Five courses to help you get ahead in your career

Continuing professional development courses provide opportunities for professionals looking for a new challenge or to add skills to their repertoire. Here are five courses that can help you get ahead in your career.

Build your own website 

Gaining an internet presence and marketing yourself, your business or your skills can provide a huge career boost.sole traders and those creating a business as a sideline to their day job.

"It really demystifies what the internet is for people." The tutor introduces and demonstrates the tools for using WordPress and students develop their website to fit them, in the class and at home.

Some use the course to build a business while others use it as a taster for a degree, or to add basic web skills to their CV. Students will also learn to thinking creatively about how to enhance their website and social media presence.

One of the biggest advantages of the course, is building confidence to use those skills. "It's really about getting them to practice on WordPress without feeling that they're going to break it every time they change something."


Effective communications

"When you're working day-to-day, sending emails and writing copy, it's easy to forget that writing is difficult.For those who have to write as part of their job but aren't natural writers,constructing emails, writing engaging subject lines, and compiling information into an accessible document or report.

In the interactive course, the tutor sets practical exercises for the group to reinforce learning. "There are people who are really effective public speakers but can't always communicate well in writing. Even if people wanted to write a clear CV that emphasises their skills.

The course could also provide a stepping stone into a variety of communications-based roles; copywriting, marketing, PR or civil service positions where writing reports is a large part of the work.


Accounting 

The first accounting levels open up basic accounting positions, as an assistant accountant, ledger clerk, or a role in reconciliation. The higher level courses enable students to gain work in the finance department of a company."Many students become self-employed, starting their own companies or accountancy practices."


Applied Behavioural Analysis 

The Applied Behavioural Analysis programme is about understanding why people behave in the way they do, with a focus on intellectual or developmental disabilities, and autism.

"The course is ideal if you're in a position where you can immediately apply what you're learning on the course. The course is suited to a range of careers but is particularly relevant to professionals working with people who have intellectual disabilities, such as teachers, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and others working in health and social care.

The course provides the skills to teach a child with autism how to do some of the things they might not learn automatically, or to assess the behaviour of an adult with learning disabilities whose behaviour is challenging or difficult to manage.

For teachers, this course can provide promotion or specialisation opportunities, and for recent graduates "it opens up the potential to get jobs in health, social care and education that they otherwise wouldn't be able to get, as a teaching assistant, a tutor for young children with autism, or in a behaviour support role for adults with disabilities".


Medical decision making

Understanding ethics is important for most jobs and for those working in healthcare a course can be beneficial as a refresher or to fine-tune existing skills.

While increasing familiarity with various guidelines and statutes "we also want participants to start thinking more critically about their own divisions on a day-to-day level".

Advertisement Past students say that the course has made a significant different to their careers. Having started out as medics some are now working towards a more legal career and others work on ethics committees.

"The course adds depth to a CV and makes people better suited to the type of jobs out there."I think it makes jobseekers that little bit more shiny to potential employers."


To find more courses to benefit your career, click here.

Top 10 Best Success Tips for Women Entrepreneurs

Success is a combination of thinking right and doing right.

1.Be optimist
2.Avoid Big Mistakes
        1.No cost to low cost – Use social media liked Facebook; twitter etc. to drive your business.
        2.It is a proven fact that entrepreneurs are today driving economies. Why? We are able to think              fast on our feet, we can make changes as needed when we see the markets change. During                    recession in 2008, it was “dinosaur” companies suffered the most as they tend to move slowly.
        3.Bring in flexibility in our working style. Maintain a work life balance.
        4.Never design your lifestyle around your work, instead design business around your                        lifestyle. Then work becomes your passion.
5.Turn your passion into profits. Purpose of business is actually to make profits  and not                          make it a “Secret Hobby”.
3.Provide products & services which audience really “WANTS”. Wants are bigger than needs…trust      me we indulge more in wants than needs
4.Business model needs to be efficient and self-sufficient. Cost to Income ratio needs to work in your    favor.
5.Learn to embrace risks.
1.Get out of your comfort zone.
2.Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
6.Stay out of fear – Stay in faith.
1.Have faith in yourself. Believe in yourself
2.Grow as far as your greatest fear.
3.Biggest fear makes you uncomfortable to be able to reach that big success.Success we seek                 will only come when we move through the fear.
7.Learn from inspiring people and surround yourself with people who are there where you want to be.
1.Invest in training, education, coaching – Invest in yourself.
2.You are the average of five people who surround you the most.
3.Master mind: Having a group of successful entrepreneurs with whom you                                would learn and share.
                4.Not everyone will support your success. Don’t get distracted by criticism. Holding back                      hurts no one but you.
8.Time: we all have 24 hours but how one utilizes it are what makes one rich.
9.Marketing yourself is more important than mastery of your skills.
             1.There are many masters of your trade better than you but are not commercially successful                   because people don’t know them.
             2.If you don’t know how to get word around you won’t be able to get clients.
             3.Important to understand how lead generation from offline and online prospects can be                         converted to buyers and then to repeat buyers.
10.Make decisions not from where you are but where you want to be.

