This blog post was originally posted on LinkedIn Learning Blog. You can read the full blog post here.
Looking for a new job during the pandemic can feel like a massive undertaking. We want to lighten the load. If you’re on the hunt for a new job, this list is for you.
While typical skills like resume building and personal branding appear on this year’s list, those skills are not the ones topping the charts. Professionals looking for a job are watching courses that focus on skills like Strategic Thinking (#1 on the list), as well as Python, project management, and Excel—hard skills that are still essential in our new world of work.
Use our list of most-watched courses among job seekers to prioritize what you’re learning today and stand out in a tough job market. You can watch them for free until September 30, 2020.
LinkedIn Learning’s 10 Most Popular Courses Among Job Seekers
1. Strategic Thinking
Instructor: Dorie Clark
Course description: Strategic thinking is the ability to think on a big and small scale, long and short term, into the past and the present. This course teaches managers and leaders how to use strategic thinking to guide the direction of your teams and come up with solutions to key business problems.
2. Learning Python
Instructor: Joe Marini
Course description: Python—the popular and highly readable object-oriented language—is both powerful and relatively easy to learn. Whether you’re new to programming or an experienced developer, this course can help you get started with Python. Senior Development Advocate at Google, Joe Marini, provides an overview of the installation process, basic Python syntax, and an example of how to construct and run a simple Python program. Learn to work with dates and times, read and write files, and retrieve and parse HTML, JSON, and XML data from the web.
3. Cert Prep: Project Management Professional (PMP)®
Instructor: Sandra Mitchell
Course description: In today’s competitive workplace, effective project managers are critical to the bottom line. The PMP demonstrates your mastery, your experience, and your education. Discover what it takes to pass the PMP exam by following along with project manager and exam prep trainer Sandy Mitchell.
4. Time Management: Working from Home
Instructor: Dave Crenshaw
Course description: With so many demands on your time and attention, it’s a tricky balancing act to stay productive. Learn how to set up a dedicated workspace for maximum productivity, collaborate with remote coworkers, craft your daily schedule, and how to use virtual meetings productively. It also offers advice for working parents and other caregivers who have to balance professional and personal responsibilities in the home.
5. Excel Essential Training (Office 365)
Instructor: Dennis Taylor
Course description: Get up to speed with Microsoft Excel, the world’s most popular spreadsheet program. Follow along with Excel expert Dennis Taylor as he demonstrates how to efficiently manage and analyze data with this powerful program. Learn how to enter and organize data, perform calculations with simple functions, and format the appearance of rows, columns, cells, and data.
6. Learning Personal Branding
Instructor: Chelsea Krost
Course description: If you are starting a business, establishing your thought leadership, or trying to get ahead in your career, it’s a great time to start investing in the brand of you. Chelsea Krost explains how to develop your story, craft your messaging, and define your audience. Then she walks you through building your brand presence online and off, creating a calendar that will help you stay on top of social media and keep your content fresh. Plus, get tips to monetize your personal brand and land speaking engagements and guest roles.
7. Remote Work Foundations
Instructor: Mike Gutman
Course description: This course shows you how to use today’s cloud-based communication and collaboration tools to get work done from anywhere, while remaining connected to your organization. Gutman reveals how you can create a productive work environment, avoid distractions, and build rapport with remote colleagues so you feel like you’re part of the team and succeed in your remote career.
8. Writing a Resume
Instructor: Stacey A. Gordon
Course description: Finding a great job starts with writing a great resume that speaks to your personal and professional strengths. This course provides guidance on every aspect of writing a resume, and also offers a few extra job search tips such as identifying companies to work for and determining fit.
9. Excel 2016 Essential Training
Instructor: Dennis Taylor
Course description: Start mastering Excel, the world’s most popular and powerful spreadsheet program, with Excel expert Dennis Taylor. Learn how to best enter and organize data, perform calculations with simple functions, work with multiple worksheets, format the appearance of your data and cells, and build charts and PivotTables. Other lessons cover the powerful IF, VLOOKUP, and COUNTIF family of functions; the Goal Seek, Solver, and other data analysis tools; and automating tasks with macros.
10. Project Management Foundations
Instructor: Bonnie Biafore
Course description: Project management is a set of techniques that anyone can apply to achieve goals and make projects more successful. Project management can be used to guide small, simple projects as well as complex enterprise-wide initiatives. In this course, Biafore explains the fundamentals of project management, from establishing project goals and objectives and building a project plan to managing resources and work, meeting deadlines, and closing the project.
Methodology: Based on global data from the LinkedIn Learning platform from July 1, 2019 through June 30 2020, among members identified as job seekers. Top courses are based on the number of unique learners.
Author:
Vice President of Product Management – Linkedin Learning
September 14, 2020
