in. There are countless programs online for different skills and occupations that can help verify anything you’ve taught yourself, or something you learned from a trade that you just want extra certification for. These programs range from babysitting certifications to stock trading in terms of variety.

Finding the right program for you

Today I want to talk about a few of the programs I have seen used on many applications that have a high level of credibility and versatility. I will also discuss the affordability of the programs because if you’re between jobs while trying to build a resume, you wouldn’t want to drop a college credit’s worth of cash into an online certification.

#1 LinkedIn Learning

Since so many companies have moved recruiting processes almost completely online, LinkedIn has seen a huge spike in their usage and credibility for employment purposes. We’ve talked about utilizing LinkedIn’s various resources to boost employment chances before but this one is one of the most useful. Building up a list of certifications on LinkedIn transcends your presence on just their website, as it looks good on a resume anywhere.

With LinkedIn Learning, you get access to dozens of online certification courses for a pretty low price. A lot of courses go for upwards of $35 dollars each but with a subscription to the service, you can pick and choose from 16,000+ courses for just $20 a month if you go with the annual plan. If you go with the monthly plan, it’s $30 a month. You get a free month to try out the service and it’s a great way to learn a new skill or freshen up on something you already know, while being able to show it off on a resume/profile. After you take the course, you can try your hand at the tests for certifications on the skills you learned in the course.

Granted, you can also take the skills test without even taking the LinkedIn courses but they can be difficult. The tests change per person and can be very difficult so studying beforehand is definitely recommended. If you feel confident enough, definitely check out some of their skills tests and see how you do. Be careful though, if you fail, you have to wait a few months before you can attempt again!

#2 Expert Rating

The LinkedIn certification courses are great and extremely affordable but they have their limits. They aren’t certifications that can exactly secure a job, but rather they exist to boost the skills you already have, or teach you things to improve your team. Expert Rating has courses for even more variety and are great starters when it comes to looking for new jobs. A great example is their more physical courses that are available. These include yoga, aerobics, and personal training courses among many others like makeup artist and aromatherapy.

Expert Rating courses are also very affordable as it is very easy to get them at a discounted price. The courses range from $30 to $150 generally, but the investment is worth in comparison to LinkedIn. I took their SEO course just to see how I stacked up against it and what I knew in comparison to what it taught and it was a good experience. I actually learned a lot and now I can use that to boost my own resume!

Expert Rating is a standard certifier used by many large companies in the country to administer their own tests so odds are if you get certified, you might meet a lot of the requirements for said job already!

#3 Digital Defynd

This one is not too great when compared to the others above but it has many options available for free. With hundreds of free certificate courses available it’s hard to say no to at least checking it out. Their content is more focused on programming and tech development so it’s pretty niche but for an online resource, it is definitely a great tool to have for boosting a resume.

Their paid courses are still growing in number and they are a newer resource to keep an eye on as they grow.

In conclusion,

There are tons of resources out there that you can simply google and find for yourself but be sure to keep an open mind and make sure that whatever course you take is industry recognized. A lot of these can be used internationally as well which is always a plus!

Thank you as always,

Quentin Hardy