How to make a successful career leap :Sushant Singh Rajput

How can you tell if you should change careers or not? Many of us have faced this dilemma at some point in our professional lives. Your salary no longer makes up for the boredom you feel and you know you’re made for better things than what you're currently doing.

Actor Sushant Singh Rajput arrived at this moment of truth while at the peak of his television career. Despite a lead role in the hugely popular soap opera Pavitra Rishta, the actor felt like he was stagnating. “I knew exactly what my character was up to each day. There were no surprises left. I was doing the same thing day in and out. So I left TV,” he said in an interview to Filmfare magazine.

While many performers have failed to make the transition from TV to film, Sushant’s managed to stay ahead in the game with breakout film Kai Po Che. The buzz surrounding his upcoming release MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, where he plays cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni is equally strong. “If you strongly desire something, then you should really go for it,” said the actor, who believes that success will come if you #LoveWhatYouDo.

Based on Sushant’s career, here’s what you’ll need to do to make a career leap:

#1 Follow your heart but do your prep
It’s essential to know where your passion lies. Sushant was studying mechanical engineering at Delhi Technological University when he realised that his heart lay in acting, not engineering. He decided to drop out of the college to pursue a career in acting. But he didn’t switch without doing his groundwork. While in college, he joined Shiamak Davar’s dance school. Soon after, he enrolled at Barry John's acting school, where he learnt the basics of acting. For his new movie, Sushant learnt cricket from former Indian cricketer Kiran More and also met Dhoni a couple of times to get to know him better so he could play him better.

Takeaway: Just finding your calling isn’t enough. You need to work towards it. So take a class, get training or find a mentor.

#2 Take small steps, and keep your eyes on the big picture
A career leap is all very well but a gradual approach to changing your career works better for most of us than a radical reinvention. When Sushant decided to take the leap to acting, he went from theatre to TV to cinema – learning and enhancing his skills every step of the way. He was on stage in a play when Ekta Kapoor, who said she would make him a “star”, spotted him. His role as Manav Deshmukh in Pavitra Rishta did just that. But he didn’t stay content and kept experimenting with his choices.

Takeaway: Take up small jobs that are similar to what the big prize is, for you. Preparing for them will make the transition easier.

#3 Keep up-skilling, be it upgrading skills or adding new ones
Shiamak Davar may have told him that he wasn’t “one of my finest dancers” but Sushant – his eyes on Bollywood, perhaps – thought that he could better his dancing skills. He joined Zara Nachke Dikha, a dance reality show in 2009, and followed it up with Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 4 in 2010. He may not have won either of the shows, but he did make a mark as a dancer of note, with even Madhuri Dixit, a judge on Jhakak Dikhla Jaa, applauding his talent. That’s not all, he even took martial arts classes, worked on a six-pack and learnt ballet. He was planning to go to UCLA to study acting, but changed his mind after he was offered Kai Po Che.

Takeway: Focus on learning new skills that will make you more attractive to potential employers.

#4 Figure out what works for you and then take the leap
Everyone needs to know what they’re willing to do and what they aren’t. Sushant did TV for more than two years. “The money and fame were good but I began feeling suffocated. There was no challenge, no improvisation,” he said in an interview. When he realised he was not learning anything, he decided to take the leap but only after thinking things through. “Actors have their priorities – money, passion, big names, working with friends. I work for the script. I was offered seven single-hero films before this…then I got this [Kai Po Che] script with three main guys. When I read it, I got goose bumps and I knew I had to play Ishaan,” he said.

Takeaway: Your heart may have done the thinking when you made the leap but let your brain decide the way to get it done.

#5 Focus on the journey, not the destination
Sushant, who decided to begin with and stick to unconventional roles, has said that he doesn’t obsess over the destination. “It's the journey that matters more than the destination. Right now is very important,” he said in a recent interview. The actor, who is winning applause for his portrayal of Dhoni even before the film’s release, says his mantra for giving the role his best was living in the moment, what he calls “total immersion”.

Lesson: The result is important, but the many steps that take you there are just as important so focus all the way.

To be the best, you need to #LoveWhatYouDo. Search and find a job that you love here.