Five Ways to Advance Your Career Without Going Back to School Full Time

Did you know that the most successful CEOs have one thing in common that they say is responsible for their success? This mysterious thing is not that mysterious at all, it is reading! In fact, the average CEO reads 60 books per year, which equates to 5 books per month. Plus, most of them focus on non-fiction, which means they read books to learn new wisdom and acquire new skills, and then apply it to their personal and professional lives. What this means is that successful people love to learn, and live to learn!

Active learning, which is the desire to acquire new skills, is something that can really boost your chances of advancing your career. Adding new skills to your resume can help you get that promotion or a new job without having to dedicate the time or finances of going back to school full time. In this article, we will look at five ways to acquire knowledge that can help you in your career. 

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Improve your Excel Skills

Microsoft Excel has become the standard spreadsheet software, used in offices around the world for a number of different things. Although many professionals know the basics of using Excel, you can go beyond the basics and really impress your boss by learning to create pivots, graphs and complex formulas. You can even program in Excel using Excel VBA.

If you become a master of Excel, you can help your colleagues with their technical needs. This will help your boss see you as a more valuable team member, helping you land that promotion!

You can also get a part time gig creating spreadsheets on sites such as Upwork or Indeed. This will allow you to work at times that you prefer from home, putting some extra money in your pocket.

Learn Programming

Many people are afraid to learn programming because they are bad at math and feel that it would prevent them from mastering this skill. However, contrary to popular belief, coding doesn’t require the knowledge of advanced mathematics, but it does require logical thinking, creativity and patience.

Even if you understand how programming languages work, you will still have to tinker with your code to make it work. Although frustrating, this is not a challenge that only beginners face, as debugging code is a part of the development process of every software product.

The best part about learning programming is the huge number of resources available online, both free and paid; one of the best ones being Udemy. In fact, if you search on your own, you will find so many tutorials that you would have a problem deciding which one to sign up for!

Another good thing about learning to code is that you have a huge, passionate community that can help you overcome any barriers in your learning process. If you head over to StackOverflow, you will find a big list of questions and solutions covering everything that has to do with programming.

What programming language should you learn? The answer depends on what you want to do, but a good starting language is Python because it was designed to be as simple to use as possible. Programming in Python is very intuitive and you don’t have to deal with complex syntax that you may find in other languages.

C++ is probably the most used programming language, and powers many of the web applications that you’ll come across. So you have a lot of options in this area.

If you are already a programmer, you probably know that there is always something new to learn to advance in your career. Kaplan IT Training is a great resource to acquire new skills, which allows you to earn a certificate that will help you advance your career path.

Learn a New Language

Adding another language, such as French and Spanish, on your resume will always make a good impression when applying for a higher position. With the increasing globalization of companies, now is the perfect time to learn a new language and help your colleagues communicate with customers and business partners in other countries.

You can learn a lot of languages online, without having to physically attend any courses. Language learning services like Italki connect you with language tutors from all over the world. What better way to learn Japanese than from a fluent Japanese speaker or teacher? And you don’t even have to travel to Japan for that!

If you want to learn a language for free, there is always Duolingo and Memrise. The latter also has some paid features, but you can build a solid vocabulary and get a good grasp of a language’s grammar with this additional feature. Duolingo is pretty popular already.

Learn Project Management Skills

Do you feel that you could be doing more in a day’s work? Are you having trouble organizing and prioritizing your tasks? Do you feel there’s a better way of doing things in your company? If you answered yes to all of these questions, you can benefit from learning project management skills, which allows you to better plan and execute the work of a team with the purpose of achieving a measurable goal.

Project management is essential in every business, and by mastering this skill set you can take charge of your team or department and show your bosses that you are indispensable! Coming up with a good plan that improves efficiency will make you first in line for a promotion. Plus, project management skills are highly sought after for management and supervisor positions, so it can help you find a great new job!  Check out Coursera to advance your skills online!

Improve Your People Skills

Although some people are innately better in dealing with others, learning people skills is certainly possible. The best way to improve interaction skills is to gain valuable communication skills.

The first step is learning to become an active listener, which means truly hearing others without interrupting and inserting your biases into what they have to say. The second step is learning to read nonverbal cues, which accounts for 80% of ALL communication. Looking for things like hand gestures, body postures, eye movement and rate of speech can help you better understand other people.

Finally, learning to better express yourself will help you master the trifecta necessary to improve your people skills. Lynda is a great online tool that helps you view online tutorials to become not only a better communicator, but a professional!

Communication skills are very valued at the office; one survey found that “of nearly 600 employers revealed what they want most from new graduate business hires—they want people who can speak well, write well, listen to others, present well, sell ideas to others, and negotiate with others in the course of running a business—in other words, they want communicators, with a capital C.”

We hope you enjoyed our list of five tips for improving your career without having to go to school. Although education is important, there are plenty of skills that you can learn, practice and master without having to enroll in a course.

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