HoundsGood: Chronicles of a Virtual Volunteer

There have been quite a few layoffs in my are due to the close of car dealerships and others. There are people finding they are competing for a smaller number of jobs, but there are others looking at it as an opportunity. They are going back to school, or retraining themselves with new skills. It is hard sometimes to get plugged into a course, as you may have decided that to take it while the semester was already in progress. There is Microsoft training available online at Learn.com. They don’t merely have computer training, but they have a wide range of other courses that test you on measurable skills. In fact, you can choose to have your results shared with potential employers.

I remember taking some computer based courses when I used to temp. They used it as a pre-hire exercise to assess my skills in a very concrete way. The format allows you to take an online tutorial to learn the skills, or you can dive into an assessment right off the bat. The choice is yours. The most common usage, just like I alluded to, is to assess potential hires and expand the skills of current employees.  However, it can be used to increase the amount of skills that you can bring to the table.

When I was in my early trainings, training like this helped me jump from working in a production plant to being at the customer service desk and making more money.  I think production is a lot of fun, but I needed a way to prove my skills so they would look at me for the other job rather than using subjective criteria and just thinking that I might be good.  One of the reason I wanted it was because I was going to school, or trying to, and the hours were amicable.   Of course, I had to run around town to do so, unlike having Learn.com for my employer to test me or take initiative on my own.

When anyone grumbles that the sky is falling, I always remember that there are great opportunities out there when the status quo is broken.  So, seize the day.  If that position above you opens at your company, why shouldn’t it be you?

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