When it comes to expanding your career, there is no denying how competitive it can get. Industries are constantly changing thanks to consumer behavior, technology, and regulations that get enacted. Due to these constant changes, it’s vital for your career to always be open to expanding your job skills as this helps enable you to stay relevant within the industry you’re working for. Sometimes this can get pretty demanding. You’re already having to deal with a tight work schedule, and trying to balance this with your personal life. But trying to expand your career can get fairly expensive as well.
Having a college education is no longer enough, in fact, it’s now considered the bare minimum for even getting a job. Acquiring new skills for your job can be fairly demanding, whether it’s taking up too much time, or even too much money (as it can be expensive). Nonetheless, it’s important to know that you can still manage to get new skills without having to spend countless hours or spend thousands. While these may not be considered shortcuts or hacks, these tips are bound to help you and your career out.
Use your time for leisure to learn something fun
If you’re free in the evenings, weekends, or even holidays, you should enjoy and even embrace this free time that you have. This can include doing things that you enjoy and getting some relaxation out of the way too. But did you know that there are ways to combine gaining skills and relaxation? While it may depend on what you’re doing, you can combine the two. For example, knowing multiple languages is becoming more sought after for certain positions (especially if it involves international travel).
One way to combine learning a new language and relaxation would include traveling to other countries during your vacation. This allows you to immerse yourself a bit into the country. Another way to achieve learning a new language and relaxing can include helpful language learning apps that have games or even watching TV shows and movies in another language. If you have a Netflix subscription, you can use a helpful VPN to change countries and you’ll be met with shows and movies in the language you’re wanting to learn.
Read blogs that interest you
A great way to expand your knowledge for free would include going online and just reading blogs or other content that websites have to offer. Sometimes you’ll even find forums of people writing miniature blog posts (in the threads) to help out readers. Blogs and forums are both fantastic ways to learn more and even gain some skills without spending money, just time on it. Reading content such as this can help strengthen your vocabulary, help with communication skills, plus blog content can be entertaining as well.
Talk to your employer about educational credit
Sometimes employers will openly pay for courses or other types of training if they know it’s going to benefit the company. So it’s best to just openly ask if the company does this or if they have a program that reimburses employees who take certain courses or training. It helps to ask around and talk to your boss or manager about this. There are plenty of helpful programs such as the Lean Training Courses that help workers with obtaining the skills that they need to improve their career and help out the organization that they’re working for.
Be open to feedback
While it’s important to make education more affordable, sometimes it’s a bit harder than expected. But feedback is free and you can utilize feedback as a method to improve your current skills and help narrow down what else you need to help advance your career. When you’re developing your skills, it’s important to always be open to receiving some feedback. Being open to this is going to help you develop in your journey a lot quicker. Asking for feedback will also help you out in strengthening your communication skills as well.
Watch some YouTube
YouTube is a fantastic website that’s free for its users (minus its premium section). YouTube is hands down one of the least expensive (free) ways for you to improve your skills. There is a large amount of content on YouTube from lessons, tutorials, vlogs, tips, and so much more. There are a variety of videos that are bound to help you out in expanding your skills. Plus, YouTube videos can at times be very entertaining so this could be something you could watch in your free time as a way to relax and learn at the same time.
